Anti-clericalism

Anti-clericalism describes a position of anti-elitist motivation within religious communities that is directed against the clergy . In Christianity , especially in the Protestant and Reformation churches, such a position is often based on arguments that refer to the priesthood of all believers (cf. Ex 19.6 LUT ; 1 Petr 2.9f LUT ).

Outside of religious communities, anti-clericalism is directed against the influence of the clergy on society. In many cases, this criticism led to an extensive separation of church and state or to pronounced secularism .

There were anti-clerical tendencies and actions in the French Revolution . With the representatives of the first and second class (ie the clergy) the principle of the social class order was attacked.

The term overlaps with the terms Kirchenkampf and Kulturkampf .

Church fight, culture fight

The church struggle in a narrower sense describes the conflict between Protestant Christians of the Confessing Church and German Christians from 1933 to around the beginning of the Second World War in 1939. In a broader sense, the epoch of German church history in the time of National Socialism is often referred to as such. In the second case, the term includes

the struggle of the Nazi state against the Protestant, partly also the Catholic Church and its conventional organizational structures, with the aim of harmonization
the struggle of National Socialists inside and outside the churches against denominational Christianity , in order to make it compatible with the Nazi ideology through “de-Jewification” and / or to replace it with a “specific” religiosity
the defensive struggle of Christian groups and particular churches against these efforts.

Critical church historiography disputes that the latter is to be regarded as a general characteristic of that epoch. The attitude of the churches towards the Third Reich is received as an ambivalent attitude “between adaptation and resistance”.

As a synonym for church struggles , the term Kulturkampf has established itself in various contexts :

for the church struggle in Bismarck's time
The Kulturkampf in Switzerland was a conflict between the state and the Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX. at the time of the First Vatican Council (1870)
The Baden Kulturkampf was a conflict between the Catholic Church and the Grand Duchy of Baden in the 1850s.

literature

Hans-Jürgen Goertz : Anti-clericalism and Reformation. Social historical research . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-525-33595-4 .

Individual evidence

↑ Selected bibliography on the resistance against National Socialism . Website of the Center for Contemporary History, accessed on March 29, 2016.
↑ Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz : The churches between adaptation and resistance in the Third Reich. in: Barmer Theological Declaration 1934–1984. Luther Verlag, Bielefeld 1984, ISBN 3-7858-0287-0 , pp. 11-29.

[1] Selected bibliography on the resistance against National Socialism . Website of the Center for Contemporary History, accessed on March 29, 2016.

[2] Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz : The churches between adaptation and resistance in the Third Reich. in: Barmer Theological Declaration 1934–1984. Luther Verlag, Bielefeld 1984, ISBN 3-7858-0287-0 , pp. 11-29.