Theodor Ahrens

Theodor Ahrens (born April 30, 1940 in Koraput , India; † September 16, 2015 in Hamburg ) was a German professor for missions, ecumenical and religious studies at the University of Hamburg .

Live and act

Theodor Ahrens spent the first seven years of his childhood in India. His father was the India missionary and later director of the Breklum Mission , Walter Ahrens. After finishing school in Flensburg and Husum , he studied theology at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen , Georg-August-Universität Göttingen , Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and Universität Hamburg . In the summer semester of 1963 he met his future wife, theology student Hanna Jahnke, whom he married in 1965. After he was ordained in Lübeck in 1969, Ahrens received his doctorate in the same year at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Hamburg with his thesis on The Ecumenical Discussion of Cosmic Christology since 1961 and then worked as a study director and tutor at the Mission Academy of the University of Hamburg.

Work in Melanesia

In 1971 he traveled to Papua New Guinea as a missionary for the Leipzig Mission . In Bongu near Goroka he worked as a pastor and carried out ethnologically oriented field research. First he found two wise, experienced men, a former death magician, the other one after the other gold diggers, cargo cult followers, initiation masters of the local religion, who opened up their world of magic and rites and what they had understood about the Christian faith. This helped him to understand the cargo cult that prevailed there. Then he was appointed as a lecturer at the newly founded Melanesian Institute in Goroka and co-founded the "Melanesian Institute for Pastoral and Socio-Economic Service". In 1978 he returned to Germany with his family.

work in Germany

At the North Elbe Mission Center in Hamburg he was a consultant for fundamental questions, initially taking over the India department, after two years switched to the Papua New Guinea department and expanded his work area to include the department for the Pacific and East Asia. From 1987 until his retirement in 2005 he was Professor of Mission Studies and Ecumenical Relations of the Churches in the Department of Protestant Theology at the Institute for Missionary, Ecumenical and Religious Studies at the University of Hamburg, which was associated with chairing the Board of the Mission Academy. In addition, he was mission theological advisor to the Evangelical Missionswerk until 2003 and was part of its theological commission for many years. He was involved in committees of the Center for Mission and Ecumenism in Hamburg, as well as a member of the steering committee of "African Theological Training in Germany" (ATTiG).

He has been a visiting professor at the University of Papua New Guinea , Hanshin University in Korea, Nanjing Theological Seminary in PR China and Gurukul Theological Seminary in India. He has been to Oceania, China, India, Korea, Brazil and Cameroon on study trips, visiting professorships and research stays. This resulted in numerous publications. Even after his retirement he continued his publishing activities.

He understood how to link his analyzes and theoretical reviews from theology and cultural anthropology to his own life experiences, especially in Papua New Guinea. His main areas of work were the contextualization problems of Christian theology, theology of mission, religion and violence, the history of culture and Christianity in Oceania and, most recently, the theological, cultural anthropological and cultural theoretical approach to the subject of gift. Through his profound knowledge of Oceania and India in particular, his ethnologically oriented case studies and his ecumenical mission-theological reflections, he gave decisive impulses in many discussions.

Theodor Ahrens married his wife Hanna Ahrens in 1965 . He had four children with her and last lived in Hamburg-Schnelsen .

Publications

• The ecumenical discussion of cosmic Christology since 1961: presentation and criticism (also dissertation, Evangelical-Theological Faculty, Hamburg 1969), Hamburg 1969.
• On the way to the lost home. Studies on the problem of identity in Melanesia , Verlag der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Mission, Erlangen 1986, ISBN 978-3-87214-304-4 .
• On the obedience of faith (Paul-Gerhardt Buttler on his 60th birthday), Verlag an der Lottbek Jensen, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 978-3-926987-70-9 .
• The New Man in the Colonial Twilight. Studies on religious change in Oceania , Lit Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 978-3-89473-994-2 .
• Thinking about the mission , Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2002, ISBN 978-3-87476-396-7 .
• Conditions (missiology studies), Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-87476-465-6 .
• On the future of Christianity. Terminations and new beginnings , Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2009, ISBN 978-3-87476-571-8 .
• On the charm of the gift (intercultural theology), Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2008, ISBN 978-3-87476-548-0 .
• On the future of Christianity. Terminations and new beginnings , Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2009, ISBN 978-3-87476-571-8 .
• Interjections. Studies in missiology (series “Studies on Intercultural Theology at the Missionsakademie”), Missionshilfe Verlag, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-921620-92-2 .

as a co-author

• with Walter J. Hollenweger: People's Christianity and popular religion in the Pacific. Rediscovery of the myth for the Christian faith , Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 1977, ISBN 978-3-87476-098-0 .
• Thy will be done: mission in following Jesus Christ; Presentation and documentation of the 10th World Mission Conference in San Antonio 1989 (ed. Joachim Wietzke), Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, ISBN 978-3-87476-261-8 .
• Ulrich van der Heyden and Heike Liebau (eds.): Mission history, church history, world history: Christian missions in the context of national developments in Africa, Asia and Oceania (Missionsgeschichtliches Archiv, Volume 1), Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 978-3- 515-06732-4 .

as editor

• Between regionalism and globalization. Studies on Mission, Ecumenism and Religion , Verlag an der Lottbek, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 978-3-86130-050-2 .

Essays

• The topicality of Christian Keyßer. A Protestant Mission Case Study . In: Zeitschrift für Mission 1988, No. 2, pp. 94-110.
• Aside from the early history of Lutheran missions in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea . In: Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 73, 1989, pp. 284-302.

literature

• Amélé Adamavi-Aho Ekué and Michael Biehl (eds.): God's gift . On giving and taking in the context of lived religion (Festschrift for the 65th birthday of Theodor Ahrens; with chronological bibliography, pp. 596–607), Lembeck, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 978-3-87476-476-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Theodor Ahrens in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Theodor Ahrens  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paul Gerhardt Buttler: Encounter, understand and testify. A mission theologian. An obituary for Prof. Dr. Theodor Ahrens , In: World moving , output Dez.2015-Feb.2016, p 30 et seq. ZDB -ID 2411164-8
2. ^ Member of the steering committee of "African Theological Training in Germany" (ATTiG) , emw-d.de, p. 50.
3. ↑ Prof. Dr. Theodor Ahrens: Kurzvita , lmw-mission.de, accessed on August 20, 2018.
4. ↑ Director Klaus Schäfer: Obituary: Mourning for missiologist Professor Theodor Ahrens , nordkirche-weltweit.de, accessed on August 20, 2018.
5. ^ Theodor Ahrens: To the future of Christianity. Abortions and new beginnings (About the author, page 3) , missionsakademie.de, accessed on August 20, 2018.
6. ↑ Obituary for Univ.-Prof. em. Dr. Theodor Ahrens , uni-hamburg.de, obituary from September 20, 2015.
7. ↑ EMW mourns Theodor Ahrens , emw-d.de, message from September 18, 2015.