Far from church

As church away or remote standing are the church sociological persons or population groups designated usage, while a church belong, but their indifferent or hostile stand. In a pejorative sense, terms such as baptismal Christians , name Christians or submarine Christians are used here.

Conceptual content

According to Johannes Först , “church distant” describes the phenomenon that Christians of their own free will stay away from the life of their congregation. According to Först, however, one can only speak of being remote from the church if membership of a church is given. People from the “new federal states”, in whose lives Christian religiosity has never played a role due to their socialization , do not fall under this term.

More terms

Baptism certificate Christian, name Christian

Taufscheinchristen or nominal Christians is a pejorative intentioned term for people who through the sacrament of baptism to a church , even belong as Christians call or visit a church of tradition, yet not believe essential teachings of the Christian religion and not in their way of life orientate towards it.

The Bishop of Bressanone Joseph Altenweisel (1851–1912) referred to those who were distant from the church, whose number in his eyes was terrifying even then, as “sick, dying or already dead members of the body of the church”.

Submarine Christian

A submarine Christian is also pejoratively referred to a person who, although belonging to a denomination , only appears in the church for the major festive worship services at Christmas and Easter or to celebrate family casuals .

The term U-Boot-Christ seems to go back to formulations of the Roman Catholic preacher Johannes Leppich, who was very well known in the 1950s and 1960s .

The Catholic theologian and South Korea expert Carsten Wippermann uses the category of submarine Christians to classify a phenomenon among Protestants in South Korea. It is a reaction to obligations under the so-called Minjung theology in the Asian country. The Minjung theology is a local variant of the liberation theology with considerable socio-political demands and effort. With U-Boot-Christ in Korea, Wippermann names a group of people who belong to a megachurch , but who stay away from meetings and events as often as possible with reference to scheduling problems and thus can also hide from the obligations of the smaller mini-youth communities.

Similar terms

Also known is the Good Friday Christian or part-time Christian , which has occurred in the German-speaking area around the 1970s. An obsolete term with the same aim is the term “ annual volunteer ”. In the German Empire (1871–1918), the term actually referred to soldiers who had volunteered for service in the army for a year, but was then used for church members who only came to worship once a year; the term was common until around the 1960s.

A common name in Austria is baptismal certificate Catholic ; This means that the person in question is Catholic, but that this fact does not have any special significance in their life.

Empirical situation

According to studies by Paul Zulehner and other pastoral theologians , distance from the church is by no means synonymous with a lack of faith in God or a higher being, but can also be sociologically determined (e.g. in parts of the workers' movement ) or through negative experiences with representatives of the church or individual believers.

Various surveys among young people occasionally show a strong interest in ethical topics, in metaphysics or questions about the meaning of life . Believe in survival after death z. B. in Austria (Salzb. Nachrichten Oct. 2010) around two thirds of the respondents, but some in the form of a conceivable rebirth . The belief in a “higher being” is somewhat stronger, but not necessarily in a personal God .

The cases of abuse that have become known in the church sector have temporarily increased the number of people leaving the church , but also the vigilance towards such cases in general. This heightened sensitivity is partly credited back to the church. Nonetheless, those who are distant from the church are also at a distance from those with no religious affiliation, as they maintain their church membership.

"Believer, but remote from the church"

The membership development in the churches has been largely declining in the large national churches for years, even if the number of members is increasing in most churches worldwide. The latter is mainly due to the demographic development there. Specific figures for Germany cites an article in the period of June 24, 2010. They are also about the stats of the two major Christian churches. Thereafter, in the last 100 years, the proportion of the population of church members - both Protestant and Catholic - decreased considerably. Now there are less than 30 percent per group who at least formally belong to one of the two churches.

