Reinhart Hummel

Reinhart Hummel ( born January 26, 1930 in Halle, † February 9, 2007 in Stuttgart ) was a German theologian, longtime head of the Protestant Association for Philosophical Questions and author of numerous books on new religious communities.

Life

He studied Protestant theology in Kiel, Tübingen, Basel and Heidelberg and received his PhD in 1961 in Kiel with Eduard Lohse. He then took up a pastorate in Schleswig -Holstein. From 1966 to 1973 he headed the Lutheran Theological College in Orissa. Back in Germany he received at the University of Heidelberg a research contract on Indian guru movements in the West and his habilitation in 1979 with the work of Indian religious movements in the West.

From 1981 to 1995 he was director of the Protestant Association for Philosophical Questions ( EZW ). In his work, he disagreed with the designation and the explanatory model " youth religion " for new religious communities, as it was popularized by Friedrich Wilhelm Haack about. The controversial use of the term "sect" he contradicted first entirely; in his later works, he recognized the authority of the concept by differentiated usage.

Attention and contradiction found his thesis that some of the observed from the EZW groups had " positive" developed both in society and in the inter-religious dialogue, that is, have degraded the originally seen potential for conflict. This assessment would be particularly true on the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unification Church and ISKCON. However, the Unification Church is its judgment is still very critical.

Works

  • The confrontation between the Church and Judaism in the Gospel of Matthew ( = revised dissertation). Kaiser ( Contributions to the Evangelical Theology 33 ), Munich 1963
  • Indian mission and new piety in the West. Religious Movements in Western cultures ( = revised habilitation thesis ). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1980
  • Gurus in East and West. Backgrounds, experiences, criteria. Source, Stuttgart 1984
  • Reincarnation. Worldviews of the reincarnation beliefs and Christianity. Source / Grünewald, Stuttgart / Mainz 1988
  • Religious Pluralism and Christian Occident? Challenge to the Church and society. University Press, Darmstadt 1994
  • Gurus, Master, the charlatans. Between fascination and danger. Herder, Freiburg 1996
  • Unification Church. The " Moonies " in transition. Train, Neukirchen 1998
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