Free religious movement

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The free religious movement describes an inconsistent religious worldview that dispenses with denominational doctrines (dogmas) and confessions. Organizationally, it emerged from reform-oriented circles of the Catholic and Protestant Church in the course of the Vormärz . They felt during the Enlightenment to human rights , mutual tolerance and the values of humanism connected. Their positions are considered liberal, free-thinking and secular, sometimes also pantheistic, naturalistic, agnostic and atheistic (see: religious atheism ).

history

The free religious movement emerged in the middle of the 19th century during the period of the political pre- March from German Catholicism and the originally Protestant friends of light . The immediate trigger in 1844 was an open letter from the Catholic priest Johannes Ronge to Wilhelm Arnoldi , the Bishop of Trier, against the exhibition of the " Rock of Christ ", a relic that he denounced as an idol festival . This open letter has been reprinted and read many times. As a result, critical clergymen of both churches founded new, free congregations, probably in the spirit of the bourgeois emancipation movement during the March Revolution .

The free religious movement was influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment , but also by mysticism and Christian liberal currents. The free religious movement was essentially fed by three sources:

From this spectrum, positions developed that cover a wide range of religious, ideological and philosophical views. The concept of religion ranges from early Christian to pantheistic to atheistic positions.

On June 17, 1859, 40,000 believers from 53 - thus most - free congregations united to form the Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany . This was later renamed the Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany .

In addition, other associations of free congregations emerged, including the Association of German-Catholic and Free Religious Congregations in Southern Germany , which was founded in 1845 and which more than others remained open to traditional Christians. In addition to a wing that promoted more of a free religion , free-religious communities with a more free-thinking orientation emerged in Berlin , Breslau , Chemnitz , Leipzig, Nuremberg , and Stettin . The naturalistically oriented Breslau congregation of the preacher Gustav Tschirn was particularly oriented towards the materialism and criticism of Ludwig Feuerbach's religion . The organized freethinkers movement later emerged from this direction, especially through the establishment of the German Freethinkers Association on April 10, 1881 in Frankfurt am Main .

Free religious edification hall in Ingelheim am Rhein , built in 1910 for the German Catholic community

The Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany did not join the Weimar cartel that was formed in 1907, but was close to it. Together with the Weimar Cartel, the free religious advocated the separation of school and church and, in general, the secularization of the state. Individual free religious people were also often members of other free-spirited and free-thinking associations such as the German Monist Association founded in 1906 or the Marxist Central Association of Proletarian Freethinkers founded in 1908 as the starting point for the proletarian free-thinker movement.

In 1922, the Federation of Free Religious Congregations in Germany and the bourgeois Freethinker Association merged to form the Volksbund for Spiritual Freedom . The Association of Free Religious Congregations in South and West Germany , which did not want to join forces with the free thinkers and emphasized the religious, stayed away from the Volksbund . In 1927 the Volksbund had 156 local congregations and participated in the Reich Working Group of Free Spiritual Associations of the German Republic , which in its function corresponded to the Weimar cartel before the First World War.

During the time of National Socialism , many free religious communities were banned from 1933 or dissolved. In addition, free religious religious instruction (in favor of church religious instruction) and the implementation of youth ordinations were forbidden in many cases . Some members were arrested. The People's Association for Freedom of the Spirit , which had member communities with 60,000 to 90,000 members at the time, tried to avoid a ban by renaming it. First it was renamed the German Free Religious Association , and on June 4, 1933, it was finally renamed the Association of Free Religious Congregations in Germany . This joined in 1934 as a supporting member of the "Working Group German Faith Movement" (ADG) from which the German Faith Movement emerged. The union of free religious communities was banned on November 20, 1934 by Hermann Göring , this was published on November 27, 1934 in the Völkischer Beobachter . Another ban, correctly officially issued, followed on May 20, 1935, which ultimately led to its dissolution. The Free Religious Community of Germany , to which mainly south-west German free religious communities belonged, remained, but had to adapt to the Nazi regime. In contrast to the Volksbund for Intellectual Freedom, it was oriented more religiously from the start.

Free religious people often refer to themselves as humanists and some communities as free humanists. A number of former free religious communities are now united in the Humanist Association of Germany .

Teaching

The motto of the free religious in the
Garden of Religions in Karlsruhe

The emphasis on values ​​such as freedom, reason and tolerance form the principles of the free religious. Under the motto free be the spirit and without compulsion the faith, free religious reject any kind of dogmatic bond and hierarchy. The principles developed by the church historian E. M. Wilbur apply accordingly:

  • complete intellectual freedom in religion instead of being bound by dogmas and creeds
  • unrestricted use of reason in religion instead of appeal to outside authority and tradition
  • Generous tolerance of different religious views and customs instead of insisting on uniformity in teaching, customs and administration.

