fiit-broschuere2024 - Flipbook - Seite 70
At the presentation of the Manfred Lautenschläger
Award for Theological Promise 2022, the South
African colleague Dirk Smit, who now teaches at
Princeton, gave a captivating speech with a declaration of love for the university and for intellectual
and spiritual Heidelberg. In addition to paying tribute to the significant impulses of Karl Jaspers, Hannah Arendt, Max Weber, and Hans Georg Gadamer,
Dirk Smit began his eulogy with references to the memorial plaque
to Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation on the University Square and to
Frederick III in Heidelberg Castle. He also drew attention to Edmund
Schlink, a member of the Confessing Church, who was appointed to
Heidelberg in 1946, where he established the first Ecumenical Institute
at a German university, which is now headed by Prof. Nüssel. From
1953 to 1954, Schlink was rector of the university. Luther’s Heidelberg
Disputation and his theology of the cross were the focus of both Schlink’s inaugural lecture as a professor and his rector’s speech on the
occasion of the 567th anniversary of the University of Heidelberg on
November 21, 1953, entitled “Wisdom and Folly.”
As this summary ends, there must be a few references to a major
project currently underway, which is due to be concluded with a major conference in Heidelberg in 2024. Around 150 colleagues from all
over the world are involved in the project, including twenty-five colleagues from Heidelberg. The project, which was launched at FIIT in
Heidelberg in 2018, is entitled “Character development, ethical education, and the communication of values in late modern pluralistic
societies.” It is largely funded by the McDonald
Agape Foundation, Silver Spring, MD, USA.
70