Church membership typology

For the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) the evangelical pastor Gerald Kretzschmar researched the bonding forces between church and society. In his book on church attachment, he analyzes a. a. the data of the fourth EKD survey based on the following typology of Protestant Christians in Germany:

1. Religious and close to the church: Great agreement with Christian beliefs and belief in God, high level of solidarity and active participation in church life
2. Little religious, but close to the church: Rejection of Christian beliefs, but solidarity with the church as (1.)
3. Religious and remote from the church: Great approval of Christian-religious experiences and beliefs, but little attachment to the church and hardly any participation in its life
4. Somewhat religious and a bit close to the church: middle position in terms of religiosity and churchliness
5. Not religious and remote from the church: Rejection of Christian belief in God and Christian religious experiences, rarely or no participation in church life.

According to Kretzschmar, the partially paradoxical survey results can be related to the fact that the questioned church affiliation was measured according to the degree of approval of statements about Christian religiosity and ecclesiasticality, but the interactions between church affiliation and religiosity are too complex for such surveys. Parts of the effect (2.) can arise through consent to the social commitment of the church.

A representative survey by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in West and East Germany showed in 2003 that 70 percent of those questioned feel connected to the church - which, however, clearly contradicts the percentage of churchgoers. The EKD expressed itself skeptically because it does not yet regard the expressed solidarity as a church bond . On the other hand, the 30 percent remote from the church could also have a certain relationship with the church. Therefore Kretzschmar proposes a modified binding term that in addition to social proximity and the social distance considered. The latter can also be partially deduced from the biography of the respondents.

The survey among members of the EKD indicates 74 percent of their solidarity, although this value has shown a "slightly increasing trend" since 1972. However, many do not define their church relationship through social closeness and seldom attend Sunday services (mostly only on festivals, such as Christmas ), but make use of official church activities, value the pastor and of course have their children baptized.

In the Roman Catholic Church , the proportion of churchgoers is significantly higher, but also that of those who have distanced themselves. An Allensbach survey in 2010 assigned 17 percent to type (1), 37 percent saw themselves as “critically connected to the church” and another 32 percent “distanced from the church”.

However, the results of the EKD's fifth church membership survey show strong relationships between belief in God and solidarity with the church. There are only a small number of those who are distant from the church who see themselves as more religious. Faith is also more diffuse among church members who are distant from the church.

Distant spirituality

Many surveys show that in Europe, being removed from the church does not necessarily mean disbelief . The causes can be varied and range from childhood and youth that are distant from the church (no baptism , no religious instruction, parents leaving the church , atheistic milieu, youth club , etc.) to negative experiences with representatives of the church (e.g. religion teachers , pastors, funerals , exaggerated religiosity from neighbors) to the problem of suffering in the world ( theodicy question ) and conscious rejection of the Christian image of God . As the German study Men and Their Spirituality (2006) shows, those who are distant are less likely to imagine a personal God who takes an interest in people's lives, but rather a Creator who does not intervene in events ( deism ). Therefore, an underlying research project was called The Invisible Religion of Men Remote from Church.

Previous empirical interview studies by Paul M. Zulehner and Rainer Volz allow not only percentage figures but also qualitative statements (priorities, opinions, attitudes) about different groups of the German and Austrian population (excluding migrants). The answers to given written questions (items) were by scientists to bundling compressed (clusters) and in another relationship set. They show typical attitudes towards theology and the church that correlate with images of gender roles . Zulehner distinguishes the types of the traditional , the insecure (indefinite), the pragmatic and the new man with very different participation in Sunday worship and church life. In spite of a decline in ecclesiasticalism - especially among men who are “renewed” or younger men in terms of gender democracy - 60 percent of men describe themselves as “religious”, while women call themselves 74 percent. There are often contradictions between the cognitive level of the questionnaires or statements and the level of experience, choice of words, non-verbal utterances and habitus . In an exaggerated way, Zulehner sums up " secularizing men , spiritualizing women".

For those who are distant, the question of giving meaning in life is therefore more productive than that of religiosity . Men mainly recognize such phenomena as meaningful that can be interpreted positively for their biography and increase their ability to act. According to Hans Prömper, this very earthly view fits in with today's efforts to see faith and religion as consent to the world and as coming to terms with existence in the horizon of transcendent experiences .

In the view of life there are great differences between East and West German men and between the generations, but not along the confessional boundaries between Catholic and Protestant. What many have in common is the rejection of church teachings as paternalism, and on the other hand the openness to cosmological and anthropological questions, to nature and life, ethics and the family.

