Digitization in the Evangelical Church(es) in Germany: Exemplary Insights

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Ilona Nord ◽  
Katharina Alt ◽  
Thomas Zeilinger

This article presents exemplary insights into the state of digitization and the corresponding efforts of selected Evangelical Churches in Germany (the federal ekd and three of its member churches) to address an array of challenges triggered by the digital transformation. Three short reports on broader studies demonstrate how the church is responding to these challenges as an actor within civil society, as well as an organization and a community of faith. This preliminary assessment suggests that the ekd is capable of both: taking part in the societal debate as well as designing and reinventing itself anew in the digital realm. Nevertheless, it will do well to figure out more context-sensitive solutions while stimulating both ethical and theological discussions.

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-187
Author(s):  
Ehrhart Neubert

Abstract The author examines the consequences of dictatorship upon the conciousness of law and justice in the postsocialist society of East-Germany. This society and even the Church are characterized by a moralizing thinking of justice- according to the German tradition of paternalistic state: the state grants justice and represents community. Ever after theseGermans regard themselves as inferiors, who want to get adjusted into a disciplined order. This leeds to disappointments and radical criticism of the democratic constitutional state. Law is not able to realize ultimatejustice. For the aceptance ofthe constitutional state it will be necessary to restore civil society and overcome a fundamentalistic criticism of civilisation.


Author(s):  
Jakub Michalak

Evangelical Church had an important role in the GDR as far as the activities of opposition at the beginning of 1970s and 1980s are concerned. Indeed, it was outside the institution of the Unity Party. Within the vicinity of the church, people were to create a feeling of solidarity between those aggrieved by the system and the first grassroots activists. During 1989 and 1990 Lutheran church became the starting point for mass demonstrations and a peaceful revolution. In addition, the invitation of the party and the opposition to committees’ meeting on Dec. 7, 1989 was published on behalf of the Association of Evangelical Churches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Moser ◽  
Malan Nel

The evangelical church in North America is facing a crisis in its failure to retain young people. Research has shown that young people are dropping out of the church and they are not only leaving but also failing to return once they are older. This crisis did not appear in a vacuum; it is the result of the church’s movement towards a style of programming that has created a division between evangelism and discipleship. This style of programme not only seeks to reach those outside of the church at the expense of those youth in the church but also creates a dichotomy between who we are (our identity) and what we do (our mission). The church must seek to remove this dichotomy between identity and mission and utilise strategies that work with our identity rather than against it.Intradisciplinary and/or Interdisciplinary Implications: This article is an interaction between practical theology and pastoral practice in Christian ministry. The crisis of youth leaving evangelical churches in North America is because of the dichotomy between mission and identity. Once this dichotomy is erased, mission will be a natural outworking of identity in youth ministry.


1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst C. Helmreich

Ludwig Müller, former naval chaplain and confidant of Hitler, had managed in September 1933 to get himself elected bishop of the newly organized German Evangelical Church, which was intended to bring all the Evangelical churches under one head. His election had caused great controversy, and the conflict (Kirchenkampf) which soon developed led to the establishment of the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) in opposition to the church government headed by Bishop Müller. This disorder in the church delayed Müller's formal installation, but it finally took place with great pomp on September 23, 1934, in the Berlin Cathedral, despite the deliberate absence of many churchmen as well as important political officials. Müller could not have been a particularly happy man on that day, although he had long sought this formal ecclesiastical blessing. He was definitely in hot water, and many sought his removal from office.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Ogola

Africa faces a double Covid-19 crisis. At once it is a crisis of the pandemic, at another an information framing crisis. This article argues that public health messaging about the pandemic is complicated by a competing mix of framings by a number of actors including the state, the Church, civil society and the public, all fighting for legitimacy. The article explores some of these divergences in the interpretation of the disease and how they have given rise to multiple narratives about the pandemic, particularly online. It concludes that while different perspectives and or interpretations of a crisis is not necessarily wrong, where these detract from the crisis itself and become a contestation of individual and or sector interests, they birth a new crisis. This is the new crisis facing the continent in relation to the pandemic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
V.P. Kirilenko ◽  
◽  
G.V. Alekseev ◽  

Cyberspace crime is a critical threat to the information security of the state and civil society institutions. Inside global network the abuse of computer user’s trust allows organized criminal groups to achieve their economic and political goals by committing offenses in the international information space. The methods of participatory observation, comparative legal and discourse analysis show that digital transformation has weakened the influence of the state on the development of the cultural sphere of society, and computer technologies have become the object of interests of criminal structures. Digital transformation has created virtual reality based on the laws and regulations of the networked community. Civil society by rejecting most of the peremptory norms imposed by national governments for political purposes produce victims of a wide range of cybercrimes: fraud and computer misuse offences and obscene publications. Since digital transformation is a universal phenomenon that will inevitably change the life of the entire world community, it is necessary to reach a consensus on the development and implementation of modern international agreement which, on the one hand, will guarantee freedom of speech and the right of every person to access information, and on the other hand will protect citizens, states and social institutions from criminal encroachments in an actively developing digital environment.


Porta Aurea ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 257-274
Author(s):  
Magdalena Staręga

This article discusses widely unknown designs of the Evangelical church in the village of Orunia near Gdańsk from 1816–1819. The concepts preserved in the State Archive in Gdańsk contain as many as eight variants of the reconstruction of the meeting house destroyed during a siege in 1813. The author of these concepts was the contemporary city architect Carl Samuel Held. As a student of Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732–1808), one of the greatest Prussian architects of that time, Held consistently used classicist forms throughout his body of work. His first two designs for the reconstruction of the church in question were in line with the so-called revolutionary classicism. The following six neo-Gothic variants constituted a formal exception in his oeuvre. Moreover, the case of the Orunia church was the only time he ever attempted to design a sacral building. The clumsiness in the use of neo-Gothic forms, as well as the inability to fit into the assumed financial framework contributed to the rejection of Held’s designs. Eventually, the project by August von Gersdorff verified by the head of the Higher Construction Deputy Karl Friedrich Schinkel was the one that was implemented. The construction was completed in 1823. The forms used in the building exhibit inspiration drawn from the Teutonic castle in Malbork. The prime mover behind their use was the Oberpräsident of the Province of West Prussia Theodor von Schön, promoter of the restoration work at the castle. The church in Orunia is the first case of a building with neo-Gothic features in Gdańsk and its area, as well as the first construction with forms intentionally referring to the Malbork Castle, a landmark symbolizing the essence of Germanity.


2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 287a-287a
Author(s):  
Mariz Tadros

This paper asserts that in 1952 an entente was forged between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Egyptian government that provided the church with concessions in return for its political allegiance to the regime. The period prior to 1952 also witnessed the Coptic church leadership forging alliances with regimes in power; however, its ability to represent Copts vis-à-vis the state was rivaled by other Coptic voices in civil society such as the Majlis al-Milli. From 1952 on, the inhibition of Copts' voices in civil society increased the church's political power, and it developed into the undisputed voice representing the Coptic community. The relationship between church and state in the past fifty years has been volatile, affected not only by the nature of the relationship between leaders of the church and state but also by the emergence of other important players within and outside these two entities. Strains characteristic of the period leading up to the temporary dissolution of the entente in the 1970s are becoming visible today in the church–state relationship. This paper suggests that the current entente between the church and the state is being stretched to its limit although it is not likely to be dissolved.


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