Religious Education in the Face of Non-Denominationalism - Notes from the Perspective of the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck

The Education Chamber of the EKKW developed the brochure "Connecting and Strengthening Bonds" (2019) dealing with the challenge of non-denominationalism. The chamber put it up for discussion within the church on several occasions. This set an impulse that was taken up in many cases with varying degrees of intensity. Even though all fields of action of church activities are affected by denominational lack, this challenge is primarily taken up and intensively worked on by the fields of action in the field of education. To make pastoral, diaconal or even pastoral care "image-like" is often rejected as an abuse. Likewise, the requirement to stand up for one's own convictions as a Christian and to enter into dialogue with others is all too quickly misinterpreted as missionary overpowering. The fact that the church must make its "offer" more plausible and assert itself on the market of the many offers, because the drift between social developments and the church is growing, is still too little under-stood, although the "ecclesia semper reformanda" is genuinely Protestant. A self-critical examination of all church structures and formats is therefore overdue. In this respect, the brochure is expressly welcomed as a call to conversion and departure. Reformation, however, is only the necessary condition for the best possible communication of the gospel. For everything depends on God's blessing and His grace ...

Begegnung, Ökumene, Prioritäten, pastorale Arbeit