10/07/2025 11:00
- 15:00
HALL: Seminar Room 07
Proponent:
Laemmlin G.,
Zimmer M.
Chair:
Laemmlin G.,
Zimmer M.
Speaker:
Gendig C.,
Henkes M.,
Rebenstorf H.,
Schendel G.,
Zimmer M.
The Christian churches in Germany are struggling with dwindling numbers of (active) members on the one hand and decreasing financial and personnel resources on the other hand. At the same time, the churches' missional intent of the traditional comprehensive coverage of religious needs remains. This tension between prerequisites and demands first puts church self-understandings as a territorial institution under pressure and points to a shift towards an interorganizational perspective. Secondly, it raises the question of the transformation of church spatial organization between the mechanical order of the parochial system and the organic network structure of functionally determined places and nodes.
The parish, as the fundamental form of community in the people's church, carrier of religious communication, and subject of religious transformations, takes the centre stage of this panel. Among other topics, we will discuss the transparochial profiling of congregations and the significance of urban/rural contexts for their success. Contributions will address challenges, developments und issues in protestant and catholic churches as well.
Those cases raise questions, such as how the church's narrowing of its social milieu is addressed, which aspects of parish life are actually transforming, how spatial proximity and communal closeness are linked, how the church is embedded in the societal dissolution of communities, and whether the terminology of a post-parochial turn is justified. Based on these considerations, we not only contribute to answering the question about the future of the religious social form of the parish, but also to the future role of Christian churches in a country of intensified interreligious and religious-secular competition.