ProMundis Blogposts

Will Europe perish without a Koranic Death Penalty?

(Translated from my German blog, published there in April 2011) At a high-ranking meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on December 9 and 10, 2010 in the Hofburg in Vienna, the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Implementation Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief, which addressed the topic of religious freedom within the broader framework of human rights consultations, ... [Read more]

The Influence of Jewish Fundamentalism on Legislation in Israel

A threat to religious freedom in the only democracy in the Near East Overall, national religious political parties currently receive about 15% of the vote. And yet as small coalition partners they have gained an astonishing amount of influence. By law there are an increasing number of Israelis who have to live as the minority of Orthodox Jews envisage, although these individuals in part actually reject ... [Read more]

German Federal Armed Forces are stationed in the Alsace!

The announcement shortly before Christmas 2010 got lost in the whirlpool of events. For the first time, a unit of the German Federal Armed Forces has been stationed in the French Alsace. The 600 soldiers belonging to the 291st Infantry Batallion (Jägerbataillon) are sharing barracks with the 2nd French Armored Brigade. Imagine the long path that Germany and France have taken since World War I and ... [Read more]

Muslim anti-Semites

Richard Herzinger has pointed out in a commentary in the German daily newspaper Die Welt entitled “Europa lässt sich von den Judenhassern täuschen“ (“Europe allows itself to be deceived by anti-Semites”) that in Europe one correctly reacts very nervously to anti-Semitic words and acts. However, strangely enough, there is gentle concealment about growing anti-Semitism among Muslims. Christians ... [Read more]

Karl Hoheisel, my doctoral adviser, has passed away

My esteemed teacher, the religious studies scholar Karl Hoheisel, has died at the age of 73. He was a kind and friendly person who was always there for others, and at the same time he was an exemplary researcher and scholar who was always open for what were previously scantly considered research areas and methods. I first came into contact with him in 1983 as the individual who introduced me (along ... [Read more]

How Christianity came to Bonn

Recently I came across a selected New Testament which the Bonn Evangelical Alliance distributed to households in Bonn in 2005 and in which I wrote something about the beginnings of Christianity in Bonn (“How Christianity came to Bonn,” pp. 204-205 in Das Beste für Bonn: Excerpts from the Bible. IBS: Schorndorf, 2005). As someone who within the scope of advocating religious freedom worldwide also ... [Read more]

Why one should not define “fundamentalism” by the use of a scripture

If by definition one wants to use recourse to the infallible Scriptures of early Protestant fundamentalism in the USA, it is not necessary to ask all religious movements which canonical writings they have and how they go about using them. Rather, the question is who or what their respective ultimate, justifying authority is and whether or not they consider it to be infallible. If the concept of fundamentalism ... [Read more]

Global Human Rights Conference Includes Homeschooling

For the first time in its 50-year history, the World Congress on the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy included homeschooling on the agenda of its biannual global conference. Held in Frankfurt, Germany at Goethe University August 15–20, the congress attracted nearly 1,000 academics and legal practitioners. Experts in human rights gave papers at a special workshop, organized by Dr. John Warwick ... [Read more]

Religious freedom experts criticize the initiative of Islamic states in the UN Human Rights Council

Bielefeldt and Schirrmacher hold a public discussion in a Nuremberg church In a joint event in the Langwasser Free Church (in German, Freie Christengemeinde Langwasser, related to the Czech Brethren tradition) in Nuremberg, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the freedom of religion and belief, Prof. Dr. Heiner Bielefeldt, and the Director of the International Institute for Religious Freedom ... [Read more]

The International Leadership Team of the World Evangelical Alliance

The International Leadership Team of the World Evangelical Alliance consists of the two general secretaries (in the middle to my right and my left), the financial and administration heads, the general secretaries of the 6 regions, the chair and directors of the commissions, the leaders of the initiaves, task forces and  global partners. The picture does not only look nice and harmonious, but the ... [Read more]

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