Jörg Lauster

Jörg Lauster tells the biography of the Holy Spirit from the creation story to early Christian, mystical, philosophical and romantic ideas of the spirit to today’s Pentecostal Christianity and to the question of where in a disenchanted world the spirit becomes audible. He vividly shows how new beginnings have repeatedly occurred in the name of the Spirit, but also explores the dark side of this mysterious power.

Besides God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the “triune God”. He hovered over the primeval flood before creation, descended upon Jesus at his baptism, and caused the apostles to preach in foreign languages in the miracle of Pentecost. The Spirit appears as a purring wind and a roaring storm, as fire and dove, in the church and in the open air. He is the great transforming power, inciting acts of love, fueling visions, inspiring artists and preachers, undermining traditions and authorities, and driving history forward as the world spirit.
In his biography of the Holy Spirit, Jörg Lauster goes far beyond the history of theology, for in political utopias, in philosophical ideas of freedom, in the artistic cult of genius, or in the modern contemplation of nature, it becomes apparent how the Spirit also finds expression in a secularized world. The secret center of this first biography of the Holy Spirit is the philosophy of the Renaissance, which connects the Middle Ages and modernity, divine and human spirit, like a hinge.

Jörg Lauster is professor of systematic theology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and has held visiting professorships in Venice, Rome, and Chile.