What are your expectations of this meeting?

Dealing with the biblical text and listening to each other’s voices from different contexts should lead us to a genuinely transtextual understanding.

What is your hermeneutical key for understanding the Bible?

Being rooted in a traditional European Lutheran tradition, the hermeneutical key for me is Jesus Christ in whom the ineffable essence of God became graspable.

What challenges does biblical interpretation face in the Lutheran communion today?

In the global North, especially in Europe, Christianity is rapidly dwindling. The vast majority of Lutherans will soon be located in the global South.

This will bring considerable changes, since context significantly shapes the reading of sacred texts. Traditional approaches will fade away; new ones are emerging.

It will be a challenge to hear each other’s voices, including those that historically have been prevalent.

What are the opportunities?

Meeting one another face-to-face enables communication not only based on scientific exchange but also colored and enhanced by human warmth. This draws us closer to one another and grounds our openness to each other’s contexts.

Rev. Dr Virgil László is counselor to the bishop of the Northern Diocese of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary, an LWF member church, and currently working on his PhD in theology.

Interview conducted March 2013