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[German Version] (Aug 31, 1817, Hildesheim – Sep 17, 1889, Kreiensen). In 1837 Reuter began studying Protestant theology in Göttingen; in 1838 he moved to Berlin, where he combined theology with history and philosophy. Close friendly exchange of ideas with Rudolf v. Ihering (later a renowned jurist) and attentiveness to the political historicism of the universal historians confirmed him in a “historical method” that admitted no difference between so-called secular historians and church historians.…

[German Version] The origin of the term is disputed. Some point to L. Uhland's Auswanderung in die Ver-¶ gangenheit [Emigration into the past] (1848), some to the author Frank Thiess (1890–1977), who claimed the term, which quickly became prominent after 1933, as his own. Inner emigration and its synonyms such as “emigration inward” or “spiritual exile” refer to the non-political habitus of artists and authors such as J. Klepper, R. Schneider, and W. Bergengruen under the conditions of the National Socialist dict…

[German Version] (May 1, 1780, Hildesheim – May 31, 1846, Berlin), theologian and church historian. After studying Protestant theology and philosophy in Göttingen with G.J. Planck, C.F. v. Ammon, K.F. Stäudlin, and J.G. Eichhorn, Marheineke received his Dr.Phil. in 1803 from Erlangen. In 1804 he was appointed lecturer on the Protestant faculty at Erlangen and in 1805 associate professor of church history and university preacher. From 1807 to 1811 he was professor of New Testament, practical theolo…

[German Version] (Jun 29, 1862, Bremen – Mar 13, 1940, Gießen), Protestant church historian. He studied in history, philosophy, and theology in Heidelberg, Jena, Gießen, and Göttingen. He was awarded a Dr.theol. in Jena (1884) and a Lic.theol. in Gießen (1886), where he became associate professor for church history in 1889 and full professor in 1891. Deeply rooted in the education-oriented cultural Protestantism of the prewar period, the “social aristocrat” Krüger edited the Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte für Studierende (1909–1912, 21923–1932), and the Theologischer Jahresbe…

[German Version] (Oct 28, 1942, Leipzig – Dec 31, 2001, Leipzig). Nowak gained his Abitur in 1961; he refused military service, and after working in the Leipzig city theater, and then with the Leipzig theater company, began to study theology in 1964. With a church history dissertation on “Euthanasia and Sterilization in the Third Reich,” a German studies dissertation under Claus Träger on Schleiermacher (1984), and a further dissertation on “The Protestant Church and the WeimarRepublic,” he gained a high repu…

[German Version] Despite intensive historical research, the origins of the term cultural Protestantism have been identified only in broad outline. Originally it was not a self-designation but a polemical term used by others, reflecting the florescence of cultural semantics (Culture: II) in the late 19th and early 20th century. In all European societies, the widespread sense of a crisis of modernity, the cultural pessimism rife among the bourgeoisie, and the relat…

[German Version] (Friends of Light). Lichtfreunde was the name given to the “Protestantische Freunde,” an association of rationalistic early liberal Protestant clergy and laity in Saxony and Prussia organized in 1841. The term, borrowed from Freemasonry, was originally used for adherents of the Enlightenment in general; by the time journals bearing this name were established in Saxony (1831) and Frankfurt am Main (1836), it was serving as a programmatic label for consistent support of the Enlightenme…

[German Version] While studying the ecumenical movements of the 20th century, the sociologist Peter L. Berger developed “A Market Model for the Analysis of Ecumenicity” (1963). His theory stated that a termination of confessional culture clashes and processes of ecumenical cooperation between traditionally rivaling confessional churches followed goal-oriented and pragmatic partisan calculations, among others. Inspired by the Neoliberal Chicago School of Economics, religious economists such as Roge…

[German Version] The expression “social radicalism” is used in everyday language, in the technical terminology of various academic disciplines, and in political discourse. In German political terminology it is first attested in the ideological debates of the Vormärz (I) and the closely related religious party conflicts. At that time, 18th-century British and French discourse had a decisive influence. In Britain, from c. 1740 all political programs were described as radical that wished to make far-…

[German Version] (ennobled in 1870; Jun 30, 1807, Ludwigsburg – Sep 14, 1887, Gmunden), the son of a clergyman, a student of F.C. Baur, and ¶ a youthful friend and intermittent supporter of D.F. Strauß, studied Protestant theology, philosophy, and philology at Tübingen (Dr.theol. 1832; lecturer at the Tübingen Stift 1833). In 1836 he gained his habilitation there in aesthetics and German literature. As a professor of literary history (1844 Tübingen, suspended for two years on suspicion of “pantheism”; 1855 Zürich, 1866 S…

[German Version] The expression völkische Theologie(“national theology”) emerged in Germany around 1880 at the latest; its genesis and intellectual contexts have scarcely been explored. Nor are there studies of possible equivalents in other European languages. In terms of the sociology of knowledge, national theology can be interpreted as a specifically modern ideology of emancipation or as a liberation theology. relating to a people or nation (People and nationhood) acting collectively. Notwithstand…

