Sybille C. Fritsch-Oppermann

Sybille C. Fritsch-Oppermann studied Protestant Theology, Social Science, Musicology in Göttingen, Frankfurt/M and Munich; Postgraduate Studies (Comparative Culture) at International Christian University, Tokyo -Special Internship at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey, Switzerland; PhD (Religious Studies): Christian Existence in a Buddhist Context/Katsumi Takizawa and Seiichi Yagi; taught Ecumenical Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Hamburg University; guest lectureships and classes: (Hamburg (Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr), Heidelberg, Göttingen, Wuppertal, Essen, Bochum, Paderborn etc, also in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Great Britain, Scotland, Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Russia, Turkey, Tunis, Morocco, USA, Canada, Malaysia, Japan); Director of Studies and Director of Protestant Academies in Germany (Loccum, Rheinlande); conferences and think tanks (coaching and leadership training) on Religion and Science, Religion and Ethics/of Economics, Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue and Hermeneutics, Human and International Rights, Migration, Globalisation and Questions of Medical Care.

Issue: 5:4 (The twentieth issue)

Coming from a more comparative point of view as far as Theology of Religions and Interreligious Studies are concerned – though to a certain extent as well a pluralist in the sense of hope for universal understanding and well being - I want to ask how Interreligious and Intercultural Hermeneutics are a necessary tool when we try to set up minimal standards for a Global Ethics in the reality of nowadays multicultural societies. I introduce for Ethics as well as for Hermeneutics the concept of “Responsible Interim” – the latter reflecting the fact that human beings do have universals only under the “eschatological reserve” (in Christian terminology), as “Suchness in Emptiness” (in Buddhist terminology).
I will proceed from universal truth questions and more general questions of philosophy of religion towards questions of cultural i.e. religious contexts shaping ethical and religious view(s) and convictions. Can smallest common denominators be found? How does legal rule help to establish and keep them? How does society, how do individuals change by starting from a spiritual, creative and holistic and maybe even transpersonal point of view – a view of co-creation and incarnatio continua in religious, i.e. in Christian terminology again?