In-depth interviews often bring to light the concept of an “alternative world”, which is intended to supplement the externally determined “world” (especially the professional world and “struggle for life”) in the direction of self-determined times and places. Men seek out other worlds in order to find relief from everyday life, new vitality and meaning. Church studies locate a strong deficit in pastoral care and pastoral care here when those who are distant assign the church to the “world” that determines and makes free from others. The modern church must form a socially effective, open counterworld to social and economic developments. The study What gives men a sense of purpose names as a biblical leitmotif against stress and competition the saying of Jesus in Matthew 20.26  EU : “But with you it shouldn't be like that”.

In some cases, the men surveyed showed that they were “distant from the church” as being “distant from God”. In their view, God (maybe) exists, but has little to do with their concrete life. They long for salvation and wholeness in the experience of contingency, suffering and brokenness; but they do not experience this in the message and practice of the church. Her openness to transcendence (often speechless compared to women) seeks symbols, actions and rites that give life to life. The church should primarily create spiritual spaces in which men can experience (again) with all their senses that God is close to their life .

literature

• Paul Zulehner , Rainer Volz: Men on the move. How Germany's men see themselves and how women see them. Research paper. Ostfildern 1998.
• Paul M. Zulehner (Ed.): MannsBilder. A decade of men's development. Ostfildern 2003.
• Paul M. Zulehner: Religion yes - Church no? The Church in the multicultural society of tomorrow . In: Manfred Kock (Hrsg.): Church in the 21st century. Diversity will be . Kreuz Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-7831-2392-5 , p. 11-31 .
• Hans Prömper, Andreas Ruffing, Hubert Frank: Men and their spirituality. Evaluation of the study "What makes men meaningful", Frankfurt 2006.
• Gerald Kretzschmar : Church ties - practical theology of mediatized communication (=  text and study books on theology . Volume 7 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-62398-5 (333 pages, limited preview in the Google book search [accessed December 7, 2017]).
• Johannes Först : Church crisis, distance from the church and secularization . In: Johannes Först, Heinz-Günther Schöttler (Hrsg.): Introduction to the theology of pastoral care: a textbook for students . LIT-Verlag, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-11435-8 , p. 241-264 .
• Edward Rommen: Named Christianity. Theological and sociological considerations. (= Edition Afem: Mission scripts. Volume 20). 2nd Edition. VTR, Nuremberg 2003. ISBN 3-933372-74-7 .

Web links

• Believer, but remote from the church - only every second Catholic feels connected to the official church. In: The time. June 24, 2010.
• Karl Veitschegger: Topic: “Baptism Certificate Christians” - 10 Theological Thoughts ; 1995

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johannes Först: Church crisis, distance from the church and secularization . In: Johannes Först, Heinz-Günther Schöttler (Hrsg.): Introduction to the theology of pastoral care: a textbook for students . LIT-Verlag, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-11435-8 , p. 246 .
2. ↑ Document on the "Baptismal Christian" at ZEIT
3. ↑ Lenten shepherd letter 1911, reference in the Innsbrucker Nachrichten of February 13, 1911, p. 6
4. ↑ Klaus Kenneth: Two million kilometers in search: my long way to faith . Saint-Paul, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7228-0518-4 ( Google Books ).
5. ↑ Dictionary of German Slang and Colloquial Expressions Henry Strutz Barron's snippet, June 1, 2009 - 338 pages
6. ^ Carsten Wippermann: Between cultures: Christianity in South Korea LIT Verlag Münster, 2000
7. ^ Gerald Kretzschmar: Church ties - practical theology of mediatized communication . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-62398-5 , p. 58 .
8. ↑ cf. Kretzschmar, p. 16 and p. 46
9. ^ Allensbach survey: Believers distance themselves from the church. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. June 17, 2010.
10. ↑ Hans Prömper, Andreas Ruffing, Hubert Frank: Men and their spirituality.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Evaluation of the study "What makes men meaningful", Frankfurt 2006.