Images have caused uproar, violence, and even casualties in the meeting of religions and cultures during the last years. Late modern culture is dominated by images and is understood in concepts such as aestheticiation and symboliation. Theological debate is likewise performed through images, symbols, and rituals rather than through doctrines and beliefs. The authors from various research backgrounds seek to clarify the terms of reference and explore the diversity and disagreements in their use from a Christian perspective.

Hans Alma is a professor of psychology at the University for Humanistics at Utrecht.

Marcel Barnard is a professor of liturgics at the Protestant Th eological University in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Volker Kuster is a professor of communication design at the University Duisburg-Essen.

In late modernity theology has to perform an aesthetic turn, if it wants to break out of its current isolation. Theologians cannot limit themselves to biblical texts and Christian tradition as a frame of reference but also have to search for traces of God's presence in cultures and religions. God/Terror addresses the quest for God in the context of oppression, violence and terror from an aesthetic perspective. It looks at how artists and writers approach the relationship between God and Terror. Statements such as that from composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen: "9/11 was the greatest work of art ever" or from South African writer Adam Small: "Only literature can perform the miracle of reconciliation" - are occasions to reflect again about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, theology and the arts. As in a medieval diptych, the theme is mirroring god talk in memory of 9/11 and in the context of political conflicts in Germany, South Korea and South Africa. First published in German as Gott - Terror: ein Diptychon by Kohlhammer.

In late modernity theology has to perform an aesthetic turn, if it wants to break out of its current isolation. Theologians cannot limit themselves to biblical texts and Christian tradition as a frame of reference but also have to search for traces of God's presence in cultures and religions. God/Terror addresses the quest for God in the context of oppression, violence and terror from an aesthetic perspective. It looks at how artists and writers approach the relationship between God and Terror. Statements such as that from composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen: "9/11 was the greatest work of art ever" or from South African writer Adam Small: "Only literature can perform the miracle of reconciliation" - are occasions to reflect again about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, theology and the arts. As in a medieval diptych, the theme is mirroring god talk in memory of 9/11 and in the context of political conflicts in Germany, South Korea and South Africa. First published in German as Gott - Terror: ein Diptychon by Kohlhammer.

The regional contributions from Africa and Asia show how the old European made denominational differences fade in the light of African Instituted Churches or Pentecostalism. Reshaping Protestantism is not a backward oriented project of reconstructing the original but makes use of the inner protestant pluralism to cope with globalization and changing religious landscapes. Who reads through the different articles can only come to the conclusion: Yes, there is a contribution to be expected from mainline Protestantism in all its variety.