'Politische Religion' Zur Herkunft eines Interpretationsmodells totalitärer Ideologien

'Political religion' as an analytical model was not first introduced by Voegelin and Aron but initially reestablished as a critical term in the discussion of nationalism and imperialism (Dicey, Lehmann, Ular, Schütz). With the rise of totalitarian dictatorships, this religious interpretation was transferred to aspects of Bolshevism (Russell, Gerlich, Berdjajew, Tillich, Gurian, Schütz) and National Socialism (Dehn, Barth, Sasse, Jacob). Protestant theologians played a decisive part in this procedure. They probably used for the first time explicitly the term 'political religion' in connection with the »Third Reich« (Jacob, Schütz). The perception of religious sentiments and structures in politics, the presence of a differentiated term of religion and the possibility to change perspective through transcultural experiences was decisive for the acceptance of this interpretation model. Up to now the term 'political religion' was and still is used with different intentions in Christian and atheist-liberal models of thinking.