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[German Version] I. Concept – II. Religious Studies – III. Sociology and Social Ethics – IV. Systematic Theology – V. Practical Theology I. Concept The term civil religion was coined in 1967 by the American sociologist Robert N. Bellah. As a student of the system theorist T. Pars…

[German Version] I. Social Sciences Since its Greek origins, politics has meant (a) an action with a specific object, aiming to achieve the best way for all the inhabitants of the ancient city-state ( pólis) to live together and hence achieve the common good of the ¶ community ( koinón), and (b) the theory of this action (Sellin; see also Political science). Given that we no longer live in small urban societies but in large, open, and functionally complex societies (Society), politics includes – but cannot be limited to – the system of state governance that affords internal and external security. Today politics (including policy and polity) embraces all the processes of informed collective decision-making – concerning both the rules that determine the ongoing internal structu…

[German Version] I. Comparative Religion – II. History and Theology – III. Practical Theology …

[German Version] This technical sociological term does not cover the multitude of change processes within a society but attempts to provide a theoretical framework for profound changes in the social structure itself. The first systematic presentation of the concept was published by William F. Ogburn (1886–1959), who deliberately isolated it from such concepts as evolution, development, and progress. He was unwilling to associate himself with any theory of development, optimistic or pessimistic, cy…

[German Version] Study of war sermons has been able to identify the war sermon as a particular genre only in the context of World War I. Neither during World War II nor during the wars of the postwar p…

[German Version] I. Science – II. Ethics I. Science During the 1960s, evolutionary biologists such as Hamilton and Williams developed the first theories concerning the evolution of altruism. These theories define altruism as any type of behavior that (1) diminishes the Darwinian fitness of its bearer and (2) increases the fitness of other organisms; this fitness is defined as the success of an …

[German Version] In antiquity, societas civilis was understood as the non-despotic sphere of the politically active citizen and was considered to be civilized through the rule of law (Law and jurisprudence). In the 18th century, civil society referred to an independent socio-political entity that existed as a counterpart to the state. Primarily through the influence of K. Marx, the significance of the German concept of civil society ( Bürgertum, Bourgeoisie) is no longer programmatic, but only historical in nature. It was above all this…

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Emancipation as a Socio-historical Process – III. The Significance of Emancipation in Judaism – IV. Emancipation of Women – V. Practical Theology and Education Theory…