Between Dechurchification and Religious Persistence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Church

The analysis conducted in this chapter of the religious changes undergone by the Federal Republic since its founding considers the religious losses as well as the sometimes astonishing resistance of religious and church entities, but also the observable small religious increases. It addresses the following questions among others: Is it really the case that there has occurred a break in tradition in terms of people’s ties to the church? In which periods was religious change particularly dynamic, and in which periods was it less so? Did this change occur in the Catholic and Protestant churches in parallel? Are there counter-movements when it comes to free churches and small religious communities such as the charismatic churches? How have individualized forms of religiosity developed, especially those of non-church religiosity? The chapter not only describes religious changes in West Germany, but by referring to contextual conditions also explains the main tendencies observable there.

Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Horizons ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Beaudoin
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Spiritual Identity ◽  
Classroom Teaching ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Horizons ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-274
Author(s):  
J. Patrick Hornbeck
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Spiritual Identity ◽  
Classroom Teaching ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Horizons ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-292
Author(s):  
William L. Portier
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Spiritual Identity ◽  
Classroom Teaching ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
The Church

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Identity of Catholic Schools in Multi-religious Contexts

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Edmund Kee-Fook Chia
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Catholic Schools ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
The Church

The phenomenon of religious pluralism is a fact that needs no further discussion. How society and institutions are negotiating its impact, however, certainly needs further scrutiny. Schreiter's call for the construction of local theologies invites us to explore how the preaching of the Gospel has to adapt to the realities of new situations. The present article focuses on Catholic educational institutions and how they are dealing with the multi-cultural and multi-religious communities that are now found not only outside of the schools and universities but also within them as well. Its concern is with how the identity and mission of these Catholic institutions are expressed and measured in the new contexts, taking seriously the teachings of the Church on the role they play in its evangelizing mission.

German Angst

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Biess
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Peace Movements ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Relationship Of

German Angst analyzes the relationship of fear and democracy in postwar West Germany. While fear has historically been associated with authoritarian regimes, the book highlights the role of fear and anxiety in a democratizing society: these emotions undermined democracy and stabilized it at the same time. By taking seriously postwar Germans’ uncertainties about the future, the book challenges dominant linear and teleological narratives of postwar West German “success.” It highlights the prospective function of memories of war and defeat, of National Socialism and the Holocaust. Fears and anxieties derived from memories of a catastrophic past that postwar Germans projected into the future. Based on case studies from the 1940s to the present, the book provides a new interpretive synthesis of the Federal Republic. It tells the history of the Federal Republic as a series of recurring crises, in which specific fears and anxieties emerged, served a variety of political functions, and then again abated. Drawing on recent interdisciplinary insights of emotion studies, the book transcends the dichotomy of “reason” and “emotion.” Fear and anxiety were not exclusively irrational and dysfunctional but served important roles in postwar democracy. These emotions sensitized postwar Germans to the dangers of an authoritarian transformation, and they also served as the emotional engine of the environmental and peace movements. The book also provides an original analysis of the emotional basis of right-wing populism in Germany today, and it explores the possibilities of a democratic politics of emotion.

Patterns and Determinants of Religious Change in the Modern Period

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Market Model ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
State Spending ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Determining Factors

Chapter 14 does not design a general theory of religious change, but develops a multiple theoretical perspective including various theoretical elements, which are instrumental for explaining religious changes and which can be combined flexibly. In brief, they are: 1. Functional differentiation as a rule stands in a strained relationship to the integrational capacity of religious communities and churches. If, however, religious identities are linked with non-religious, for example, political, national, or economic interests, religion and church are strengthened. 2. Processes of individualization mostly have an erosive impact on religious ties. 3. In contrast to the assumptions of the market model, religious pluralism does not foster religious vitality, but actually inhibits it. In the case of conflict, though, religious diversity can fuel religious passions. Other determining factors such as government regulations of the religious sector, state spending on the welfare system, social inequality, immigration, and path dependency are also taken into account.

A POST-LIBERAL ORDER? HANS ZEHRER AND CONSERVATIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING IN 1950S WEST GERMANY

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCUS M. PAYK
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
West Germany ◽  
New Order ◽  
Consensus Building ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Specific Mode ◽  
Sociopolitical Context

While it is well known that German conservative intellectuals were skeptical or indifferent to the Federal Republic of Germany established in 1949 and to its democratic founding principles, this essay shifts attention to a specific mode of right-wing acceptance of the new order. Focusing on Hans Zehrer, a renowned journalist and notorious opponent of democracy in the Weimar Republic, I will demonstrate how right-wing intellectuals interpreted West Germany's political system as a post-liberal order after the “end of politics”. But this vision of transcending societal and intellectual conflicts in a meta-politics was neither entirely new nor simply raked up from the late 1920s but reshaped to fit the postwar sociopolitical context. The essay illuminates several intellectual connections between Weimar-era neoconservatism and the specific conservative consensus formed after 1949, but it also explores personnel continuities within a network of right-wing journalists as well as continuities in the field of journalistic style.

Reformation und politisch-gesellschaftliche Emanzipation

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Oberdorfer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Priesthood Of All Believers ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church ◽  
Modern Sense

AbstractThe relevance of the reformation for the development of modern liberty rights is much debated. Although the Protestant Reformers fought for the »Freedom of a Christian« against religious patronization, they were not tolerant in a modern sense of the term. However, the Reformation released long-term impulses which contributed to the origin and formation of a modern civil society, e. g. the respect for the autonomy of the individual over against the church, the passion for education, the emphasis on the »universal priesthood of all believers«, and the appreciation of civil professions. Long historical learning processes were necessary, though, until the Protestant churches acknowledged and adopted modern liberty rights, a participatory democracy and a pluralistic society as genuine forms of expression of a Protestant ethos.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document