Contributions to political ethics
Arnulf von Scheliha on the political dimension of religious pluralism
The Protestant theologian and social ethicist Prof. Dr. Arnulf von Scheliha of the Cluster of Excellence has published a volume containing twenty articles on political ethics that shed light on the relationship between religion and politics. On the one hand, it is about the presence of religiously influenced actors in the political sphere, and on the other hand, the pluralistic religious culture of the present increasingly turns into a task demanding political action that parties, parliaments and state levels are facing. Both sides of religious politics are interpreted in this book from the perspective of a theory of modern Protestantism.
The volume begins with articles on the theoretical historical and systematic foundations of the Protestant ethics of the political. Here, in addition to the Reformation doctrine of God’s two ways of reigning and their transformation forms, the focus is on human dignity and the political role of the Protestant Churches. This is followed by articles describing the current situation and reconstructing the Christianity theoretical foundations of contemporary religious pluralism. Here, the author shows that the secular state and religious pluralism are not phenomena speaking against the effectiveness of Protestant impulses in politics.
This is followed by selected analyses of current centres of religio-political conflicts. The book concludes with a presentation of exemplary policy fields in which the Protestant ethics of the political have to prove themselves, namely climate policy, migration and refugee policy, the future of religious education in schools and how to deal with political right-wing populism. (Mohr Siebeck/vvm)