Ethik der Nähe
Analysen zu Aufarbeitung und Prävention sexualisierter Gewalt in der Evangelischen Kirche
By (author) Reiner Anselm By (author) Oliver Dimbath
Paperback (Forthcoming)
(December 2026)
ISBN: 9783161648052
4.49 x 7.17 inches
Price: $29.00
How can closeness be shaped responsibly – protecting trust without enabling abuse? This book outlines an ethics of closeness, grounded in bodily integrity and mindful of power imbalances. It examines how key Christian concepts like community and trust can be misused, and how theology and church structures must respond.
Addressing sexualized violence challenges the Protestant Church’s self-image. This volume combines approaches from the social sciences, systematic theology and cultural analysis. They aim to understand the conditions, dynamics and language patterns that have facilitated abuse and sexualized violence in church contexts and made it difficult to address.
Based on the results of the ForuM study, the structural and semantic characteristics of church organisations are examined: the power asymmetries between office and community, the diffusion of responsibility in participatory structures, and the role of informal communication channels. Analyses of films, institutions and a simulation game show how ecclesiastical semantics of closeness, trust and family could lead to forms of a helpless institution that denies power instead of regulating it.
This diagnosis is further developed in a theological-systematic manner: an ethic of closeness develops criteria for responsible relationships in asymmetrical contexts – based on physical integrity, the obligation to consent and professional responsibility. The contributions on toxic guiding principles and victim analogies show how idealized images of family, community and victimhood distorted the perception of real violence. In contrast, an organizational culture based on freedom, transparency and accountability is proposed.
The volume thus provides groundwork for further analysis and a reflective culture of prevention that relies not only on regulations and reporting requirements, but also on a deep understanding of the church’s semantics of closeness, power and responsibility.
It is aimed at theologians, social scientists, those responsible in the church and social welfare, and anyone interested in sustainable and theory-based reappraisal.
1. Sexueller und sexualisierter Missbrauch in Organisationen. Überlegungen zur hilflosen Institution
2. Kirchlicher Missbrauch. Kontextspezifische Formen in filmischer Interaktion
3. Verdachtsmomente sexuellen Missbrauchs oder sexualisierter Gewalt in der Gemeinde: Ein Planspiel zur Simulation problemzentrierter Interaktionsverläufe
4. Toxische Leitvorstellungen: Die Ambivalenz zentraler Semantiken der Kirche
5. Leitmodell Familie? Die Schattenseiten eines kirchlichen Gemeinschaftsideals
6. Opfer und Opferanalogien in der Theologie
7. Ethik der Nähe. Eine Skizze
8. Die tätige Verantwortung. Ein Ausblick
Reiner Anselm (Von (Autor))
Born 1965; studied Protestant Theology in Munich, Heidelberg, and Zurich; 1993 doctorate; 1996 ordination as pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria; 1998 habilitation; Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at LMU Munich; member of the Bavarian Ethics Council, senior involvement in numerous church advisory bodies, including as chair of the section on Church and Society within the EKD’s Chamber Network.
Oliver Dimbath (Von (Autor))
Born 1968; studied business administration (Dipl. Betriebswirt FH 1993) and then sociology, social psychology and social and economic history (Dipl. Soziologe 1998) in Munich; 2002 doctorate; 2012 habilitation; Professor of General Sociology and Sociological Theory at the University of Koblenz.
- By (author) Reiner Anselm
- By (author) Oliver Dimbath
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