Kirchen

Dropping the Curtain: The Religious-Secular Party Cleavage in German Morality Politics

“…Our findings suggest that the described changes of Christian Democracy throughout Europe have not provoked pronounced changes in the societal foundations of the party conflict; instead, the denominational divide is still relevant — at least in Germany. Still, it should be noted that Catholicism itself is undergoing change, as more and more people question traditional creeds and accept more heterogeneity (Willems 2007).…”

“…More specifically, MPs without membership in a religious communityso-called non-affiliated MPsprofit from the politicization of morality issues because such issues may mobilize new secular voters and align with the MPs' permissive policy positions regarding morality policies in public. In addition, we expect Protestants to behave differently (and in particular less coherently) than Catholics, as the Catholic Church is organized more hierarchically and formulates more explicitly and uniformly restrictive positions toward morality policies (Willems 2007). For instance, some Protestant priests in Germany blessed homosexual couples in the past, although the main representative organ of the Protestant Church did not allow it.…”

Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology: On the Structure of Churches’ Public Engagement in South Africa and Germany

“…Apart from the general structures that were presented in this article, the state, for example, grants the mainline churches further access to many counselling and decision-making committees in important political fields such as media boards (so-called Rundfunkräte), Departments for Media Harmful to Young Persons (socalled Prüfstellen für jugendgefährdende Medien) and the National Council for Ethics (socalled Nationaler Ethikrat). 116 Probably the most significant sign for the constitutional openness and willingness of the German state to engage with religious groups in general and the churches in special is the right to self-determined religious education in public schools granted in Art. 7.3 of the German Constitution.…”

“…117 Many politicians themselves are members of the two mainline churches, and some of them are even active in Christian suborganisations of their respective parties, as evidenced by the Evangelische Arbeitskreis der cdu/csu (eak) [Protestant assembly of Christian in the cdu/csu]. 118 It is clear, thirdly, that in both South Africa and Germany many churches are also willing to set up structures to engage with political publics. In Germany the ekd and in South Africa the Catholic Bishops Conference in particular have rather advanced structures in place such as, for example, the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.…”