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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. Judaism – IV. New Testament – V. Historical and Systematic Theology– VI. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies From the perspective of religious studies, blessing and curse are dense, complex terms, hard to summarize in a single concept that would include every religious symbol system. They should not be thought of primarily as opposites but as parallel polyvalent ter…

[German Version] I. General – II. Latin America, Asia and Africa I. General Catechumenate is a term, derived from Gk κατήχειν/ katḗchein as used by Paul (e.g. Gal 6:6), for the institution through which the church, with reference to baptism, forges the necessary link between Christian faith and learning. It is found, after precursors in the scholarly Latin of the 16th and 17th centuries, in the early 19th century as a term for Early Church instruction, but it then quickly became the designation for programs of catechesis and church reform (Henkys). 1. Early Church baptismal catechu…

[German Version] In education all instructional materials used by both teachers and learners are called media. But the emergence of the modern mass media has produced new challenges for pedagogics, which has led to the development of a specialized interdisciplinary field (and the founding of the Gesellschaft für Medienpädagogik und Kommunikationskultur, in 1984), related to both educational theory and communication theory and drawing on such disciplines as psychology and sociology as well. The his…

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Philosophy – III. Greco-Roman Antiquity – IV. Bible – V. Church History – VI. Ethics – VII. Practical Theology and Pedagogy – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Concept Traditionally, “education” has denoted the intentional interaction of adults with the younger generation in order-usually-to influence them positively; whether it makes sense to speak of education when negative goals are deliberately pursued is …

[German Version] I. Protestantism 1. Concept and subject area Religionspädagogik (RP), as the German technical term designating the science of ¶ religious education or pedagogics, is first attested in 1889 in the writings of Max Reischle (1858–1905), a disciple of A. Ritschl (Bockwoldt, 9f.). The first professorship for (Protestant) RP was instituted in 1924 in Göttingen (Roggenkamp-Kaufmann, 119f.). The term denotes “a ‘modern’ German science situated between theology and educational theory (Education, Theory of)” …

[German Version] I. General Background and History – II. Practical Theology – III. Orthodox Church I. General Background and History The church year – like church art, architecture, etc. – is one of the great cultural products of the Christian faith. It attempts to give cultural form to the gospel by means of the human perception of time. It thus stands alongside other attempts to cultivate the experience and perception of time, and to structure it meaningfully. As a sign of salvation…

[German Version] I. Precursors – II. Beginnings in Germany – III. Conceptual Development – IV. Challenges and Innovations I. Precursors Given Jesus' attention to children (Mark 10:13–16 parr.), it is not surprising that in early Christian worship they often performed important duties, such as reading lessons or singing psalms (Bottermann). As early as the 11th century, and with increased frequency since the Reformation, besides the liturgical life of schools (School worship) – parti…

[German Version] I. General – II. Social Mobility – III. Recreational Mobility I. General Contrary to present appearances, for much of history human development was in the direction of increasing stability (settlement, social order, etc.), not mobility (from Lat. mobilis, “moveable”). Only since the French Revolution and industrialization has there been a substantial increase in mobility on many fronts, studied by various disciplines (sociology, history, economics, etc.). It makes sense at the outset to distinguish between social …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Medieval and Modern Judaism – V. The Law – VI. History and Sociology – VII. Social Ethics – VIII.  Socialization Theory – IX. Education – X. Practical Theology I. Religious Studies The term family describes a varied network of relationships between parents, children and other persons in a social system. In ethnically shaped small-scale societies, family groups are bearers of religious rituals (Rite and Ritual) and centers of religious community. Fa…

[German Version] I. History and Practical Theology – II. Law I. History and Practical Theology Confirmation, understood here in a narrower sense as a rite in Protestant churches, has been interpreted and shaped differently. Today, it is common in almost all Protestant churches, even in families that are rather distanced from the church. The problems of confirmation already appeared in the Reformation period when confirmation began to develop as an independent rite in Protestant ch…

[German Version] I. Church History – II. Practical Theology – III. Missions in the Free Churches I. Church History 1. General Free churches are non-established Protestant bodies in countries or regions where there is a Protestant state church or regional churches. The term is often used more loosely, however, and is liable to impose discontinuities through geographical or political changes which do not correspond to the heritage and sense of identity of particular religious communities. For example, the Evangelic…

[German Version] (May 8, 1858, Eibenstock, Saxony – Aug 1, 1912, Halle an der Saale). In 1894, after several years of parish ministry, Drews was appointed associate professor of pastoral theology at Jena; in 1901 he was appointed professor at Giessen and in 1908 at Halle. He was a cofounder of Die Christliche Welt (1887); his initial work was in church history, especially historical liturgics. Together with F. Niebergall and O. Baumgarten, he championed reform of “impractical practical theology.” In his programmatic Das Problem der praktischen Theologie. Zugleich ein …

[German Version] The term piety, from Lat. pietas, largely synonymous with Gk εὐσέβεια/ eusébeia, OHG and Gothic fruma, and modern Ger. Frömmigkeit stands on the borderline between ethics and religion. It denotes an obedient and respectful attitude toward a person or object, usually considered a positive trait. Today it is often reduced to a person’s attitude toward the departed. A shift of meaning is already visible in Latin: on the one hand, pietas denotes behavior in the interpersonal sphere, especially toward one’s parents (Cic. Partitiones oratoriae 78; De inventione 2.66); on…

[German Version] I. In the United States – II. In Germany I. In the United States Marriage counseling in the United States can be clarified by making three distinctions: (1) counseling for engaged couples (pre-marital counseling) and married couples (marriage counseling); (2) counseling informed by the social sciences and purely theological counseling; (3) counseling that is primarily educational or remedial or curative in intent. Most marriage counseling today combines theological with social scientific perspectives. Conservative and liberal churches diff…

[German Version] I. History of Religion – II. Church History – III. Practical Theology – IV. Liturgics – V. Law – VI. Orthodox Church – VII. Judaism – VIII. Islam I. History of Religion In Christendom marriage was considered a secular act until well into the Middle Ages, before it was declared a sacrament in 1184. Many religions view marriage as a religious duty, and nuptial rites (Rites of passage; see III below) often have sacral character, but civil marriages are also obligatory in certain countries. Regulations gover…

[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. It …

[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 …