[German Version] The origins of the expression political religion, analogous to political theology, are obscure. Probably it was a neologism born in the “saddle period” of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. K.G. Bretschneider used the concept to analyze the system of mediations between religious or denominational fractioning and the formation of political parties. In his Wörterbuch der Sittenlehre (1834), Johann Christian Karl Herbig stated: “A political religion is a religion whose ultimate purpose is associated with the state; it is therefore alw…

[German Version] (Jun 23, 1807, Maulbronn – Oct 18, 1849, Heilbronn). Beginning in 1821, Märklin, the scion of an old family of Württemberg theologians, went through the Württemberg institutions of theological education in the company of such figures as D.F. Strauß, F.T. Vischer, and Wilhelm Zimmermann (known in Ger. as the Geniepromotion, or “genius doctorates”). At the Protestant seminary in Blaubeuren and later at the Protestant house of studies in Tübingen, F.C. Baur inspired in Märklin an enthusiasm for the theology of F.D.E. Schleiermacher…

[German Version] (Ger. Sattelzeit) has become a central concept in the exploration of conceptual history by German historians. It was coined spontaneously by Reinhard Koselleck in the planning stage of a lexicon sponsored by the Arbeitskreis für moderne Sozialgeschichte, Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland(8 vols. in 9, 1972–1997). It is possible that echoes of the concept of so-called axial or pivotal ages, developed by H. Freyer and C. Schmitt (among others), played a role. Kosel…

[German Version] (Jan 28, 1799, Posen [Poznań – Aug 20, 1867, Heidelberg), only son of a high-ranking Prussian official. Rothe began his theological studies in Heidelberg in 1817 and moved to Berlin in 1819; his teachers included C. Daub, G.W.F. Hegel, and J.W.A. Neander. In Neander’s home, he forged a friendship with F.A.G. Tholuck, who filled both with enthusiasm for the revival movement (Revival/Revival movements). In the fall of 1820, at the age of 21, he passed his first theological examinati…

[German Version] The expression kirchlich-sozial (“church-social”) first appeared in 1848 in the writings of J. Wichern. At that time, Wichern did not yet distinguish between “Church-social,” “Christian-social,” and “Protestant-social.” With the establishment of the Evangelisch-Sozialer Kongreß (Protestant Social Congress) in 1890, however, these adjectives denoted increasingly different positions with regard to Protestant social reform. The term “Protestant-social” was now claimed by the bourgeois …

[German Version] The term, propagated as Konfessionskunde by F. Kattenbusch in 1892, denotes a theological discipline that examines comparatively the differences between the various Christian denominations with a view to their confessions (of faith) or ¶ official doctrines, constructions of dogmatic identity, specific forms of ethos, liturgical practices, and religious lifestyles. Precursors of the new discipline – a discipline meant to integrate t…

[German Version] (Oct 14, 1796, Mußbach in the Rhine­land Palatinate – Dec 14, 1862, Munich) began studying philosophy and theology at Heidelberg in 1815, receiving his Dr.Phil. in 1820. Thanks to friendly contacts with G.W.F. Hegel, the pastor of Ungstein wrote Philosophie und Christenthum, oder Wissen und Glauben (1825, 21833), using the tools of speculative rationalism to resolve the positional pluralism of rationalism, mediation theology (his term), and restorative confessional theology. While pastor of the French ¶ Reformed congregation in Erlangen, he was able to e…

1. BegriffA. (von griech. átheos, »ohne Gott«, »gottlos«) bezeichnet einerseits in komplexer Vielfalt Weltdeutungen und Lebensentwürfe, welche durch die bewusste Ablehnung der Existenz eines oder mehrerer Götter, transzendenter Wesen oder Mächte geprägt sind (positiver A.), andererseits die bewusste Verneinung der irdischen Wirksamkeit solcher Götter oder Mächte bei gleichzeitiger Anerkennung der theoretischen Möglichkeit ihrer Existenz (negativer A.). Weil jedoch Ausdrücke wie Gott, Schöpfer, Absolutes, höchstes Wesen, Ursprung alles Seienden, letztes Pr…

1. Begriff und historischer KontextDer dt. Kollektivsingular P. kam erst im 18. Jh. auf, während das engl. und das franz. Wort ( protestantism, protestantisme) schon im 16. Jh. gebräuchlich wurden. Aber auch P. bezieht sich auf die reformatorischen Protest- und Reformbewegungen des 16. Jh.s und bezeichnet alle christl. Kirchen, Freikirchen und Gruppen, die daraus hervorgegangen sind und sich meist auf die Reformatoren Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Butzer, Ulrich Zwingli und Johannes Calvin berufen (Reformation 2.). Der Begriff betont das den Konfessionen (Luther…