Creating Common Ground for Religious Education and Comparative Theology

In this paper, Klaus von Stosch and Bert Roebben have initiated a conversation about the relationship between comparative theology (CT) and religious education (RE). It is the first time that this conversation is addressed explicitly in an international academic discourse. The authors are colleagues in a university setting of RE teacher education and are both involved in local RE research programs. Their approach is theological, and their shared interest is the existential lifeworld of children and young people. With the paper, they hope to stimulate the discussion on CT in the RE classroom, and this not only from a German (mainly confessional) perspective but also in light of other forms of non-confessional RE. The authors describe five central features of contemporary RE, followed by five connecting CT observations, as common ground for intercultural encounters.