Chapter 5. Between Menschlichkeit And Missionsbefehl

God, Work, And World Among Christians In Saxony

Bibliographic Data

ID23213448
AuthorsEsther Peperkamp (corresponding author)
Year2010
Pages107-124
Publication date2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueReligion and the secular in Eastern Germany, 1945 to the present (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/ej.9789004184671.i-224.40
OpenAlexW2899491177
ISBN9789004184671
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This chapter looks at how Christians from various denominations narrate their experiences in education and their professional lives in the GDR, and how they position themselves in relation to religion in their narratives. As professing Christians, the interviewees were faced with disadvantages in education and their professional lives. This raises the question of how private and public dimensions of religion are experienced today, and to what extent life experience in GDR remains relevant in understanding articulations of God, work, and the world. Humane, or menschlich , was a word that often recurred in the interviews, especially in the interviews with Catholics. A similar pattern can be observed among Protestant interviewees, who for the most part came from strict religious communities. What makes these communities particularly interesting is that they explicitly demand from their members that they publicly proclaim their faith ( Missionsbefehl ), placing in question any strict division between public and private. Keywords: Christians; education; German Democratic Republic (GDR); Germany; God; Menschlichkeit ; Missionsbefehl ; professional lives; religion

Sociology · Work (physics) · Engineering · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Mechanical Engineering · Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity

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