Prophetische Intervention als Konflikteskalation

Theologische Sozialethik im Dialog mit sozialwissenschaftlicher Konfliktforschung

Abstract

In dealing with social conflicts, the aspect of reconciliation in the sense of a harmonious overcoming of opposites is often placed in the foreground from a religious perspective. However, research in the sociology of conflict following Georg Simmel suggests a focus on the positive potential of conflict in itself. Against this background, the article focuses on the dynamics of conflict escalation and relates them to prophetic intervention on the basis of the biblical book of Hosea. Instead of fading out the objects of conflict, the aim is to increase conflicts through escalating measures. In view of the ambivalence of escalation, criteria are worked out that can guarantee a productive development of conflicts. A reading of Hosea texts grounded in conflict theory shows how moments of escalation also shape the handling of social, ethical and God-related conflicts there. Finally, the two perspectives are brought together with the help of a public conflict theory. In this way, theological social ethics functions as a discursive space at the contact zones between theology and the social sciences. Hosea thus provides the impetus to interpret various conflict dimensions in society in the light of the relationship between God and human beings. It is precisely the inner conflict structure of religion evident here that makes a contribution to not negating conflicts, but to dealing with them constructively.