Perspectief 2017-36

Perspectief 4 Werk van jonge theologen will allow for a valid comparison of opinions and their underlying theological arguments within and between churches. In the chapter on Roman Catholic perspectives as well as in that on Lutheran perspectives we will start by studying official ecclesial publications on the refugee crisis. To render our findings representative of European and North American Catholic and Lutheran responses, we will look at texts originating in various countries. To provide an academic context to these documents we will study leading theological works on Christian charity and refugees, including Romano Guardini’s Der Dienst am Nächsten in Gefahr (1956) and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007), but also, amongst others, articles and books by Christiansen (1996, 2005), Coonan (2000), Groody (2008, 2009), Miller (2013) and Balch (2015). Towards the end of each chapter we discuss the views of individuals in each church who are neither considered to be responsible for official publications nor have published academically on the refugee crisis. The individuals whose speeches and writings will be studied in this thesis have not been selected at random but based on their influence. Each of these individuals, whether a politician, clergyman or independent scholar, is outspoken about his or her religious beliefs, and is taken seriously by a significant following. The emphasis will be on individuals’ and churches’ theological reasoning behind their approach to refugees, while not neglecting the fact that the theological nature of their arguments is frequently intertwined with social, historical and political assertions. The previous and following sections form an introduction to the current refugee crisis and the two churches selected. In the following two chapters we first analyse the arguments found in the Roman Catholic Church, then those encountered in the Lutheran churches. In the third chapter we will attempt to formulate an answer the abovementioned research question by confronting the three layers of literature and speeches with each other within and between the two churches. Moreover, the results of these theoretical confrontations will briefly be viewed from a humanitarian and political perspective because the writings and speeches discussed in this thesis comment directly on practical humanitarian and political situations. Chapter four, the conclusion, will be a summary of this study’s most important findings.