Convivence

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Convivence ( Latin convivere "live together"; adjective: convivial ) describes a form of coexistence , usually named in a religious-social-ethical context , which sees itself as an auxiliary community, learning community and fixed community. Theologically it is expressed by this term that the essence of the church is that it exists with others and strangers in a community of shared life.

Origin of the term

The term convivence is derived from the Spanish convivencia or Portuguese convivência (" living together") and in medieval Spain referred to the peaceful coexistence of Jews, Christians and Muslims. In more recent literature, the term appeared for the first time in the Spanish original edition of Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed (without, however, being adopted in the German translation) and from there found its way into Latin American liberation theology , in which it describes the living and auxiliary community of the Describes poor among one another who - on the basis of family ties or neighborly relationships - live with one another, support one another and celebrate together. The term was used by the Christian base communities in Latin America to describe the structure of church life. The term was introduced into German-speaking theology in the 1980s by the Heidelberg missionary and religious scholar Theo Sundermeier and defined under the three aspects of helping one another, learning from one another and celebrating with one another.

Convivence as a concept of intercultural theology

Convivence assumes the diversity of human cultures and religions as permanent. The togetherness is enriching because every culture can use its point of view, its practice and its gifts. As a concept of ecumenical or interreligious action, conviviality means an expansion of the concept of the “Church for Others” based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and safeguards this against paternalistic misunderstandings. Overlooking the coexistence of the first Christians, as in Acts 2  EU is portrayed, coexistence relationship includes reciprocity, not as a condition for aid, but rather as an acknowledgment, even the Community to require ( "church with others"). The term describes both the ideal of coexistence within the congregation and the guiding principles of dialogue with the environment.

As a principle of intercultural and interreligious dialogue , conviviality does not hide the differences between cultures and religions and does not strive for a fusion of cultures, but rather respects culturally different beliefs and behaviors. The concept of convivence is thus joined by the draft of a “xenology” (an understanding of the foreign) within the framework of the concept of a hermeneutic of difference, “in which the irreconcilable incompatibility between one's own and other beliefs is not 'explained away' or overcome, but rather in a process of reflection on interreligious encounter and interreligious dialogue should be maintained ”. Convivence does not aim at assimilation, at giving up one's own identity through identification with another culture, but offers the possibility of finding one's identity in relation to or demarcation from the other or foreign.

Effects

The term, initially profiled in mission theology , has now been taken up in very different ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical pronouncements on intercultural and interreligious dialogue and is also used in other scientific disciplines.

In religious education , the change from missionary to dialogical religious instruction aroused interest in other religions since the early 1970s and, in the long term, led to the method of interreligious learning , in which religions are each recognizable as their own systems of world interpretation and as a welcome cause for queries one's own beliefs are understood. Due to the increasing presence of children from non-Christian families in school lessons, “conviviality” has increasingly become a key concept in (religious) education. It is both about the learners getting to know foreign religions and worldviews, as well as that they question their own beliefs and understand them in greater depth. For the religious educator Clauß Peter Sajak , interreligious learning therefore also means intra-religious learning and represents a necessary contribution to the religious development of the learning subject.

In the New Testament exegesis, Thomas Popp uses the concept of convivence as the key to understanding the theology of 1 Peter’s epistle , for which the divine recognition process in Jesus Christ in the community and society opens up the space for interpersonal recognition practice.

literature

  • Paolo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Stuttgart 1970.
  • Theo Sundermeier: Convivence as the basic structure of ecumenical existence today. In: Wolfgang Huber , Dietrich Ritschl , Theo Sundermeier: Ecumenical existence today 1. Gütersloh 1986, pp. 49-100.
  • Theo Sundermeier (Ed.): Perceiving the stranger. Building blocks for a xenology. Gütersloh 1992.
  • Theo Sundermeier: Convivence and Difference. Studies in an understanding missiology. Erlangen 1995
  • Theo Sundermeier: Understand the stranger. A practical hermeneutics. Goettingen 1996
  • Andreas Feldtkeller : Convivence. In: Religion in Past and Present , Volume 4, Tübingen 2001, Sp. 1654.
  • Benjamin Simon, Henning Wrogemann (Ed.): Konviviale Theologie. Festgabe for Theo Sundermeier on his 70th birthday. Frankfurt a. M. 2005.
  • Clauß Peter Sajak: Understand the foreign as a gift. On the way to a didactic of religions from a Catholic perspective (= Forum Religious Pedagogy Intercultural 9). Munster 2005.
  • Youngsik Park: Convivence of Religions. Frankfurt am Main 2006.
  • Thomas Popp: The Art of Convivence. Theology of Recognition in 1. Peter. Leipzig 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Theo Sundermeier: coexistence as the basic structure of ecumenical existence today. In: Wolfgang Huber, Dietrich Ritschl, Theo Sundermeier: Ecumenical existence today 1. Gütersloh 1986, pp. 49-100.
  2. ↑ Klaus Hock : Introduction to Intercultural Theology. Darmstadt 2011, p. 24.
  3. ^ Clauß Peter Sajak: Interreligious Learning in Religious Education in Schools. In: Bernhard Grümme , Hartmut Lenhard , Manfred L. Pirner (Eds.): Rethinking religious instruction. Innovative approaches and perspectives in religious didactics. A workbook (= religious pedagogy innovative 1). Stuttgart 2012, 223–233, here: pp. 225–227.