Religion

Germany’s religious landscape is not devloping uniformly, but relatively to religion and region. This is also true of the growing diversity of religious life and the differentiation of attitudes towards religion. While an erosion of traditional structures is underway in the Christian sector, Germany’s Moslems are just beginning to establish such structures.

And while less that 30 percent of the population of the new Bundesländer and Berlin are members of a church, about 85 percent of the population in the so-called „Old Bundesrepublik“ still belong to a denominational community. The often-noted decline in church affiliation is much more marked in cities than in rural areas. And in Germany, there are still regions with significantly preponderant Catholic or Protestant population majorities. In the major cities, on the other hand, individual districts exist in which up to 90 percent of the residents are Moslems.

Religions and religious freedom

In Germany, there is no government agency that determines the status of a group as a religious community. The freedom of religion guaranteed in the Constitution applies to all. Nonetheless, the assertion that a group constitutes a religious community must be supported by additional defining characteristics, such as community life or certain obligations in the observance of religious doctrines. In addition, the constitution recognises the status of a statutory body, which about 20 communities hold at this time. This status affords a series of privileges, such as in child and youth services and social welfare work, education (religious instruction), legal autonomy and in tax law. In this way, partnership between the state and religious communities is facilitated, with the result that in Germany, separation between religion and state is often described as „lame.“ Nonetheless, deep reservations exist where granting this status to further communities is concerned. The Jehova’s Witnesses were granted the status of a statutory body only after a 13-year legal battle. This status has been denied Islamic organisations until now, with the argument that they have not existed long enough on an organised basis and that the structure of representation of the Moslem population in Germany is still unclear. Even though religious freedom as such is not affected by this ruling, Moslems still feel discriminated against, because they are thereby being denied the same legal status as Christian churches.

Development of religious affiliation

A this time (2008), throughout Germany, about 30% of the population are members of the Roman Catholic Church and about the same number are members of a regional Protestant church. Roughly an additional 30% are non-denominational. Islam, as the third-largest religion, counts about 3.5 million members (4.2% of the population). By contrast, the Jewish community is very small, with about 110,000 adherents, of whom about 90% have been recently affiliated through immigration from eastern Europe since the 1990’s. Hindus in Germany also number about 110,000, and the Buddhists are estimated at about 250,000. Adherents of new religious movements are estimated at about 1 – 2 million. About 1.4 million Orthodox Christians and about as many adherents of non-conformist Christian churches and new religious communities remain.

Changes are taking place withinthese categorisations, slowly but steadily. Religious pluralism is to be seen above all within individual religions or confessions. This is not only true of the mainstream Christian churches with their extremely diverse forms of expression of faith and theological differences. In Islam, too, a growing plurality of perspectives and models of life conduct is emerging, and the non-conformist evangelical and charismatic movements reveal the broadest spectrum of individuality and organisation autonomy.

A come-back of religion?

Whether „religion“ as such is making a come-back is nonetheless questionable. Both membership in religious communities as well as the recognition of religious convictions are continuing to decrease. Even German society’s Christian cultural background as such is frequently called into question. At the same time, surveys clearly reveal that a wide value consensus is available to the population, one that is shared in similar ways by both adherents of all religions and confessions and non-believers as well. What Germany is experiencing is a new visibility of religion in the public sphere. Moslems, like other minorities, are demanding equality in public representation and are implementing it, too. Another aspect is the medial structuring of religion’s public presence by means of the staging of mass events, such as the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day or the media’s involvement in the lives, sufferings and deaths of religious personalities such as Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama or Pope John Paul II. Here, religion within modernity is revealing staged-event features that do not of themselves point to an increase in religiosity, let alone active church involvement.