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[Rolf Spinnler, Stuttgarter Zeitung dated 30.07.2000] The setting is perfect: A house in one of Tübingen's best hillside locations and a south-facing terrace. It's like a "gift from heaven", says the host and invites his guest to take a seat in the sunshine. With heavenly gift he is, of course, referring to the Global Ethnic Foundation, which has been based here since 1995 and has managed to win over and invite Tony Blair to Tübingen, Germany. British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be giving a talk at the university later today. Professor of theology, Hans Küng headed an institute for ecumenical research for 15 years, which was specially set up for him by the university following the loss of his professorial chair at the Catholic Theological Faculty as a result of pressure from the Vatican. Today, Küng reflects back on those turbulent days with a sense of calm distance, and even a sense of thankfulness. He now views past events as having something to do with a kind of cunning of reason that transformed the forced break in his career into a real opportunity. In any case, Küng has been able to put the too narrow horizons of his own Church and its dogmatism, as he experienced it, behind him and with books such as "Christ sein", "Existiert Gott?" and "Projekt Weltethos" has been able to establish a genuine fan base that includes people usually more distant to the church. At last, he has been able to get over the loss of Rome's blessing. Nothing that Küng now does is done without considering the global picture. Among these fans is Karl Konrad Graf von der Groeben, who saw Küng's retirement from the university in 1995 as his chance. Having just finished reading Küng's book entitled "Projekt Weltethos", he decided to help project along by creating a foundation. "We have to get away from singing the praises of self-realization and materialism, we have to make it clear to people that in order to live together in peace and freedom high ethical standards are needed." No sooner had these words been said, than the Global Ethical Foundation was founded, making Hans Küng its president there and then. As if on a mission to prove Huntington wrong Küng gives his visitor a series of brochures describing in more detail the Foundation's activities. Its aim is to promote intercultural and inter-religious dialogue: Through research and educational work in schools and colleges, as well as through the organization of congresses and symposiums. Küng firmly believes that world peace cannot be achieved without peace among the religions. His devotion over the past few years to a study into the world's largest religions, which involved a great deal of work on Buddhism and Hinduism, Judaism and Islam and resulted not only in a number of books, but also a seven-part TV series, is a reflection of his belief. It would appear as if Küng is set on proving wrong the American political scientist, Samual Huntigton, who sees an approaching global battle between cultures caused by the competition between religions. In contrast, Küng is looking for common ground within the world's religions. He strongly believes that despite their dogmatic differences, a "minimum basic consensus" with regard to binding values, unshakable standards and basic moral attitudes can be distilled out of them. He calls this "Global Ethic". Indeed, Küngs think-tank in Tübingen not only thinks globally, it also acts globally. It played a leading role in the "Declaration Towards a Global Ethic", that was adopted by the Parliament of the World's Religions on 4 September 1993 in Chicago, as well as providing effective arguments for the Declaration of Human that was published in 1997 by an association of former state and government leaders under the chairmanship of former German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. With a hint of pride, he explains to his visitor that he will be presenting his project to a meeting of religious leaders in New York; His calendar in the coming year also includes a UN conference on intercultural dialogue. Unshakable directives The Declaration Towards a Global Ethic adopted in Chicago contains küng's aimed-for minimum standards in the form of four "unshakable directives". All people should be committed to a "culture of nonviolence and respect and especially life", to "solidarity and a fair economic system", to "tolerance and a life of honesty" and, finally, to "equality and partnership between men and woman". Küng is the first to admit that these commitments are very general and that issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia had to be left out, as a consensus in these areas simply could not be found. Indeed, it is precisely these issues that are at the top of the global agenda and are the centre of heated arguments. Be that as it may, Küng is not going to be put off. He believes that a cautious middle course can be found for resolving these controversial issues. To this end, he is concentrating on a third way, away from fundamentalism and "pluralism at will". He is also at pains to defend himself from the suspicion that he wants to replace religion with ethics and mix traditional religions into a "cocktail of religions". The Global Ethics project is not striving to create a universal religion. Talks around the issue of Human Responsibilities led to a controversial debate. Critics saw an attack being made on the liberal culture of individual enforceable human rights. Küng's project, however, does not deny its closeness to communitarian criticism of liberalism, even if he admits that in Germany the word "responsibility" has negative connotations and that he would prefer to talk about a "sense of responsibility". At the end of the day, however, its not surprising that Küng can now include to his fan base a politician, who himself is a confessed communitarian (and a confessed Christian): The British prime minister, Tony Blair (...).
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