Currently the world is in the midst of a major ecological crisis, of which climate change is a key element. It is contended that this ecological destruction is largely a result of the underlying values controlling ethics and the controlling instinct of the modern worldview, which has been dominant for the past three centuries. The most recent and still emerging worldview, postmodernism, is examined and contrasted as a rebuttal to the modernistic tendencies and ethics. Utilising Ecclesiastes 1: 1-18, the ethical themes that the author of Ecclesiastes used are explored and paralleled to similar views found in postmodernism. Together, these biblical and postmodern thoughts illustrate how a strong environmental ethic can be formed that counters the modernistic worldview of controlling creation. The outcome of this research is to integrate aspects of postmodern thought with the book of Ecclesiastes to present a theological ethical basis from which a Christian can view and act towards creation. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Theological Ethics)

Text in German / We live in a time of postmodern influence which proclaims that there are no absolute values and all opinions are equal. Consequently it is thought that no one can judge whether something is right or wrong. But, according to the Bible`s instructions, that is exactly what we should do. We shouldn’t conform to the world, but let God change our thinking and being. This is the only way to recognize right or wrong (Romans 12:2). As Christians we have been commissioned by Jesus to carry the gospel into all the world and to lead people to become his followers. For this reason we have to ask the question in this age of how the gospel can be made plausible in a postmodern context and how Christian values can be made understood. H-P Hempelmann has already dealt with such questions intensively. For this reason, this thesis will, among other things, examine his apologetic method. / Wir leben in einer Zeit postmoderner Einflüsse, in der dafür eingetreten wird, dass es keine absoluten Werte gibt und alle Meinungen gleichwertig sind. Dies hat zur Folge, dass angeblich keiner mehr beurteilen kann, ob etwas richtig oder falsch ist. Doch genau dies sollen wir nach den Anweisungen der Bibel tun. Wir sollen uns nicht der Welt anpassen, sondern unser Denken und Wesen von Gott verändern lassen. Nur auf diese Weise ist es möglich, zu erkennen, was richtig oder falsch ist (Röm 12,2). Als Christen haben wir von Jesus Christus den Auftrag erhalten, das Evangelium in alle Welt hinauszutragen und Menschen in seine Nachfolge zu führen. Aus diesem Grund stellt sich in der heutigen Zeit die Frage, wie das Evangelium im postmodernen Kontext plausibilisiert werden kann und wie christliche Werte verständlich gemacht werden können. Heinzpeter Hempelmann hat sich bereits sehr intensiv mit solchen Fragen auseinandergesetzt. Deshalb wird in dieser Arbeit u.a. sein apologetischer Ansatz überprüft. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Systematic Theology)

This work is comprised of an Introduction and two Parts. Part One treats, by way of historical review and evaluation, the disestablishment of the Christian worldview in a postmodern age. Part Two proposes the means by whichthe Christian worldview might be reestablished. The reestablishment includes the use of some of the benefits of postmodernism by Christians as well as a return to the responsible reading of texts, especially the biblical text. Part One, The Disestablishment of the Christian Worldview, is composed ofthree chapters. Chapter 1chronicles the change that has occurred in Western culture because of the ascendency of postmodernism. It isbest described as a change in authorityfrom the logocentric metanarrative which has characterized Christianity to the deconstructionist rejection of worldviews by postmodern literary critics. Chapter 2 reviews the paradigm shifts that have occurred in belief systemsthat have occurred in the West as a result of this change,and Chapter 3 shows the effects of all this in the culture's principal institutions. Part Two, The Reestablishment of the Christian Worldview, is also composed of three chapters. Chapter 4 shows the impact that postmodernity has had on the efforts now being made on behalf of reestablishing the Christian worldview as a viable intellectual position in Western culture. Chapter 5 is occupied with the negative and positive responses of certain Christian scholars to the challenge of postmodernism, and Chapter 6 closes the study with an extended treatment of the factors that must be in play for a reestablishment of the Christian worldview to occur in Western civilization. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Theology)

