Ottmar Fuchs Book order

Christian faith can lead to a spirituality that can give strength and energy for just action. Conversely, human solidarity can open us up to the contents of the Christian faith. Christian hope, in particular, opens us to a universal solidarity that does not exclude others and never serves only one's own areas without others. Ottmar Fuchs has spelled out this connection in his entire practical theology in many works and now presents here important results of his work in collected form for an English-language readership. The churches are at the service of this commitment for all people. In the acute disputes between identitarian-fundamentalist and open-universal-solidarian formations, the author represents the position of a faith that accepts all people into the love of God and an ethics not limited by any borders. It is the vote for a church that is more self-giving than victorious at the expense of others and that profiles all its "instruments" from the social and ritual organization of the church to its respective external relations in such a way. It is about a format of faith and church that does even not release the respective exclusivistic parts in churches and in society from the caring responsibility.

The future impact of the churches on the societies in which they are situated depends on how they are experienced as healing and solidarizing communities (concerning their religious and social praxis) within themselves and to the outside. Exactly this is the question of the diaconical dimension of the church: the question of how much love (in terms of mercy and justice) and freedom (to the individual and to society) are being spread by the churches in this world. Theologically this book refers not only to the biblical foundations but also to the latest theology of the II Vatican Council (and of the appropriate understanding of the term «Evangelization») within the Catholic Church, without suggesting that this theological position is something exclusive in the ecumenical sphere. It rather may support similar theologies emerging from other churches, as a kind of offer to solidarize with each other looking for the possibilities of substantiating the Christian faith.