If free religious people broke away from church dogmas and confessions, most of them did not separate from religion. In their understanding of religion, they follow Friedrich Schleiermacher when religion is defined as "something that moves people in their innermost being, that concerns them deeply, that is essential to them." () Accordingly, free religion is understood as an internal affair of people, which - According to the philosopher of religion Arthur Drews - "is not tied to a specific doctrine or revelation, to holy books or founders of religion, but occurs in detail as the most inward thing that can be thought."

As a religion without a church and without a specific conception of God, free religious see the world as a unit without dividing it into this world and the next ( monism ). They deny the validity of holy books as well as the many religions that see themselves as unique. Rather, the documents of the world religions are valued as evidence of the religious needs of man. There are free religious people who see themselves as free in religion - that is, without dogmatic ties - and there are those who see themselves as free from religion and profess humanistic and free-spirited beliefs.

Well-known persons of the free religious movement

Ludwig Ankenbrand , Eduard Baltzer , Karl Theodor Bayrhoffer , Walter A. Berendsohn , Robert Blum , Wilhelm Bölsche , Lily Braun , Lorenz Diefenbach , Louise Dittmar , Arthur Drews , Eduard Duller , Julius Froebel , Georg Gottfried Gervinus , Ernst Haeckel , Friedrich Hecker , Hermann Heimerich , Wilhelm Hieronymi , Käthe Kollwitz , Waldeck Manasse , Ludwig Marum , Max Maurenbrecher , Theodor Meentzen , Malwida von Meysenbug , Martin Mohr , Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck , Louise Otto-Peters , Bertha Ronge , Johannes Ronge , Emil Adolf Roßmaessler , Carl Scholl , Carl Schurz , Amalie Struve , Gustav von Struve , Leberecht Uhlich , Bruno Wille

literature

  • Georg Gottfried Gervinus : The Mission of the German Catholics . Heidelberg 1845. 2nd edition, Mannheim 1982.
  • Ferdinand Kampe: History of the Religious Movement of Modern Times . 4 volumes. Leipzig 1852–1860, standard work can be downloaded
  • Franz Bohl: The Free Religious Movement in Bavaria: Becoming and Working . Published by the Free Religious Movement in Bavaria, no location, no year (83 pages).
  • Elke Gensler: Free religion for beginners . Edited by the Free Religious Community Mainz, 2000.
  • Lothar Geis: Source collection of free religious theses . Edited by the Free Religious Community Mainz, 1989.
  • Lothar Geis: Freireligöses Quellenbuch, Vol. 1 (1844–1926) and Vol. 2 (1926–2000), a collection of basic texts on the content and goals of free religion . Self-published by the Free Religious Community Mainz, 2006 (vol. 1) and 2010 (vol. 2).
  • Eckhart Pilick (Hrsg.): Lexicon of free religious people. Peter Guhl, Rohrbach / Pfalz 1997, ISBN 3-930760-11-8 .
  • Uwe Spörl: Godless mysticism in German literature at the turn of the century . Dissertation Erlangen, 1995, Schöningh, Paderborn 1997, ISBN 3-506-78610-5 .
  • Friedrich Heyer and Volker Pitzer: Religion without a Church - The Movement of the Free Religious . Quell Verlag, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-7918-6003-8 .
  • Karl Becker: Free Spiritual Bibliography . A directory of free-spirited, humanistic and religious literature. Publishing house of the Free Religious State Community of Württemberg, corporation under public law, Stuttgart 1974.
  • Thomas Lasi and Helmut Manteuffel: Free Religion - an Alternative . Free religious publishing bookstore, Mannheim.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Graf: The politicization of religious consciousness. The bourgeois religious parties in the German Vormärz: the example of German Catholicism . Stuttgart 1978.
  • Karl Weiß: 125 years of struggle for free religion. Depicted on the historical development of the Free Religious State Community of Baden . Mannheim 1970.
  • The Free Religious Movement 1859–1959 - Nature and Mission. Mainz undated (1959).
  • Horst Groschopp : Dissidents. Freethinking and culture in Germany. Dietz, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-320-01936-8 ; 2. verb. Ed., Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2771-4 .

Web links

Commons : Free Religious Movement  - Collection of Images
Wiktionary: free religious  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Manfred Botzenhart: Reform, Restoration, Crisis , p. 133 f.
  2. Horst Groschopp: Dissidents, p. 93ff.
  3. Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 121 ff.
  4. a b c Archive of the Free Religious State Community of Palatinate, Carl Peter: The Federation of Free Religious Communities in Germany, 1956, unpublished. Manuscript.
  5. see "Basic Thoughts of the Free Religious Community Mainz"