The Rostock Faculty of Theology programmatically summarizes its research and teaching agenda under the heading “Christianity and Culture.”

Religion is a cultural phenomenon. Believing in God, thinking, and celebrating can only take shape within the forms that culture provides and within which religious communication is embedded. Every society lives within such symbolic orders, which it derives from its traditions or develops through cultural interaction.

In order to speak responsibly about God in a contemporary way, culture must be taken into account. Culture appears in mediated forms (image, text, performance), in interpretations (bodies of knowledge and their respective claims to power), and in religious practice (individual, Christian, ecclesial, hybrid).

All theological subdisciplines that reflect on these comprehensive cultural processes contribute to the scholarly interpretation of reality. In this sense, theology in Rostock takes on the role of a cultural studies discipline. As such, it develops its distinctive profile, which makes it unique within the plurality of the sciences. Its particular field of study is Christianity, with its traditions and texts, its history and future. In doing so, it participates in the discourse on understanding reality and its claims to truth.

At the Faculty of Theology in Rostock, the question is explored of what significance the cultural studies research program has for theological issues and, conversely, what societal relevance theology holds for the culture that surrounds us.