The CEU Center for Religious Studies in cooperation with the Rector ’s Office
invite you to join us for
The third lecture in the Rector's Lecture Series: Comparative Approaches to Abrahamic Religions
In a World Globalizing: The Communities of Abraham’s Heirs
Abstract: Religious congregations and associations are spreading in the contemporary world, taking advantage of labor migration, the global right to religious freedom and modern techniques of communication and travel. When Jews, Christians, and Muslims establish communities abroad, they are inspired by the story of Abraham, the first migrant. Abraham left with family and kin his home in Mesopotamia for a distant land, trusting God’s promise to make him a great nation: to bless those who bless him, and to curse those who curse him. History and not a particular territory is the arena, where salvation is expected to happen. Those believing in this scenario treat their fellow believers as brothers and sisters; an ethic of solidarity is proof of their faith. In case their community is attacked by foes they feel commissioned to fight for it. They expect that the society at large is recognizing it otherwise the common good is threatened. My paper will show how this model has been put in practice by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It was turned into practice successfully in regions and situations, where skepticism spread about the capability of the secular Nation State to secure justice, freedom, and security for the citizens. The congruence between the three Abrahamic religions with regard to establishing communities indicate not only common ground, but also conflict.
Prof. Dr. Hans G. Kippenberg held chairs for Comparative Religious Studies at the universities of Groningen (NL) since 1977 and of Bremen (D) since 1989. From 1998 to 2009 he was Fellow at the Max-Weber-Kolleg, Erfurt. Since 2008 he is Professor for Comparative Religious Studies at the private Jacobs University Bremen. His fields of research are Judaism, Christianity, Islam; the history of the history of religions and the sociology of Max Weber. He published Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age, Princeton: UP 2002 and edited Max Weber’s section on “Religion” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft under the title Religiöse Gemeinschaften, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001. Together with Tilman Seidensticker he published: The 9/11 Handbook. Annotated Translation and Interpretation of the Attackers’ Spiritual Manual. London: Equinox 2006. His recent book Violence as Worship. Religious Wars in the Age of Globalization has been published by Stanford UP in 2011.