by Jürgen Heumann

Church-run religious education in public schools is increasingly facing problems of acceptance. On the one hand, its legal protection is becoming problematic due to lawsuits before the highest German courts. On the other hand, the wide range of religious and other offers of meaningful orientation raise the question of whether today's pupils should not be offered an educational programme in a new subject that integrates the existing school subjects of religion, philosophy and ethics.

The federal and state governments have made legal provisions to the effect that questions of religion, ethics and philosophy are actually included in school lessons, and not just in passing, but in subjects specifically set up for this purpose. The most important legal basis, with constitutional status after all, is Article 7 of the Basic Law, which is varied in terms of its requirements and content in various state constitutions and school laws. Probably the most important principles that bind all school education in the above-mentioned range of subjects under the Basic Law are

• the "free development of the personality" in Article 2 Paragraph 1,
• the unconditional guarantee of freedom of faith, conscience and religion in Article 4 para. 1 and
• the authorisation of religious instruction as an "ordinary subject" in Article 7 para. 3 of the Basic Law,

but with the additional provision that this subject "without prejudice to the right of supervision by the state ... in accordance with the principles of the religious communities". These three reference points have their own explosive force: If Article 2 para. 1 "commands the right to the free development of personality", and Article 4 para. 1 guarantees the "unconditional freedom of faith, conscience and creed", then explosive situations can arise for the subjects of religion, ethics and philosophy: both the right to certain educational goods (based on the right to personal development) and the right to refuse these very educational goods (based on freedom of faith, conscience and creed) tend to seek legal solutions, which should rather be brought in through educational policy, school and religious education expertise.

Legal appeals by pupils against the state subjects "Values and Standards" and "Ethics" are already pending before administrative courts (e.g. in Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony) and are having an effect. In the opinion of the Administrative Court of Hanover (in a judgement from 1997, AZ 6 A 8016/94), for example, religious education is based on an exceptional provision in favour of the churches that can only be justified historically (p. 11). As a consequence, this means that the state can introduce a separate subject in the spectrum of meaning orientation / ethics, but only as a comprehensive compulsory subject for all pupils and not just as a substitute subject.

The court contrasts the current legal situation and practice of offering ethical subjects as substitute subjects for pupils who do not take part in religious education with the opposing view that at the very most religious education can be a substitute subject, so to speak as a special offer from the churches for pupils of their denomination. The high level of legal protection thus comes into competition with other subjects. Consequently, the Hanover Administrative Court did not make a decision but, because the highest legal interests are affected here, placed the Lower Saxony School Act (in its § 128 para. 1 ) on the test bench of the Federal ConstitutionalCourt with the request to review the constitutionality of the substitute subject "Values and Standards". However, this is not about the protection of religious education, but about the problem of to what extent and under what conditions the state may intervene in the sensitive area of freedom of religion and belief by establishing a separate school subject and forcing pupils to participate.

If this question is answered in the affirmative, then pupils interested in religious education would have to take it in addition to the regular subject of ethics (or "values and norms"), which could ultimately lead to a loss of religious education at school. Incidentally, in a recent judgement (AZ 6 C 11.98 of 17 June 1998), the Federal AdministrativeCourt confirmed the establishment of ethics lessons for the federal states. We can look forward to the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, as it will determine the form of organisation and therefore the importance of religious and ethical education in public schools in the future. This also applies in a similar way, albeit differently, to the controversial Brandenburg reform model "Lebensgestaltung - Ethik - Religionskunde" (LER), which effectively replaces conventional religious education.

But one more word on the problem of Article 7 of the Basic Law. Of course, this presupposes the high value of freedom and personal development rights: The legal guardians or the pupils themselves (from the age of 14) are free to "decide on participation ... (Article 7 (2) of the Basic Law); nor may any teacher "be obliged to give religious instruction against his or her will"; in negative terms, however, this means that pupils can also withdraw from religious education and training. In practice, this means that it is possible for pupils to bypass the entire spectrum of subjects and receive neither a religious nor an ethical or philosophical basic education, especially as the state of development and the range of subjects on offer at school in the other subjects mentioned cannot be described as satisfactory. In addition, the provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 7 of the Basic Law are mainly utilised for the Christian religion, while other religions relevant to society are only marginally present in public schools. In terms of their spiritual and historical significance in a world that is moving towards globalisation and their share of the population, Muslims, Jews and members of the East Asian religious group (Buddhists and Hindus) are particularly blatantly underrepresented. From a legal perspective, the dilemma between the development of personal freedoms on the one hand and a comprehensive state educational mandate on the other appears to be fundamentally solvable. The rights of freedom are guaranteed by the fact that parents and pupils are free to decide for themselves whether to take part in religious education.

