(C17) The Role of the Christian Churches in Public

The aim of the study “The Role of the Christian Churches in Public”, headed by Prof. Dr. Judith Könemann, was to analyse the civil societal participation of the Christian churches, taking as an example legislative decisions concerning conflicts of values and interests with the accompanying public sociopolitical debates in the Federal Republic of Germany on the basis of the topics of abortion and immigration.

On the one hand, on an empirical level, the project contributes to researching the participation of religious actors in public debates. On the other hand, it investigates the conditions and possibilities of participating under the influence of diverse determinants of the Federal Republic’s political system. The following fundamental questions are central: what part do religious actors or the Christian churches themselves and their respective (religious) convictions and attitudes play in public discourse under the conditions of the political system, and what are the consequences of their participation for the debate of sociopolitical topics and for their own self-conception?