Religion in Germany
As
one may expect from a country with 1300 years of Christian tradition,
Christianity is still the predominant religion in Germany. Although the number
of practicing Christians is on the decline, the Christian religion in Germany
is present in the country’s cultural heritage.
RELIGION IN GERMANY – CHRISTIANITY
About
65% to 70% of the population are followers of the Christian religion in
Germany. They are more or less evenly split between the mainstream
denominations of Lutheran-Protestantism and Calvinism united in the EKD (Evangelical
Church in Germany) and the Roman Catholic Church. Due to the historical
development of religion in Germany, these denominations are concentrated in
specific regions.
In
the course of the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing Thirty Years’ War in
the 15th and 16thcenturies, religion in Germany ended up being distributed
according to the preferences of local rulers: Therefore, most areas in the
South or West (especially Bavaria and Northrhine-Westphalia) are Catholic while
the North and East are mainly Protestant. However, the Communist regime of the
former DDR (German Democratic Republic) frowned upon religion in
Germany’s eastern parts until the reunification in 1990. This explains why the
percentage of self-confessed atheists is particularly high in these federal
states.
Other
strands of Christian religion in Germany are the so-called Free Evangelical
Churches, a loose union of congregations adhering to Baptism, Methodism and
related faiths such as the Mennonites, as well as the two Orthodox churches.
Christian evangelism in Germany goes back to U.S. American missionary efforts
in the 19th century. Both the Greek-Orthodox and the Russian-Orthodox
religion in Germany became established here with the Greek and Serbian
immigrant population in the 1960s and 1970s.
RELIGION IN GERMANY – MINORITY RELIGIONS
Apart
from these smaller Christian congregations, important minority religions in
Germany are Islam (about 4 % of the German population), Judaism, and Buddhism
(both of which represent less than 1% of Germany’s inhabitants).
Judaism
The atrocities
of the Holocaust are overshadowing the history of Judaism in Germany.
According to sources from late Antiquity, Jews have been living in Germany
since 321 AD. For more than one and a half millennia, the relationship between
the Jewish Diaspora and Germany’s majority population vacillated between quiet
coexistence and religiously motivated persecution, between the Jews’ status as
social outcasts and their slow assimilation into mainstream society. Before
1933, there were more than 600,000 Jews in Germany. During the following twelve
years, the viciously anti-Semitic Nazi regime killed most of those who didn’t
emigrate.
Today,
more than 65 years after the end of World War Two, the Jewish community in
Germany counts over 100,000 members. The increase in numbers is also due to
Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union. The majority of German Jews
(the more observant and conservative ones) feel represented by the Central
Council of Jews in Germany, while about 3,000 liberal Jews belong to the much
smaller Union of Progressive Jews in Germany.
Islam
In
direct comparison with Judaism, Islam is a far more recent religion in Germany.
It goes back to the post-World War Two immigration of so-called Gastarbeiter (foreign
workers) and refugees. Most Muslims in Germany have a Turkish, Kurdish,
Iranian, Palestinian, or Bosnian background, and they have organized themselves
in a diverse range of decentralized organizations. These include, for example,
the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, supported by the Turkish
government and representative of Sunnite Islam in Turkey; the AABF, an umbrella
organization for Alevites from Kurdish regions; the association of Bosnian
Muslims, and many others.
Religion and Morality in Eastern Germany
The
geographical idiom ‘eastern Germany’ today refers to a wide range of issues. As
a region, it is part of Germany, and is situated at the heart of Europe. At the
same time it is still remembered in both East and West as having belonged to
the socialist East. It has been considered as opposed to the capitalist West,
from which point of view it belonged to the historically excluded part of
Europe. Furthermore, the region that once constituted a country in itself is
generally depicted as one of the most secular societies of Europe – after the
political Wende, no revival of traditional or “new” religiosity was registered,
as has been the case elsewhere.
However, the emergence of the secular in eastern Germany is very specific and linked to its main distinctive features – Protestantism on one hand and socialism on the other. Much has been written on religion in this region from a quantitative-sociological, historical or theological-institutional point of view, but little is known about actual practice today. This project will undertake the study of religion in eastern Germany from ethnographic perspectives.
NARRATIVES OF SECULARIZATION
Both
the concepts of the secular and of secularisation have been subject to major
criticism in the past decades. Nevertheless, secularisation has remained the
dominant paradigm for studying and analysing religious change in eastern
Germany. At least three major scientific narratives of religious decline in
this particular region can be distinguished in this argument.
1. One narrative of secularisation stresses the governmental
policies of the past – the Nazi-Regime on one hand and on the other hand “real
existing communism”. From this perspective, in East Germany the atheist policy
of the communist regime was most successful.
2. Functionalist-oriented narratives stress that in the GDR,
in particular in its final years, the churches were part of the opposition and
that after the fall of communism they could no longer play this role, resulting
in turn in the decline of religious participation.
3. A further narrative indicates that in eastern Germany
secularisation set in much earlier, well before the political divide into East
and West, that is, probably with the Enlightenment and that it was therefore
not only the result of communist policy. This long-term perspective follows a
Weberian approach to secularisation with its underlying assumption that the
more ‘modern’ a society is, the more ‘secular’ it will be.