The educational mandate of the state is preserved by the establishment of separate subjects in ethics or philosophy, whereby both types of subject (here religion there ethics/philosophy) must be distinguishable. When a lesson is religious education within the meaning of Article 7 of the Basic Law can be defined in legal terms. It is religious education if it is sanctioned by the respective religious communities and not only presents the content advocated by these communities, but also works towards their acceptance by pupils (= their own religion is the right one). In contrast, all subjects for which the state is responsible, i.e. all those subjects for which religious communities are not jointly responsible, should be about information, i.e. the pedagogical leeway here is rather "narrower" than in religious education. I doubt whether such a "clean" division is possible at all, given the proximity of the subjects in terms of content, or whether it does justice to the educational mission of the school. For example, can the philosophy of the Enlightenment really only be taught as a historical fact, don't young people have to identify with an "exit from immaturity" in order to avoid being taken in by every guru?

Social science studies show that such a categorisation of subjects hardly corresponds to social reality in view of the shifts and displacements in the cultural landscapes grouped around religion, ethics and philosophy. On the one hand, they note an erosion of the concept of God not only in the new but also in the old Federal States. On the other hand, however, they emphasise that the population as a whole by no means denies a structure of meaning in human life. Rather, meaning is understood as "the interaction of natural order and human activity" and is widely accepted in society as a whole. Such attitudes, which can be traced back to changing values, are increasingly leading social scientists to speak, albeit simplistically, of the "market character" of all offers of meaning, which are also offered by actors who do not correspond to the conventional understanding of religion. If one takes into account the results of recent youth studies that deal specifically with the religiosity of young people, the following mixture emerges, which can hardly be overlooked: There are young people with a Christian orientation who reject the traditional church orientation, but who nevertheless want to make the Christian faith fruitful for their lives; there are young people with an atheistic orientation who attach great importance to shaping their lives independently; there are spiritualistically orientated young people who see their relationship to religion in the "opposition of the individual and the environment" and who deny that here "on earth" man can realise himself in a self-determined way; they focus on transcendence; there are Muslim-orientated young people in their division between tradition, family and modernity. Some of these Muslim youths "insist... that justice and community cannot be realised in an orientation centred on the individual. Another part, on the other hand, makes a relative separation between religious practice and western-modern orientation. They move between two cultures, in that Muslim beliefs are relevant to them in the family environment, while Western-modern youth culture is dominant at school and in their leisure activities" (cf. F.O. Sandt: Religiosität von Jugendlichen..., Münster et al. 1996, p. 259).

The Bremen religious studies scholar Hans Kippenberg summarised the practice resulting from such social and youth-cultural situations when he said that it cannot be a solution to transfer religious education to the "authorised spokespersons" and "leave multiculturalism to the schoolyard". It could be taken further, to the media and the consumer industry.

If one takes the findings seriously, it becomes clear that structures have long since emerged in the developments and trends towards religion, ethics and philosophy as patterns of meaning that lie at odds with the previous subjects. In the public debate, the "market for meaning" or what is often referred to as "patchwork religiosity" among young people is treated as if it did not exist and as if the problems could be dealt with in (if things go well) two-period school subjects that are separate from each other. I don't want to be misunderstood here. Without school subjects that can be identified and addressed in terms of responsibilities, the "chaos" will increase in many people's minds. But the thematisation of questions of religion, ethics and philosophy in the limited field of school subjects will, in view of interlinking cultures, have to be conducted more fundamentally and raise the question of an integrative subject which, while respecting the respective subject identities, consistently faces up to the comprehensive educational demands of pupils. However, this is where the legal trap strikes. Is an integrative subject in the field of religion, ethics and philosophy even possible if religious education is only understood as being bound to a particular denomination and should work towards acceptance of the content, or what scope may an integrative subject have with its content that is not bound to denominations, and where is the legal boundary between information and identification? Irrespective of such objections, it will not be sufficient in terms of education and religious education and will hardly do justice to the existential and intellectual demands of future generations to refer to the other subject and, for example, to ignore Plato or Kant in religious education or to deal with the lifestyle, religious practice and doctrine of Christians or Muslims only on a lexical level of knowledge or as exoticism. Are identifications with Kant or Plato less desirable than with Jesus?

