“Intersections – Intersectional Theology”
Beginning with courses in the summer semester of 2026, the Institute for Catholic Theology will offer an interdisciplinary annual theme for the 2026–27 academic year “Intersections – Intersectional Theology.”
Retraditionalization trends in the Church and society pose a current challenge for gender studies, which we aim to address through a nuanced and broadly interdisciplinary approach in order to train future religious education teachers to be critical of power structures, gender-sensitive, and theologically competent. At the same time as these traditionalist tendencies, however, we have also observed in recent years a growing awareness and increased interest in gender issues among students, which we aim to address with this focus. This was confirmed by an analysis of a student questionnaire, which served as accompanying research for the preceding project. An intersectional analysis that takes gender into account, as well as other forms of discrimination (class, race, etc.), can be more multifaceted and insightful than a one-dimensional analysis limited to gender aspects.
The focus on gender justice, which shaped many courses and other event formats as the annual theme for 2023–2025, has met with keen interest from students, as our accompanying research suggests. To build on this and introduce students to a more complex analysis of discrimination that goes beyond the dimension of gender (although this should always be taken into account), we aim to focus on the interplay of different forms of discrimination with the annual theme of intersectionality.
Various studies show that the interactions between different forms of discrimination are powerful. An intersectional approach is particularly important in the training of religious education teachers. On the one hand, this is important for the students personally, as reflecting on their own life stories, privileges, and disadvantages can be enlightening. Furthermore, for their future professional practice, it is important to reflect on personal (and possibly structurally embedded) biases in order to avoid reproducing them when planning lessons and interacting with students. An intersectional approach takes into account the complexity of discrimination.
The annual theme is explored through various events:
Thematic focus of courses in the Winter Semester 2026/27 on the annual theme:
KTh-0000-S-011: “Who Is David, Anyway?”—An Intersectional Reading of Power, Gender, and Relationships (Tina Krasenbrink)
KTh-0000-S-015: One Bible—Different Approaches and Ways of Reading: Performing Sacred Texts (Theresa Michel-Heldt)
KTh-0000-S-018: God (m/f/d)—Biblical Perspectives (Prof. Dr. Ilse Müllner)
KTh-0000-S-024: Theological Anthropology—Classical, Ecumenical, Intersectional (Prof. Dr. Mirja Kutzer)
KTh-0000-S-037: Biblical Texts in Plain Language—Opportunities and Challenges (Lara Mayer, University of Trier)
Thematic Focus of Courses in the Summer Semester 2026 on the annual theme: “
” KTh-0000-S-011: Learning to Read Power Relations. Intersectional Biblical Didactics in Theory and Practice (Tina Krasenbrink)
KTh-0000-S-012: Believing in Diversity—Living Inclusion: Intersectional Perspectives on Religious Education (Katharina Barth)
KTh-0000-S-022: On Robots, Cyborgs, the Earth’s Atmosphere, and Amoebas. Human-Nature-Technology Relationships as a Topic in Theological Ethics (Prof. Dr. Anna Maria Riedl, University of Bonn)
Additional Events:
- Organization of a Religious Education and Theology Study Day in the 2026/27 winter semester:
“An Intersectional Reflection on Jesus Christ: A Gender-Sensitive and Queer-Theological Perspective on the Topos of the Sonship of God”
