DOMRADIO.DE: Dare to be more confident. That is the title of a book by the Hamburg Senator for Culture and Media, Carsten Brosda. That’s exactly who you’ll be greeting at the Karl Rahner Academy on Sunday afternoon (registration no longer possible, editor’s note). Why is confidence so important?
Norbert Bauer (Head of the Karl Rahner Academy): Maybe I needed the confidence when this book fell into my hands in the fall. I saw it in the bookstore and thought to myself, I need the book now. It was already a dark time back then, so the title spoke to me.
I read the book with great enthusiasm, and perhaps one chapter title from it is telling: “Saying what could be.”
I think that’s what drives him as a politician, that we can say how the world could be better. That’s a wonderful saying.
DOMRADIO.DE: That means the book has given you confidence.
Bauer: It gave me confidence because Brosda works with a lot of stories. He says: We need these stories. At the very beginning he talks about Brexit. All experts and all statistics spoke against Brexit.
Nevertheless, the British voted for Brexit – because the others had the better stories or the more convincing stories, of nostalgia and the past.
In order to combat these narratives, Brosda says, we need other narratives, better narratives.
That’s why he works a lot with music, with theater, with literature and above all – I liked it so much – with pop music, which I grew up with.
DOMRADIO.DE: You have 50 events planned for the first half of 2024, and they will certainly also be about the crisis in the church. To what extent?
Bauer: Yes, there are several events on the topic. I would like to take up one on January 25th with the theologian and philosopher Michael Bongardt (For registration).
He offers a lecture with a passage from the song of praise to God “My baptismal covenant shall stand firm”: “and obedient to their teachings”.
Norbert Bauer
“Many people still associate religion with the fact that it makes them small and not free. He wants to give a lecture against that.”
I think it’s a question of attitude. Many people, for good reasons, associate church with being an authoritarian event. It would be about obedience, about consent and not about freedom.
Michael Bongardt wants to think about it with philosophers and theologians: How does faith today work in freedom and not in obedience?
I think he’s addressing a sore point that many people still associate religion with that it makes people small and not free. He wants to give a talk about it and I’m really looking forward to that.
DOMRADIO.DE: In the academy you will also take a further look at social cohesion and the questions of faith and life, beyond current church politics. On January 18th (for registration) The actress Annette Frier is a guest. What kind of event is this?
Bauer: During the pandemic, when people suddenly had a lot of time and she as an actress didn’t have the opportunity to appear, Annette Frier sat down and thought that she would like to do a film project in which she asks a lot of people: Why are you there, what are you there for? are you alive?
She asked the local priest. She asked celebrities, lots of people. This turned into a huge film project. She presents it to us and also brings along interviewees from this film project.
DOMRADIO.DE: In Saxony, the AfD has polls of 37%. Will this development also be a topic in your programs?
Bauer: Yes, we have an event on February 15th (for registration)in which literature professor Heinrich Detering talks about how the AfD uses and abuses language.
We also have it on March 20th (for registration) an ecumenical event with theologians who reflect on the role of the church in the issue.
Because there are also people among Catholics and Protestant Christians who lean towards the AfD or vote for the AfD. We will think about this in a panel to see how the church has an answer to the fact that these false answers from the AfD are also partly attractive to Christians.
DOMRADIO.DE: Dialogue with visitors to the academy is also important to you. This is also reflected in the events. Do you have different formats where people can perhaps interact?
Bauer: We start on Wednesday January 10th (for registration), then start the program again after the opening. This starts with “Wine & Truth”, a debate format in which we sit together in a more relaxed atmosphere.
There is a glass of wine and initially just one, a short thesis and then it is discussed. So there is no long lecture, everyone can have a say.
This time the guest at “Wein & Truth” will be Michael Jansen, who co-founded an organization, a youth movement, here in Cologne called “Coexist”.
Norbert Bauer
“So people are happy to come to the academy again, also because they can do what I just outlined: talk to each other and not just sit in front of the screen.”
It’s about how people from different cultures can live together. He presents the project and we then discuss it with him.
DOMRADIO.DE: The Karl Rahner Academy is established in Cologne. How is the academy doing? In terms of visitor numbers, are you now back to the level of the years before Corona?
Bauer: We are not yet back to where we were before Corona, but there has been a clear upward trend since the summer. On Sunday we now have registration numbers of over 100 people – we haven’t had that at an opening festival in a long time.
So people are happy to come to the academy again, also because they can do what I just outlined: talk to each other and not just sit in front of the screen.
The interview was conducted by Michelle Olion.
The entire program of the Karl Rahner Academy can be here see.
The Karl Rahner Academy is an independent Catholic forum in the middle of Cologne. The name is reminiscent of the Jesuit Karl Rahner (1904-1984), one of the most important theological thinkers of the 20th century.
For more than sixty years, the house next to the Sankt Peter art station has been an established place for passionate and serious debates. Further information about the academy: www.karl-rahner-akademie.de. (DR)
2024-01-06 10:11:08
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