The medium is the message in the first place: the medium as presence, as the author. His contribution to the academic world is his academic Holographic Memoirs. His story, the author's memoirs, is a fictive-narrative discourse with an organic ubuntu open-endedness. The Hologram is both an autobiography, but also all the information at all places simultaneously – nonlocal in quantum physical terms - within an intense hallucinating dream: no illusion, but rather a HyperReality with all its Virtual Identities. The invention of tram hopping is the plot of the story. The plot is like an hourglass where the first part of the story is the emptying of the sand, the deconstruction of modernism, but while the top chamber runs empty and the bottom chamber fills up, so the deconstruction is simultaneously a dependent arising/(social) construction/ubuntuing to revival – the synagogal Shekinah presence of YAHWEH. The top chamber is the unreasonable Newtonian physics and the bottom chamber reasonable quantum physics. The metaphysics (before the physics) of the top chamber is poststructuralism and deconstruction, while the bottom chamber is the virtual Hebraic worldview that delutively merges ubuntu and Buddhism. The long narrow neck in the middle is the moonily narrative that lives us with psychology (Psycho-logic) lost in sociology (Social-physics). Hermeneutics is set forth in the same contrasting hourglass of the top chamber, the inherited tradition, emptying to what it should accomplish – (virtual) presence. / Philosophy and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Systematic Theology)

German text / Vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger Reformprozesse, sowohl in der Evangelischen Landeskirche Württembergs, als auch in der Evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands, reflektiert und kommentiert die vorliegende Arbeit das Reformbemühen der letzten Jahre und stellt es in den Kontext empirischer Forschung. So versucht die Studie explorativ pragmatisch Zugangswege zu den bisher nicht erreichten Menschen zu eruieren, die bei der Entwicklung einer zukünftigen Sozialgestalt von Kirche mitbedacht werden könnten. Mittels eines mehrstufigen Zufallsauswahlverfahrens wurden die Befragungspersonen ermittelt und 628 standardisierte Interviews durchgeführt. Dabei stehen zunächst die religiösen Einstellungen zur christlich-abendländischen Kultur- und Werteorientierung, zur kirchlichen Arbeit als solche und zum christlichen Glauben im Forschungsinteresse, dann die Erfahrungen mit Gottesdienst, Kirche und Leben, Erwartungen, Bedürfnisse und Interessenlagen und schließlich der Stellenwert von Gebet und Bibel als Bausteine christlich-spiritueller Lebenspraxis. Ausgehend vom Gottesdienst, als Zentralort gemeindlichen Lebens, will die Forschung die Chancen gottesdienstkultureller Ausdifferenzierung ergründen und nimmt unter anderem alternative Gottesdienstformen in den Blick. Ehrenamtlicher Mitarbeit in der Kirche, gemeindlicher Kleingruppenarbeit und religiöse Erwachsenenbildungsangebote sind von potenzieller Bedeutung und wollen ebenso als Zugangswege kirchlicher Zukunftsentwicklung bedacht sein, wie der Stellenwert gemeindlicher Seelsorge- und Lebensberatung in Umbruchsituationen, oder die Einrichtung einer landeskirchlichen Gemeindegründungsbewegung in bisher unerreichten soziokulturellen Umgebungen. Die vielfältigen Erkenntnisse und potenziellen Möglichkeiten zukünftiger Kirche sind nicht zu trennen von einer missionstheologischen und ekklesiologischen Positionierung, die in der Herausbildung von kulturrelevanter, multioptionaler Gemeinde, als Gemeinschaft von Brüdern und Schwestern, das Zentralgeschehen nachhaltiger Gemeinde- und Kirchenentwicklung erkennt. Damit ist die Studie als Diskussionsbeitrag in den Entscheidungsprozessen aktueller Reformdebatte platziert. / Against the background of current reform processes in the Evangelische Landeskirche von Würrtemberg (protestant national church of Baden-Württemberg as) well as the Evangelische Kirche von Deutschland (protestant national church of Germany), this paper reflects and comments on the reformation efforts of the past years and places them into the context of empirical research. The aim of this survey is to investigate in an explorative manner various forms of pragmatic access to people hitherto unreached, who could be factored into the church's future social form. The participants were selected using a multilevel random selection process and 628 standardised interviews were subsequently carried out. To begin with, this research focuses on the interviewee's religious stance on christian-occidental culture and values,on the work of the church in general and on christian faith, then on their personal experience with services, church and life, their expectations, needs and interests, and lastly the significance of prayer and the bible as integral parts of a spiritual Christian life. Based on the service as the centre of a congregation's community life, this survey wants to fathom the chances of service differentiation and takes a look at alternative forms of service among other things. Volunteer work in the church, work in small groups as well as religious education programmes for adults are of potential importance and need to be taken into consideration as possible access paths to the future development of the church as well as the value of pastoral care and life coaching in situations of radical change or the start-up of a national movement to establish new congregations in hitherto unreached sociocultural environments. The manifold findings and potential possibilities of our church in the future cannot be separated from our position with regard to missiology and ecclesiology, which identifies the central development of congregation and church as the formation of culturally relevant, multioptional congregations, as the community of brothers and sisters. This survey thus contributes to the current discussion of reform and the associated decision-making process. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

