Project type: Charles University Mini-grant 2023
Flagship: Flagship 2
Project leader at CU: Mgr. Pavel Kolář, M.T.S., Th.D (Hussite Theological Faculty)
Participating universities: Heidelberg University, University of Copenhagen, University of Warsaw
The project addresses the following research question: What role the Bible, biblical exegesis and an interpretation of religious traditions play and should play in churches' and Jewish communities' theological reflection of the most challenging phenomena of the European societies (migration, racism, religious violence, war conflicts, social and gender inequalities, environmental crisis, sustainable development).
We want to pursue the question in three related directions: descriptive, analytical, and systematic. We will collect representative documents of the World Council of Churches, the European reformation churches and Jewish authorities dealing with the mentioned issues. Next, we will compare them with the fundamental European values (in relevant documents of the European Union). Finally, we will evaluate documents' methodologies, propose possible alternative readings of the used biblical texts and search for the biblical and other traditional texts and their interpretation that would support churches' and Judaism's reception of the values related to the concept of sustainable development. We also intend to focus on other religious traditions active in Europe (Buddhism) and their authoritative texts. We intend to integrate the results of our research into the research based education at the participating universities.