Empowerment in religionspädagogischer Perspektive

In the life-world perspective, religion presently appears to be, alongside others, a heterogeneity factor that is never encountered in its pure form, but rather always as hybrid and contingent. Even in the private realm, it represents one option pre-determined by particular socialisation. With this, the starting point for the religious-pedagogical processing of current challenges in religious education is marked. As a result, relevance becomes the key factor in individuals' ability to communicate connectively. More than ever before, religious education must therefore be contextually profiled and link up direct-personal and indirect-structural actions. The East German context in particular illustrates this. The term empowerment is being suggested as an adequate conceptional approach to the challenges, emphasising to its best ability previous systemic-contextual considerations, and at the same time reconfiguring the combined academic alignment. And so come community psychology, theoretical social work, curative education, and critical pedagogic-related discourses into view. In addition, reflection gained by taking bearings on the thoroughly problematic leading metaphor of empowerment proves its theory of power perspective. A look at various spheres of activity in religious education practice underlines the relevance and innovation potential of an empowerment-orientated religious education.