Prof. Dr. Moritz Fischer

World Christianities and Mission History

Aim of the professorship of World Christianities and Mission History is to qualifying students of different confessional, cultural and national backgrounds to work within and beyond churches and institutions in their ability to reflect historically and critically in times of global political, social, and spiritual changes.

From a historical, social science and theoretical perspective, I pursue questions of identity in local and global Christianity with my general research focus on the “intercultural history of Christianity”. This is done taking into account fundamental transformation processes (such as globalisation and migration) and with reference to intercultural and interreligious interaction processes. "Intercultural History of Christianity" is located in the overlapping area of church history, history, missiology and religious studies, ecumenism, and intercultural theology.

Academic and professional career

• Year of birth: 1961
• Study of Theology in Marburg and Munich (1983-1987)
• Lecturer at Bible-School Mwika as Ecumenical Pastor/ Missionary for the Evangelical-Lutheran Church/ Northern Diocese (ELCT-ND) of Tanzania; Assistant at the Desk for Mission & Evangelization under Maasai, 1992-2000
• PhD (University of Heidelberg: Mission- and Religion Studies): “Maasai Shaping Christianity. The integrating Power of Traditional Religion under the influence of the Gospel”, 2000
• Congregation-Pastor at Wettelsheim and Bubenheim (Middle Franconia/ Bavaria), 2000-2005
• Assistant to Professor at Augustana Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria/ Neuendettelsau, 2005-2012
• Lecturer at the desk of Mission-Intercultural of Mission-One-World / Centre for Mission, Partnership and Ecumenism of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria/ Neuendettelsau, 2005-2013
• Habilitation (Augustana Theological Seminary: Faculty of Mission- and Religious Studies/ Intercultural Theology): “Pentecostal Movement between Fragility and Empowerment. Perceptions of the Pentecostal Church ‘Nzambe-Malamu’ and its Transnational Entanglements”, 2010
• Appointment as ´Privatdozent` (Lecturer/PD) for Intercultural Theology/ Mission- and Religion Studies at Augustana - Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria, 2011
• Appointment as Theological Lecturer and Managing Director of the Evangelical Association (Evangelischer Bund) Bayern (0,5). Appointment as Congregation Pastor at Bruckberg (0,5), 2013
• Part time substitute of the Chair of Religion Studies at the University of Erlangen (Lecture “Introduction to Islam”), 2015
• Professor for World Christianity and Mission History at University of Applied Sciences for Intercultural Theology Hermannsburg, since April 2019

Activities/Responsibilities at FIT

• Scholarship committee
• Course coordination of the MA ICT programme on the part of FIT
• Coordination of devotions and services in the FIT chapel.
• Research commission.

Areas of Research

• Entangled historiography of Christianity and mission history
• Transformation processes of Christian identities and tensions between regional-traditional and global cultural self- and foreign determination (“Ecumenical studies”)
• Migration research in an interdisciplinary perspective in its application to recent denominational studies

Responsibilities in committees, including active membership

• Deputy chair of the German Society for Missiology (DGMW).
• Coordinator of the international DGMW research prize for intercultural theology, which was awarded for the first time in 2022 (39 academic theses submitted in the field of intercultural theology).
• Member of the Intercultural Theology Section: Scientific Society for Theology (WGT)
• Member of the International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS)
• Member of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on World-Christianity and the History of Mission
• Commission member for the re-accreditation of Korntal University 2021/22
• Member of the Ludwig Harms Board of Trustees
• Peer reviewer for the African Theological Journal (ATJ) in Makumira
• Doctoral supervision (in cooperation with 1. Faculty of Theology, Berlin (Chair of IKTh), 2. Faculty of Theology Makumira, Tanzania (Chair of Church history), and third Faculty of Theology Rostock (Chair of IKTh).