Since this school year, many students in Lower Saxony have had a new subject on their timetable: Christian religion. It is intended to gradually replace denominational, cooperative religious education and focus more on the questions and experiences of children and young people. One of the main reasons: fewer and fewer students are baptized. The suggestion to create common Christian religious education came from the churches themselves - and is, in a sense, a rescue attempt that could also be a model for other federal states. After all, a declining number of church members can be observed almost everywhere. And yet there are clear differences between the federal states. And also criticism of the new subject.
The first grade often deals with questions such as “Who am I?”, family, community or illness, says the Protestant Higher Regional Church Councilor Kerstin Gäfgen-Track. Later, topics such as war, poverty or social conflicts would be addressed and linked to religious perspectives. Other religions are no longer treated as a separate topic block in the curriculum. Instead, Christian topics should be linked to Jewish, Muslim and other religious perspectives again and again throughout the school year. For example, the Lord's Prayer should be compared with the Kaddish, one of the most important prayers in Judaism, and with the first surah of the Koran.
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New school books are still in the works. Gäfgen-Track sees the subject as a necessary new beginning. “It couldn’t continue like this, we really needed a new approach,” she said.
Criticism of the realignment: Is Jesus neglected?
Not everyone likes the new focus. Critics complained, among other things, that Christian content was neglected in the new curriculum. The newspaper “Bild” headlined: “Minister deletes Jesus for Sharia and climate.” Education Minister Julia Willie Hamburg rejected the criticism and spoke of a “strong misinterpretation of the core curriculum”. Anyone who only looks for the word “Jesus” in the curriculum will miss many biblical references.
There were also discussions within the churches. Catholic and Protestant churches first had to “pull themselves together,” said the head of the Lower Saxony Catholic Office, Felix Bernard, after the curricula were presented. There were debates about which differences should remain visible. Bernard mentioned, for example, the papacy, the veneration of saints and the sacraments. At the same time, however, he emphasized: “The similarities are much greater than the differences.” Those responsible maintain that religious education remains important, especially in a diverse society.
Gäfgen-Track warned that more and more knowledge about Christian culture and religion is being lost. “Ask people what Pentecost is,” she said in the debate. Religious education should help to understand religions - and counteract fundamentalism. “Religion is always good when it is educated religion.” The churches expressly emphasize that religious education in Lower Saxony should not become general ethics instruction. Nevertheless, the subject should be more ecumenical, dialogic and geared towards the lives of young people.
Fewer church members, more shared religious education
According to Article 7 Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law, denominational religious education has constitutional status as a regular school subject. This means: It cannot simply be abolished by the state. The content of the subject is the responsibility of the religious communities. This is intended to protect religious freedom. But even if denominational religious education is protected, the reality practically forces regional churches and dioceses to approach each other.
“We experience among our students that there is no longer any awareness of denominationalism,” says Katharina Barthold-Knegendorf, religion teacher at the Scharnhorstgymnasium in Hildesheim. Around every second student in Lower Saxony belongs to the Protestant or Catholic church. However, whether Catholic or Protestant hardly matters anymore for many students at Barthold-Knegendorf.
The city states in Germany have long since responded to the growing religious and ideological diversity in schools. In Berlin, ethics is a compulsory subject for grades seven to ten, and religious education is voluntary. In Hamburg and Bremen there has been no longer any Catholic or Protestant religious instruction for several years, but rather general religious instruction. In both federal states, only about a third of the population is a church member. The school authorities in Hamburg coordinate the learning content with the Protestant church, the Jewish community, the three Islamic religious communities in Hamburg, the Alevi community and the Catholic archdiocese.
In some East German federal states the proportion of church members is even lower than in the city states for historical reasons. In 2022, according to the Federal Statistical Office, less than twenty percent of the population in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt were church members - mostly in the Protestant church.
This makes it obvious that Catholic religious education hardly plays a role in schools in these federal states. In Brandenburg, students attend the subject of lifestyle-ethics-religious studies (L-E-R) as appropriate, but can be exempted from it for religious lessons. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, most students take philosophy or Protestant religious education. In Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, ethics is the most visited subject.
Although Catholic or Protestant religious education is still attended by significantly more students in some West German federal states, denominational-cooperative instruction is now offered or at least tested in model projects in almost all federal states. In addition, Islamic, Alevi or Jewish religious education is also offered in many federal states.
The introduction of Christian religious education like in Lower Saxony is currently not planned in any other federal state. However, the model is being watched with interest - including by scientists from the universities of Göttingen and Osnabrück, who are investigating its introduction, particularly in the first two years. A big question is what potential the new subject offers for promoting ecumenism in schools and beyond.
