Prof. Dr. Horst Junginger

At present, Horst Junginger’s research activities overlap with two publication projects. One deals with the criticism of religion in Germany and German-speaking countries, ranging from atheist freethinkers of both a proletarian and bourgeois background, over church critics, whose reform endeavours have failed to come to fruition, to a philosophically inspired criticism of religion without religious or anti-religious bias. A particular focus addresses the concept “Scientific Atheism” that spread from the Soviet Union to other socialist countries and lead to the establishment of a “Chair of Scientific Atheism” at the University of Jena in 1963. On the final stage of state socialism, efforts arose to change the academic negation of religion into a Marxist-Leninist sociology or study of religion.

The second publication is a handbook on religious and substitute religious education in Germany. In recent years a number of non-Christian religions, primarily Islamic denominations, have found their way into the public school system and became a subject of religious instruction. In addition to that, instruction models with other subjects than religion, that is ethics, philosophy, humanistic life skills etc., will be given due attention. Resulting from the growing number of schoolchildren without a Christian background, the established model of separative religious education has, expectably, come under pressure. While the full consequences of this change are unpredictable at present, it appears to be quite clear that integrative religious education on non-religious grounds will gain importance in the future. Both examples provide ample evidence of the weakening influence of the Church observable in most industrialised nations around Europe and the world. That religion has got into a state of flux does, however, not vindicate any teleological kind of interpretation. What becomes apparent instead is a much more normal modification process than participant observers usually perceive.