Wilhelm Gräb

Wilhelm Gräb (born August 21, 1948 in Bad Säckingen ) is a German liberal , Protestant theologian . He was professor for practical theology at the Ruhr University Bochum and the Humboldt University in Berlin .

Life

Wilhelm Gräb studied Protestant theology in Bethel, Göttingen and Heidelberg and then completed his vicariate in Bad Gandersheim and Göttingen from 1978 to 1980 . In 1979 he received his doctorate from the University of Göttingen with a thesis on the concept of history in the work of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher . In 1987 he completed his habilitation in practical theology with a thesis on questions of principles of preaching following Friedrich Schleiermacher , Karl Barth and Emanuel Hirsch . From 1980 to 1988 he was a research assistant at the University of Göttingen, from 1988 to 1993 student pastor in Göttingen and at the same time private lecturer for practical theology. From 1991 to 1992 he was a substitute professor for religious education at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena . From 1993 to 1999 he was professor of practical theology at the Ruhr University Bochum and university preacher there . From 1999 to 2016 he was Professor of Practical Theology at the Humboldt University in Berlin and Head of the Institute for the Sociology of Religion and Congregation Development. From 2005 to 2007 he was dean of the theological faculty and from 2001 to 2016 university preacher at Berlin universities. Wilhelm Gräb is Emeritus of the Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin and Humboldt Senior Advisor. Since 2011 he has been Extraordinary Professor at the Theological Faculty of Stellenbosch University , South Africa.

Wilhelm Gräb is married and has three children. His sister, Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt , is a professor of systematic theology with a focus on ethics at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen .

Research priorities and theological positions

Wilhelm Gräb researches the hermeneutics of religion and culture as well as the transformation of the religious in the modern age. At the center of his work are the individual and his questions of meaning as well as the diverse symbolic and ritual forms of expression of the religious in contemporary culture. In the practical-theological orientation of his research, he aims at the requirements that church practice is faced with when it is geared towards the needs of people for the affirmation of identity, orientation towards meaning and the interpretation of life. The question of how the church could meet these requirements under the conditions of contemporary media culture and a highly autonomous way of dealing with self and the world is at the center of his practical theological research and teaching. Another focus of research is the work of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher and the continuation of his program of a theology that implements this theory of lived religion, which is relevant to church leadership in practice.

In his Practical Theology of Lived Religion "Life stories - life plans - meaning interpretations" he also applies his ideas to pastoral care , which is described as life help and life interpretation. Gräb does not want to play off therapeutic and kerygmatic pastoral care against each other. He accuses the anti-kerygmatic Scharfenberg of not wanting to understand Thurneysen at all. The dispute about the theological or psychological foundation of pastoral care is wrongly attached to Thurneysen, who is misunderstood if his concept is condemned as purely preaching, authoritarian, discouraging and anti-therapeutic. Gräb, on the other hand, wants to show that Schleiermacher had already made an empirical turnaround in pastoral care as help for self-help, which should enable the freedom and ability of others to act. Gräb counters the “mistaken belief” that Thurneysen was an opponent of psychological therapies by saying that Thurneysen positively integrated deep psychological insights into his diagnosis and therapy. Following Thurneysen, who opposed the desubstantialization of conventional theological terms, Gräb tries to make the category of sin and forgiveness fruitful for today's understanding of pastoral care: Sin as an interpretative clarifies the common suffering of therapist and client, which leads to solidarity, while forgiveness leads to difference emphasize between therapist and client because it opens up an external possibility of a new self-image coming from outside. Gräb shows that the "break" in the conversation should not, in Thurneysen's own opinion, happen in a directive-invasive manner. Pastoral care and therapy do not differ in conversation behavior, but in terms of hermeneutics and perspectives of interpretation. The doctrine of justification brings in the perspective of the undeserved and inalienable dignity of every human being.

Functions and memberships

• Gräb was the founding editor of the International Journal of Practical Theology (IJPT). He is the executive editor of Sermon Studies . He was a founding member of the board of the Schleiermacher Society and co-founder of the Empirical Religious Research Working Group
• Gräb is a member of the Scientific Society for Theology (WGTh), the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the International Academy of Practical Theology (IAPT), the Empirical Religious Research Working Group, the Schleiermacher Society and the Ernst Troeltsch Society .
• Gräb was also significantly involved in the development and establishment of the interdisciplinary and international Master of Religion and Culture (MRC) at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Fonts

As an author

• Humanity and Christian History. An investigation into Schleiermacher's late work. Göttingen 1980.
• Sermon as a message of faith. Studies on Principal Homiletics with a Practical Purpose. Gütersloh 1988.
• Life stories - life plans - meaning interpretations. A practical theology of lived religion. Gütersloh ¹ 1998, ² 2000.
• Sense of the infinite. Religion in the media society. Gütersloh 2002.
• Religion as an Interpretation of Life. Perspectives of a practical theology of lived religion. Gütersloh 2006.
• Questions of meaning. Transformations of the Religious in Modern Culture. Gütersloh 2006.
• Sermon doctrine. About religious speech. Göttingen 2013.
• About being human and religion. A practical cultural theology. Tübingen 2018.
• Extensive list of publications with further papers and articles on the website of the Humboldt University of Berlin

As editor

• (with Volker Drehsen and Dietrich Korsch ): Protestantism and Aesthetics. Religious and cultural transformations at the beginning of the 20th century. Gütersloh 2001.
• (with Volker Drehsen and Birgit Weyel ): Compendium Theory of Religion. Göttingen 2005.
• (with Birgit Weyel): Religion in the modern world. Appearances and perspectives for reflection. Göttingen 2006.
• (with Birgit Weyel): Handbook of Practical Theology. Gütersloh publishing house, Gütersloh 2007.
• (with Lars Charbonnier): Secularization Theories, Religious Identity and Practical Theology. Developing International Practical Theology for the 21st century. International Academy of Practical Theology Berlin 2007. LIT, Münster / Vienna / Berlin 2009.
• (with Ulrich Barth , Christian Danz , Friedrich Wilhelm Graf ): Enlightened religion and its problems. Schleiermacher - Troeltsch - Tillich. Berlin / Boston 2013.
• (with Birgit Weyel, Hans-Günter Heimbrock ): Practical theology and empirical research on religion (= publications of the scientific society for theology, vol. 39), Leipzig 2013.

Web links

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Gräb in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage at the Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin
• Interviews with Wilhelm Gräb on the website of the Philosophical Religion Salon
• The philosophical radio on WDR 5 with Wilhelm Gräb about individuality

Individual evidence

1. ^ Humboldt Senior Advisor. Retrieved May 5, 2017 . 
2. ^ Wilhelm Gräb: life stories - life plans - meaning interpretations. A practical theology of lived religion. Gütersloh 1998, Chapter 11, pp. 213-230.
3. ^ Homepage of the International Masters Course in Religion and Culture (MRC) at the Humboldt University in Berlin