Increasingly intense research on the topic of resilience is taking place, but the fields of theology and philosophy are now only gradually entering the debate. The constitutive significance of religion and spirituality for the phenomenon of resilience is well recognized, but its theoretical clarification and practical usage are as yet unclear. The findings of the Bonn project on 'Resilience and Spirituality' thus close a gap in the research. Theoretical, literary and traditional practice findings are expanding previous lines of research and represent an invitation to carry out interdisciplinary criticism, amplification and further development. The essays in this volume formulate well-founded specialist criteria for a critique of a concept of resilience that has been commercially hollowed out: resilience is not a harmless 'wellness' concept, but designates an ambivalent crisis phenomenon that needs to be precisely comprehended. It is only in this way that the concept and phenomenon of resilience will be able to develop their crisis-stabilizing effects.
Prof. Cornelia Richter teaches systematic theology and hermeneutics at the University of Bonn and is Co-Director of the Bonn Institute of Hermeneutics.
