Der bedrohte Himmel

Six case studies examine the transformation processes of Protestant Christianity from the early 19th century to the period after the Second World War, using the example of the Protestant Regional Church in Wurttemberg. The primary focus is on how church leaders, clergy and Protestant laypeople responded to fundamental challenges in politics and society. By comparing the different denominations and drawing on methodological insights from sociology and history, new perspectives have been revealed – for example, with regard to the relationship between Protestantism and democracy during the Weimar Republic, processes of milieu formation at the local and regional level, the religious topography of a regional church, and the hopes placed in the National Socialist dictatorship under its charismatic leader. A separate chapter classifies the central findings of the individual studies into overarching questions of European religious development.

• By (author) Norbert Haag