Relationship Status: Complicated. Religious Indifference as a Challenge for Process Theology

Abstract

This contribution is guided by the motivation that (systematic) theology cannot be indifferent to the phenomenon of religious indifference. This could be related to its underlying self-image, that it cannot, in principle, remain indifferent to any phenomenon in the world. This self-image results from the assumption that indifference generally does not fit with the Christian image of God and God’s double commandment of love. This thesis can be sharpened and substantiated by a process-theological and political-theological approach. A systematic investigation of the phenomenon of religious indifference based on these two approaches could 1. contribute to the clarification of concepts, 2. take into account the pluralization and differentiation of world references (even to the point of indifference), and finally 3. lead to the clarification of an understanding that perceives religious indifference as a serious form of (non-)reference and that could have a religious-critical and theologically politicizing effect on process-theological concepts by entangling them in two open learning processes.