Towards Interreligious Spiritual Hospitality: A Lutheran Perspective

Abstract

When we reflect on the role of the majority of humanity and its relationship with nature it is almost and always more of dependency and consumption. Very seldom does dominant humanity reciprocate in gratitude to the hospitality of nature or what nature offers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a Lutheran perceptive towards an interreligious spiritual hospitality. I will explain how Martin Luther’s theology centered on a revised Christology that reestablishes the relation between the Creator and the Creation though the person and work of Jesus Christ (Christology). For Luther “…the Creator is continually overflowing into the created world: The Creator is ‘in, with, and under’ all things immediately present, not high and lifted up at the apex of some grand hierarchy, far removed from this world …” (Paul Santmire) but integral and intrinsic to the world. Luther’s theology is very helpful to understand Spiritual Hospitality. How do we extend spiritual hospitality in a world full of degradation and exploitation, in a world where there is so much violence and competition? While Luther’s theology, theology of the cross and other aspects can illumine our understanding of Spiritual Hospitality, I would like to use Luther’s doctrine of Communicatio idamatum as a hermeneutical tool towards an understanding of Spiritual Hospitality. In the second part of the paper I propose a model of interreligious spiritual hospitality explaining an intra⁻religious model of dialogue prepared by the Lutheran and Catholic churches.