Social
scientists observing the changes in church membership, church attendance and
beliefs and practices of a religious character in eastern Germany after the
Second World War have demonstrated that there is a general decline in religious
interest and involvement. During 40 years of socialism church membership
declined from about 90 to about 30 percent. Since the end of socialism there
has been no significant change in membership or attendance. While western
Germany has also been affected by secularisation processes, this tendency here
is much weaker and church membership is much higher, 84.4 percent in 1998. The
major change that took place in the Protestant and Catholic churches in eastern
Germany after Unification was probably a political one, that is, that they were
re-established as public bodies receiving public funding. Still, those persons
who are in some way engaged in religion or church life do so as a minority with
all the implications this involves (‘wider den Strom’). The secular is thus an
inevitable part of any research project on religion and its meanings and practices
in eastern Germany. It cannot be assumed that religion is the dominant source
of morality. The study of religion must necessarily be linked to considerations
of the legal and demographic status of religious communities and institutions.
Top 10 career paths in Germany
These are the latest statistics of the German Federal Statistics
Office (Statistisches
Bundesamt) on the most popular career paths among young Germans
and compiled them into two charts.
The first
chart shows the most popular majors at Germany’s universities. Students
graduating from secondary school may study at a university if they fulfill
entrance requirements and pass the qualifying school-leaving exam (Abitur).
About 30% of secondary school graduates qualify for and choose this path.
The second
chart shows the most popular choices among Germany’s 345 officially recognized
career training programs (Ausbildungsberufe). The
remaining 70% of secondary school graduates participate in Germany’s duales
System or dual system of education, in which trainees
attend a vocational school (Berufsschule) part-time while
also gaining practical experience through on-the-job training.
Both lists are broken down by gender, which can offer some basis
for further discussion in the classroom. Some reading and interpretation
questions for students follow each chart.
1st Chart
2nd Chart
A guide to psychotherapy in Germany: Where can I find help?
Most people find it easy to find the right
doctor when they have a physical illness. But a lot of people do not know who
to turn to if they have mental problems or illnesses. People are also often
reluctant to talk about mental illnesses. We have put together some information
to help you find your way through the health care maze. It presents the
various treatment options, explains who is the right person to
talk to in different situations, and answers practical questions that may arise
if psychotherapy seems like it might be a good idea.
Who can
I turn to first if I have mental health problems?
Many people turn to their friends and family
first if they don't feel well. People who need professional help for
psychological problems can first talk to their family doctor, a psychosocial
counselor or go straight to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. In an emergency
there are also psychiatric practices with emergency services as well as
psychiatric clinics.
Psychosocial counseling centers offer help
for a variety of issues, including family, women, childcare and addiction. The
staff at such centers have different professional backgrounds. You might find,
for example, doctors, social workers (in German:Sozialpädagogen and Sozialarbeiter),
psychologists, psychotherapists, as well as specially trained care workers all
working together to help people solve their problems. The counseling centers
are usually funded by supporting organizations, subsidies and donations. They
do not offer therapy themselves, but they can offer advice,
information about support options, and initiate contact.
Social psychiatric services are another point
of contact. In Germany they are run by local health authorities and can be used
for free by everybody. They particularly support people who need treatment for acute or chronic mental illnesses. The social psychiatric service
teams are also made up of doctors, care workers, psychotherapists and social
workers. The centers generally do not offer therapy themselves but can determine whether somebody
requires treatment. They also offer extra support to people who are currently
in therapy or have recently been in a clinic. Family, friends and colleagues
can also contact the social psychiatric service if they have the feeling that
somebody they know needs help. Where necessary the social psychiatric services
also offer home visits.
Just like therapists, the staff at the social
psychiatric services and psychosocial counseling centers are obliged to
maintain patient confidentiality.
What is
psychotherapy and when is it an option?
When people hear the word "psychotherapy" they might think of somebody lying on a
couch talking about their childhood while the therapist is sitting in the chair
next to them listening. This is a common image that we see of psychotherapy in
films and other media. But there are lots of different kinds of psychotherapy
that use very different approaches. The most commonly used methods are
cognitive behavioral therapy and depth psychology therapy.
The goal of all psychotherapies is to relieve the symptoms caused by the
mental illness and improve quality of life. The question as to which method is
suitable depends on many aspects, including the type of problem or illness as
well as the preferences and personal goals of the person who needs therapy.
The most common mental illnesses and
disorders that are treated with psychotherapy include anxiety disorders, depression and addiction. By the way, psychotherapy is
not just used to treat mental conditions: It is also an option for people who
are dealing with chronic physical illnesses. Psychotherapists can also
refuse to provide treatment if they believe that there is no need for therapy, or if psychotherapy does not seem appropriate.
Psychologists,
psychiatrists and psychotherapists - who is who?
There are various professional titles in the
area of psychotherapy in Germany, and they can be quite
confusing. For example, many people think that psychologists and
psychotherapists are the same thing. But just because somebody has a degree in
psychology does not mean that they can automatically offer therapy. To be able to do so psychologists first have to
complete several years of practical psychotherapy training and then pass a
state examination.
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