Anyone who asks this question, as I am asking here, easily exposes himself to the accusation that he wants to level the subjects and in doing so ignores fundamental problems, e.g. the problem of religious/ethical identity formation, which ultimately requires an attitude of faith. One argument that is often brought into the discussion in this regard is (abbreviated) that such identification can only develop within the horizon of a life group, e.g. the Christian community. I cannot go into identity theories here, but only want to draw attention to the following. The formation of religious/ethical identity is always also the result of the confrontation between different views of God and the world.

The histories of the emergence of great religions or philosophical traditions of thought, which can hardly be understood without the confluence of many intellectual currents (syncretism), show their identity-forming power precisely in such disputes, even without the support of a community. Doesn't the objection that ethical or religious positions only contribute to the formation of identity if pupils can also experience their ability to form a community clash with the formation of identity in everyday life, which, in the pragmatic realisation of life, so to speak, makes quite sustainable religious and ethical positions and certainties possible (keyword media, virtual worlds)? But I don't want to be misunderstood here either. It is not a question of questioning the identity-forming power of communities, but of drawing attention to the fact that identity can be formed in many contexts, including in a subject in which many voices are heard without being linked to a community or church. However, the Catholic position that the so-called triad (confessional agreement between teacher, pupil and content) cannot be abandoned stands in the way of this.

In order to solve the problems mentioned, proposals, models and concrete realisations have been introduced from various sides, whether by the state of Brandenburg with its own teaching programme "Lebensgestaltung - Ethik- Religionskunde (LER)", by the Protestant Church with the memorandum "Identity and Understanding", by the state of Lower Saxony with the stabilisation of the subject "Values and Standards", by the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with the subject "Philosophy for Children". The fact that there is a new departure can be seen in these educational policy movements, whether integrating, opening, finding or developing. The current discussion is characterised by a mutual interest in the other subject on the one hand, but also by clear demarcations and competition on the other. The controversy surrounding the subject of LER makes this particularly clear. Of course, it cannot be a question of harmonisation. Nevertheless, there is a demand to open up religious, ethical and philosophical education to all pupils in a curricular and didactically focussed, but nevertheless in toto as an educational offer.

The task of the future will not be to merely bring together individual subjects in a subject canon, but rather to ensure education in this area in such a way that, despite all the differences, a common world heritage is passed on and Plato and Buddha are recognised by pupils as equally groundbreaking as Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad or Lao Tzu. In this sense, it would probably be more important to mark the boundaries between the subjects rather than to ask whether it is conceivable from the respective subject perspective to think in terms of a jointly responsible core curriculum while maintaining their own identity. As the new millennium approaches, nothing will ever be the same again. Future generations will also, but certainly not only, seek support and orientation in a religion or philosophy. They will increasingly look for common ground. An integrated school subject in the field of religion, ethics and philosophy would be the most sensible answer. The legal regulations not only offer barriers, but also opportunities that need to be developed productively. However, it is not yet clear whether all those involved and responsible here have the courage to do so.

In one of the many interviews, a pupil once said that he was concerned with "finding a language for his life". This seems to be a good motto for all future activities in the teaching field of religion, ethics and philosophy, namely to provide assistance in finding such a language from the various perspectives of the subjects.

The author

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Heumann (50) teaches Protestant religious education at the University of Oldenburg with a focus on religious socialisation and lifeworld, religion in teaching and learning processes, didactics and methodology in the subject of Protestant religion. After studying to become a teacher in Dortmund, he initially worked as a teacher and then moved to the University of Oldenburg as a research assistant in 1977. He was then Director of Studies at the Institute for Catechetical Service of the Protestant Church Berlin-Brandenburg. After his habilitation on "Elemente zur Begründung einer Symboldidaktik", he was appointed to the University of Oldenburg in 1993. His research focus is religious socialisation. , a lecturer at the Institute of Educational Sciences 1, studied German language and literature, politics and education at the University of Oldenburg. She was awarded the Gerhard Wachsmann Prize for her Diplom thesis in 1990. The topic of her doctoral thesis "Police and gender: the discourse on motherhood in the Enlightenment" is also the subject of her EINBLICKE contribution.