Staatskirchenrecht als säkulare Rahmenordnung im Spiegel von Luthers Lehren über Kirche und Welt, Weltlichkeit und Verweltlichung

The introduction of German state-church law in 1919 ended the thousand-year Christian state system by separating the state and church and providing comprehensive guarantees for the freedom of religion as well as equality for all religious communities. In rejecting state control, enforced conformity, and the elimination of religion – three versions of secularisation arising from the ideas of the French Revolution, left-wing Hegelians and Marxists, and twentieth century totalitarian systems – it embodies the reasoning and sense behind 1849's Constitution of St. Paul's Church, 1919's Weimar Constitution, 1949's Basic Law and its affirmation in 1990, and determines how state-church law is shaped in a liberal cultural and social state. The origin and continuity of the law, its breadth and depth, are only revealed in the context of Luther's teachings on creation and redemption, law and Gospel, and with the development of an equal church law in the confessional age.