Hermann Haering – författare

In March 1993 Hans Kung celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday, and to mark the occasion a substantial volume was presented to him: not so much the usual Festschrift as a 'workbook' on the many aspects of his faith and thought. This translation is an abridged version of the German text, containing articles of particular interest to readers in the English-speaking world. Its seven sections cover the church, the Catholicity of Hans Kung's theology, the ecumenical world, christology and the doctrine of God, the dialogue with Judaism, world religions and the influence of Hans Kuing. The contributors come not only from Switzerland and Germany but from Britain and Ireland, the United States, Latin America, Saudi Arabia and Russia and represent Judaism, Islam and Buddhism as well as Christianity. Besides being a fascinating critical survey of the life and work of a quite remarkable theologian, the book has one further, important aim: the rehabilitation of Hans Kung as a Catholic theologian. As one of the great figures of Roman Catholic ecumenical theology, Heinrich Fries, recently asked: 'Is the Catholic church so narrow that it cannot tolerate a man like Kung, or is it so rich that it can dispense with him?'

In March 1998, Hans Kung celebrated his seventieth birthday. Over the years his books have been read by millions throughout the world, and they represent a quite remarkable achievement. The Church, a prophetic vision of the church written at the time of the Second Vatican Council and still read widely today, was followed by On Being a Christian?, Does God Exist?, Eternal Life, and then both by magisterial volumes like Judaism and Christianity and classic popular studies like Credo and Great Christian Thinkers, Global Responsibility led also to his indefatigable work for a global ethic, marked most recently by A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Global Economics. This study by Hermann Haering, a former pupil and colleague of Hans Kung, offers a comprehensive guide to all Hans Kung's work and shows how his concerns, from his call for reform of the Catholic Church and his questions about infallibility to his work in inter-faith dialogue and ethics, all belong together and all stem from a deep and truly Catholic faith. It makes as exciting reading as the books of the author it describes and shows him to be one of the great theologians of the twentieth century. Hermann Haering is Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the Catholic University of Nijmegen.