German text / Vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger Reformprozesse, sowohl in der Evangelischen Landeskirche Württembergs, als auch in der Evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands, reflektiert und kommentiert die vorliegende Arbeit das Reformbemühen der letzten Jahre und stellt es in den Kontext empirischer Forschung. So versucht die Studie explorativ pragmatisch Zugangswege zu den bisher nicht erreichten Menschen zu eruieren, die bei der Entwicklung einer zukünftigen Sozialgestalt von Kirche mitbedacht werden könnten. Mittels eines mehrstufigen Zufallsauswahlverfahrens wurden die Befragungspersonen ermittelt und 628 standardisierte Interviews durchgeführt. Dabei stehen zunächst die religiösen Einstellungen zur christlich-abendländischen Kultur- und Werteorientierung, zur kirchlichen Arbeit als solche und zum christlichen Glauben im Forschungsinteresse, dann die Erfahrungen mit Gottesdienst, Kirche und Leben, Erwartungen, Bedürfnisse und Interessenlagen und schließlich der Stellenwert von Gebet und Bibel als Bausteine christlich-spiritueller Lebenspraxis. Ausgehend vom Gottesdienst, als Zentralort gemeindlichen Lebens, will die Forschung die Chancen gottesdienstkultureller Ausdifferenzierung ergründen und nimmt unter anderem alternative Gottesdienstformen in den Blick. Ehrenamtlicher Mitarbeit in der Kirche, gemeindlicher Kleingruppenarbeit und religiöse Erwachsenenbildungsangebote sind von potenzieller Bedeutung und wollen ebenso als Zugangswege kirchlicher Zukunftsentwicklung bedacht sein, wie der Stellenwert gemeindlicher Seelsorge- und Lebensberatung in Umbruchsituationen, oder die Einrichtung einer landeskirchlichen Gemeindegründungsbewegung in bisher unerreichten soziokulturellen Umgebungen. Die vielfältigen Erkenntnisse und potenziellen Möglichkeiten zukünftiger Kirche sind nicht zu trennen von einer missionstheologischen und ekklesiologischen Positionierung, die in der Herausbildung von kulturrelevanter, multioptionaler Gemeinde, als Gemeinschaft von Brüdern und Schwestern, das Zentralgeschehen nachhaltiger Gemeinde- und Kirchenentwicklung erkennt. Damit ist die Studie als Diskussionsbeitrag in den Entscheidungsprozessen aktueller Reformdebatte platziert. / Against the background of current reform processes in the Evangelische Landeskirche von Würrtemberg (protestant national church of Baden-Württemberg as) well as the Evangelische Kirche von Deutschland (protestant national church of Germany), this paper reflects and comments on the reformation efforts of the past years and places them into the context of empirical research. The aim of this survey is to investigate in an explorative manner various forms of pragmatic access to people hitherto unreached, who could be factored into the church's future social form. The participants were selected using a multilevel random selection process and 628 standardised interviews were subsequently carried out. To begin with, this research focuses on the interviewee's religious stance on christian-occidental culture and values,on the work of the church in general and on christian faith, then on their personal experience with services, church and life, their expectations, needs and interests, and lastly the significance of prayer and the bible as integral parts of a spiritual Christian life. Based on the service as the centre of a congregation's community life, this survey wants to fathom the chances of service differentiation and takes a look at alternative forms of service among other things. Volunteer work in the church, work in small groups as well as religious education programmes for adults are of potential importance and need to be taken into consideration as possible access paths to the future development of the church as well as the value of pastoral care and life coaching in situations of radical change or the start-up of a national movement to establish new congregations in hitherto unreached sociocultural environments. The manifold findings and potential possibilities of our church in the future cannot be separated from our position with regard to missiology and ecclesiology, which identifies the central development of congregation and church as the formation of culturally relevant, multioptional congregations, as the community of brothers and sisters. This survey thus contributes to the current discussion of reform and the associated decision-making process. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

M.Th. (Practical Theology)

M.Th. (Practical Theology)