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[German Version] I. Concept and Scope – II. Practical Theology I. Concept and Scope In its broad sense, the term media denotes all the material conditions that enable coexisting individuals (individual persons and social systems) to be effectively present to each other and to respond effectively. Media in this broad sense are the material conditions for intersubjectivity. Even archaic, undifferentiated societies are characterized by a – likewise undifferentiated – complex of media. Social differentiation leads to…

[German Version] Technical colleges ( Fachschulen) were established in German-speaking Europe during the 19th century as a result of the “scientification of production” (Grüner, 248). Until c. 1890, senior technical colleges ( Fachhochschulen) could also be called technical colleges; since that time, the increasing differentiation of the educational system has narrowed the definition of technical colleges. The definition established on Oct 29, 1937, is still in effect: “Technical colleges are schools that provide training in a…

[German Version] The Synoptic Gospels explicitly report that Jesus blessed children (Mark 10:13– 16 parr.). Whether an early Christian practice lies behind this report is an open question (Hahn). Later, the pericope was naturally employed at the baptism of children (Baptism) and was also used for its theological legitimization (e.g. Luther in WA 17/II, 72–88; Calvin in CR 45, 534–536). Against the background of the theological critique of pedobaptism by K. Barth ( KD IV/4), recent pedagogical objections (Stuhlmann), and the emerging …

[German Version] I. Terminology The German word Gottesdienst (“worship,” lit. “service of God”) is attested since the 13th/14th century as a German translation of Latin cultus (Cult/Worship). It came into common use in the 16th century, especially in Luther’s works. Starting with an ethical understanding of the word, Luther himself used it as a technical term for the common celebration of the Word of God, as it evolved from the evangelical reform of the Catholic sacrifice (IV) of the mass. For centuries the term Gottesdienst remained limited to this specific form of worship of …

[German Version] (Jul 18, 1877, Berlin – Mar 13, 1963, Potsdam). Following theological studies in Berlin, during which he developed a lifelong attachment to the CVJM (YMCA equivalent), and after short temporary employments as a private tutor and curate, Le Seur was appointed mission inspector of the Berlin City Mission by A. Stoecker in 1905 and later became his successor. It was in the course of these activities – which were only interrupted by a military chaplaincy in Brussels during World War I…

[German Version] I. Ethics – II. Practical Theology I. Ethics The Greek noun κρίσις/ krísis originally denoted the action derived from the verb κρίνειν/ krínein: (a) “sepa¶ ration, quarrel”; (b) “selection”; (c) “decision, judgment, verdict”; (d) “turning point (in a battle or disease)” (cf. also criticism, kairology). The adoption of the forensic sense in the LXX added a theological dimension to the term. In the NT, krísis stands for the verdict of the judge, the court of judgment, and especially the eschatological Divine Judgment, the ultimate separ…

[German Version] I. Terminology The growing popularity of the term spirituality and its equivalents in other Western languages in religious and theological literature is a 20th-century phenomenon. Although the adjective spiritalis (or spiritualis) appeared in early Christian Latin, translating Pauline πνευματικός/ pneumatikós (1 Cor 2:13–3:1, etc.), along with its antonym carnalis (for σαρκικός/ sarkikós) and rapidly became common, the noun spiritualitas did not appear until the 5th century and then only sporadically. In the 12th century, it began to app…

[German Version] Church statistics record the measurable data of the church’s life and circumstances. Such statistics, in a preliminary stage, begin to appear in the 14th century, in the form of registers recording baptisms, marriages, and burials (Ministerial offices). In the Churches of the Reformation, too, we soon find church registers with similar entries. The beginning of modern statistics was signaled by the numerical recording of data to identify regularities (political arithmetic). As the…

[German Version] I. The Term and the Academic Discipline – II. Religious Studies – III. Social Science – IV. Practical Theology I. The Term and the Academic Discipline Folklore is concerned with material and linguistic traditions (e.g. dwellings, costumes, dialects, fairy tales), the spiritual and religious life of the “common people” (Customs, Piety), as well as with historical and contemporary phenomena of everyday culture. Unlike ethnology, folklore is regionally limited to Europe. During the formative stage, folklo…

[German Version] A family service in the narrower sense refers to a form of worship that generally replaces the normal Sunday morning church service (including children's church), is usually prepared and organized by a team, and focuses on special needs, problems, as well as on the hopes and joys of families. After initial precursors, especially in the German Democratic Republic (Eichenberg) and not least because of problems that had arisen with the children's service there, the concept of family services emerged the late 1960s and early 1970s i…

[German Version] I. History Religious education (RE) in schools, in modern usage of the term (for RE in a broader sense see Christian doctrine classes, Confirmation classes), is the result of the general differentiation process that led to the promotion of religious learning beyond the contexts of family and worship. The schools of the European cultural sphere arose largely in the area of the church (School and church, Church schools, Monastery schools); for a long time, schooling was essentially based on religious texts. Since each country established its own particular forms…

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[German Version] Halieutica, derived from Mark 1:17 (Gk ἁλιεὺς ἀνϑρώπων/ halieús anthrṓpôn, “fisher of men”), was the term for a sub-discipline of practical…

[German Version] In areas where children are traditionally baptized shortly after birth, and where baptism is still effectively coterminous with social location, admission to the church is regarded as self-evident. Churches requiring so-called “believer's baptism” (or “credobaptism”) have also developed routines for church admission, for example in the form of blessing and presentation ceremonies or of a customary age for baptism, often without awareness of the a…

[German Version] I. Definition In the Middle Ages, it was common to call theology practica in contrast to speculativa (e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I/I q. 4f.; but contrast Luther, ¶ WA.TR, 153). In German…

[German Version] The night (Day and night) has particular significance for the feeling of human beings and thus also for their religious practice (on the findings of the phenomenology of religion, see Reimbold). In all cultures, not only those without electricity, the night is a realm of ambivalent experience, in which – as the symbolic use of night demonstrates – anxiety and fear of the dark (Light and darkness) and destruction predominate, but, on the other hand, the stillness of the night, for …

[German Version] I. Theology – II. Church Law – III. Practical Theology I. Theology Consecration (Ger. Einsegnung) is a theologically vague term of liturgical (or more specifically benedicti…

[German Version] (Jan 12, 1788, Bremen – Aug 22, 1868, Bremen), Protestant clergyman. From 1814 he was associated with G. Menken ¶ at the Church of St. Martin in Bremen; in 1826 he succeeded Menken as pastor primarius. A man of great organizational ability, he founded and supported numerous associations, primarily for missionary and charitable purpo…

[German Version] The relationship between school and church reflects the relationship between church and state and current views in education or educational theory (Education, Theory of) and religion or theology – it is therefore subject to change and is subject to different regulations in different countries. In antiquity there were no schools for Christian children. The earliest emerged in monasteries, which – as the Prologus Regulae Benedicti (45) states – could be thought of as dominici scola servitii. Over time – initiated by the ¶ offering of children as oblates (I) – mona…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies People and nationhood are functional political terms that serve to define a collective entity and to incorporate it into a specific context (see III below). Only since the 18th century has it been possible to speak of a German nation as the active subject of its own history. The rupture of the church at the Reformation and the subsequent wars of religion in the 16th and 17th century long prevented the development of an inclusive political or religious identity…