Field of Research C “Integration“ (2007-2018)
Seen from a diachronic and global perspective, religious homogeneity is far from being the standard scenario. Rather, the usual historical reality is coexistence, entanglement, competition, and conflict among various religious systems of meaning and forms of praxis. In the Cluster of Excellence’s second funding phase from 2012 to 2017 the integration of religious diversity is addressed on the basis of three main themes: (1) How do various societies deal with the coexistence of diverse religions? To what extent do conflicts over religious diversity lead to processes of integration, independent of substantial consensus?; (2) On closer inspection, the interior and exterior boundaries of the “world religions” turn out to be similarly fluid: the respective traditions are exchanged among one another in a variety of ways. Researchers are thus inquiring into the conditions for, manifestations, and consequences of tradition exchange among Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (3) The third central theme concentrates on Christianity in the modern West since the transformations of the 1960s and inquires into the interactions between Christian social forms and their political environment.