As early as 2008, in her Discourses on Learning, Käte Meyer-Drawe coined the metaphor of the 'high-speed learner' as a new model for the learning sciences: oriented towards the requirements of increased efficiency and optimization, learning tends to become a process that should not be interrupted by disturbances and irritations. However, from the perspective of the philosophy of education, it is precisely such 'negative' moments of interruption that are considered to have an important educational potential. The relevance of these perspectives lies not least in the fact that even in current cultural studies discourses, moments can be identified that attribute to negativity a high significance for anthropological questions and for questions concerning the shaping of human self and world relations, which has so far received far too little attention. The lecture aims to take up the last-mentioned traces and to translate them into the context of religious education. Experiences of negativity (unavailability, absence, irritations, conflicts and failure) characterize a theological thinking that is oriented towards the biblical narratives. An attempt is made to show by way of example what educational potential can be developed from a stronger theological consideration of such negative elements in religious learning processes and how this can be used in the context of transformational educational processes.