EXC 2060 B3-23 - "Religious Education 4.0". Strategies concerning Freedom and Collaboration in Religious Education and Ethics

Period
Status
In Process
Funding Source
DFG - Cluster of Excellence
Project Number
EXC 2060/1

  • Description

    Religious education leaves a sophisticated impression regarding the dynamic and challenges of a pluralist religious culture. The research Projects commences with a normative consideration: the constitution (Grundgesetz) determines religious education as a regular subject in public schools  yet simultaneously deals with the possibilities of exemption from these classes.
    Our interdisciplinary question is based on the assumption that this model is sufficiently complex; for it provides an adequate margin to take up the pluralization of religious culture whilst offering a new concept for further development.
    The vital cooperation between the State (responsible for establishment of the schools) and religious groups (responsible for the content taught in class) can be interpreted as a vote for an, in principle, modern and viable, open model.
    With this fundamental hypothesis the Project critically questions a wide-spread assumption which treats religious education as a traditional element of the traditional law of the State Church (Staatskirchenrecht). This law revolves around conveying religious beliefs under the State's umbrella.
    To exit this conflicting situation some argue that religious education in public schools is rational and detached, as incited by the State.
    Conversely, the project raises the question: which function fulfills and which prerequisites does religious education have as a special place of encounter with the religion under the conditions of the present - for the individual and communal religious identity, but also for a demanding concept of mutual integration in the present Civil society under conditions of religious and ideological plurality?

  • Persons