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Issue 2/2023 of the magazine Theo-Web deals with the structural orientation of religious education in Germany. The results of the sixth church membership survey of the EKD show that more than half of the respondents are in favor of a neutral religious education or a joint teaching of religions. The question of religion and the appropriate approach to the subject also plays a central role in the conversation between the didactics of the subjects of religion and ethics/philosophy/values and norms. The issue also includes articles on the statistical analysis of the effectiveness of religious education and the translation of religious language. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the European Continental philosophers who have a problem with religion in which they repeatably try to surpass, use or transform religion to define the proper ends of philosophy. It states that European philosophers are influenced by their Jewish and Christian cultural upbringings. Also discussed are the German philosophers such as Immanuel Kant who critique ritualistic forms of religion and Martin Heidegger who reject the ontotheology of religious theism.

The article looks into the philosophy of religion of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Topics include an understanding of the political theology of critical philosophy of Kant, the alleged ambiguousness of the philosopher's "Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason," and the involvement of politics in the relationship between theology and philosophy.

While Kant refutes the traditional proofs for the existence of God he uses the traditional monotheistic notion of God for his own moral teleological conception of rational religion. The essay discusses Kant's implicit claim that the monotheistic notion of God is an integral part of (moral) rational religion. Against Kant's strong approach the essay reveals monotheism as a mere possibility of representing the notion of God legitimately for rational religion - beside adjusted forms of nontheism and polytheism. Nonetheless, Kant's arguments for a monotheistic representation seem to be appropriate from a pragmatic point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the hitherto neglected political philosophy (Staatsphilosophie) contained in Schelling's Berlin lectures on the philosophy of mythology and of revelation in the context of the complex and politically charged debates of the German Vormärz period. It will be shown that, in his political philosophy, the Berlin Schelling rejects social contract models of the state and follows conservative theorists who conceive of the state as a collective order that supersedes the individual, while at the same time preserving the freedom of the individual and rejecting religious legitimizations of the state. Schelling's theory of the state is characterized by its distinctive internal tensions and by its multidimensionality. This complexity of his theory of the state helps to account for the diverse range of receptions and assessments of his political philosophy, both among his contemporaries and by subsequent commentators [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Erich Przywara’s philosophical theology, or theological philosophy, and especially his Analogia Entis (1932) has been the subject of some research, less is known about the broader cultural and political framework of his thought in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic and in the 1930s during the NS period. Here Przywara is presented in context of his unique religious, political and social milieu (for example, the turn from “cultural inferiority” to culture Catholicism). His writings on social, religious and political issues (for example, bolshevism), including his account of the analogia entis concept, are brought into relationship with his context and some of his contemporaries. Przywara’s reflections on the Reich are analyzed and his engagement with the popular Volk concept is also addressed in connection with his anti-Semitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article provides a case study in political religion theory via exploration of a neglected Soviet journal, the USSR in Construction [ SSSR na Stroike]. This journal, which appeared between January 1930 and June 1941, was ultimately published in five languages, and represented an important, propagandistic face to the non-communist world. Despite the entrenchment of Socialist Realism at the time, this avant-garde publication continued to be published monthly by Stalin's regime - until the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. Contributors may be seen as propagandists, strangely enough, in an etymological sense: propagators of a faith - in this case a 'political theology'- on behalf of a Stalinist utopia that they believed was currently 'under construction'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the 1936 “Wotan” essay by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung in light of one of its reigning motifs, Ergriffenheit. First, this term is examined within the works of Protestant theologian Rudolf Otto and Indologist Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, who used it to describe what they claimed to be the original religious experience, a state of being deeply stirred or even seized by the “the holy” or by “the ultimate reality.” The article then examines antecedents in Jung's theory of states of psychic seizure, in which two halves of the psyche come into conflict, the resolution of which leads to an increased capacity to create the arts of culture. The analysis then moves to the “Wotan” essay itself, where Jung brings together his own theory of psychic seizure with the theory of the original religious experience as proposed by the above-named scholars of religion in order to suggest that, under National Socialism, the Germans were in the midst of a collective confrontation with their own inner divinity, which should lead to a national spiritual rebirth. The article then investigates the works of several of the men Jung mentions in the essay, as well as his use of ancient Germanic mythology, to support his claim. Through his portrait of the Germanic archetype Wotan, Jung psychologizes and thereby essentializes the Romantic image of the Germans as “a people of poets and philosophers” as well as that of a Nietzschean “master-race.” In conclusion, the article argues that, at least in 1936, Jung's attitude towards Hitler and National Socialism was much more favorable than has previously been recognized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper intends to realize an overview of the german idealism or classic german philosophy, exploring its main nuclear aspects, while at the same time the paper deals with the specificity of this movement in relationship with other philosophical schools. At the beginnig we asume that the german idealism is a system that can be comprehend like a racionality empire, given its particular caracteristics, and algo because of the historical context in which ir rises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the pragmatic approach to toleration in Britain and the secularist approach in France, the roots of toleration in Germany lie in a distinctive tradition of pluralism and perspectivism which stretches from Nicholas of Cusa via Leibniz and Lessing to the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Ga-damer. Basic to this tradition is the conviction that all or most religions (and subsequently cultures) embody a partial, but never exclusive, degree of truth or value. This attitude, encouraged by the plurality of states in Germany until the nineteenth century and the plurality of confessions since the Reformation, finds its definitive but controversial expression in Lessing's drama Nathan der Weise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the concept of development in German Religionswissenschaft. Impact of Charles Darwin's `Origin of Species' on Germany; Elements of Germany's preparation for Darwin; Hegel's articulation of the concept of Entwicklung; Post-Darwinian use and defense of the concept of development.