Lecture course: Religion and Ethics as institutions (winter term 2006/2007)

If religion and ethics used to be acknowledged once as concepts of social integration and individual orientation, meanwhile, with regard to the increasing social pluralisation, they are put to test. Nowadays integrative and orientating activities are more and more ascribed to the “institution” type of system. But how do these two perspectives behave toward one another in the social reality? Do they tolerate to be incorporated into a common concept, or is it about a quadrature of the circle when the institution, as well as religion and ethics are surveyed? The research focal point “Belief-Ethics-Organization” (Glaube-Ethik-Organisation - GEOrg) of the Faculty of Theology addresses this issue. In the framework of the mentioned research focus, the lecture course exemplarily presented models of organised religion and ethics in the modern time. Thereby lectures on (church) history, dogmatics and moral theology, practical theology, as well as religious studies were supported by contributing lectures on law, sociology and ethnology.