Journal index

The Barth-Brunner debate is one of the significant moments of the Protestant theological history in the 20 th century. The replica-exchange of the two outstanding figures of dialectical theology in 1934 not only includes the theological centres of gravity of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, but also gives insight into the sparkling theological and spiritual atmosphere of the 1930s. Brunner’s interpretation reveals a specific version of natural theology, while Barth, in the spirit of New Reformation Theology, expresses his position in terms of the authority of the Word. In this essay until we explore the content of some points of the debate, we also briefly reconstruct the circumstances of its origin, as well as we mention its history and evaluation in Transylvania.

The present writing discusses analytically Sándor Fazakas’s book entitled We have sinned… The church in the context of historical and social sins. It is known that in the darkest decades of the last century, the Christian churches were in the focus of different totalitarian oppressing regimes. Under these conditions it seemed to be impossible and/or senseless to interpret questions of social and private sins from the viewpoint of church organisations, church leaders, or laic believers. Sándor Fazakas is breaking taboos when exposing – beyond the hard to judge victims’ destiny – the moral and theological facets of the collaboration with the oppressive regimes. Based on his vast knowledge of history, theology, philosophy, and sociology, the author offers worthy of considering aspects for the difficult task of encountering the past, avoiding at the same time the nowadays rather common ad personam accusations.

Die persönlichen und kollektiven tragischen Erfahrungen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts haben den französischen Philosophen Emmanuel Lévinas dazu geleitet, das bekannte biblische Gebot wieder ins Licht zu bringen. Der Imperativ, du sollst nicht töten hat in der Philosophie von Lévinas eine paradigmatische Funktion. Auf einer Seite unterstreicht Lévinas die göttliche Originalität des Verbotes, auf der anderen Seite betont er, dass diese Aufforderung fürs jeweilige Ich gültig ist, denn auf dem Gesicht des anderen steht immer zu lesen: Du sollst nicht töten!