2023 Volume 97 Issue 2 Pages 127-152
The interwar period in Germany saw a remarkable development of the discipline of religious studies, both in terms of its theorization and its institutionalization. However, the interwar form of this discipline was later seen as theology in disguise, and the “confessional” influence of liberal Protestantism on its formation has been discussed. This paper aims to shed light on the historical context in which this interwar discipline emerged. It will show how the legacy of nineteenth-century religious liberalism was recalled in the interwar period and was a factor in the formation of both a diagnosis of the present and a vision of the future. Concrete objects of research will be neither liberal theology in the narrower sense nor cultural Protestantism as a social milieu, but the ecclesiastical-political and cultural activities of “free Protestantism,” which sought in theory and practice to “believe freely” in the Protestant orthodox establishment that still continued to exist after the post-war collapse of the summus episcopus system of secular authority over the church. This paper will highlight the conciliatory role played by “free Protestantism” both in its ecclesiastical-political and theological controversies and in its cooperation with non-Christian groups and Christian fringe movements outside and on the periphery of the established churches.
