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2025 – Volume 6 – Issue 1

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Ecclesial Futures

E D I T O R I A LE D I T O R I A L

Special Issue: Christian Empowerment, 
Secularity and Church Development in 
Germany

Felix Eiffler

It is my pleasure to introduce this special issue of Ecclesial Futures, which offers some 
papers that have been developed from lectures given at the annual gathering of the 
International Consultation on Ecclesial Futures (ICEF) in Halle/Saale in Germany in June 
2024. It was hosted by the Centre for Empowerment Studies –  Christian  Empowerment 
in Secularity,1 a research centre of the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. 
The conference was titled “Christian Empowerment, Secularity and Church Devel-
opment”. The Conference Report, written by Michael Herbst and Patrick Todjeras, 
gives a nuanced insight into the meeting and its different inputs, themes and discus-
sions.

The golden thread running through this special issue is the current circumstances 
and challenges of the Evangelical Church in Germany. As in many Western countries, 
the churches in Germany are facing a steep decline, which has gained pace and dyna-
mism since the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, Germany is in the special position 
of being still divided – at least in terms of religion, faith and church membership. Since 
the majority of people in Western Germany are still members of either the Evangel-
ical or the Catholic Church, the large majority (76%) of people in East Germany (the 
former GDR) are non-affiliated to any religious organization. Even though the West 
German states are catching up in many areas there is still a distinctive difference in 
terms of church membership, religious affiliation and secularity between the East 
and the West part of Germany. The latest Church Membership Survey (2022–24) 
showed that 13% of the entire German population is religious with affiliation to the 
church (evangelical and catholic). Another 25% of Germans are religious-distant and 
the majority of 56% is secular-oriented. In East Germany this is even true of 73% and 
in West Germany this is also applicable to a majority of 53% of the population. In East 

1 www.ces-halle.de (05.05.2025),

http://www.ces-halle.de


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Germany the group of religious-distant people is 27% and in West Germany 13% of 
the people. The people who are religious in an ecclesial way, constiutute 9% in East 
and 14% in West Germany. These numbers show the stark differences between East 
and West Germany in terms of religion and church membership (Wunder 2024).

However, society is shifting towards secularity – and this affects East and West 
Germany equally. Thus, secularity is no longer a solely East German issue. Besides 
the fact that East and West Germany are still different in terms of religious affiliation, 
the last Memberships Survey also showed that the majority of the German popu-
lation (56%) is secular-orientated and only a small minority of 13% is religious in a 
Christian and ecclesial form. This is a challenge for questions of sustainable church 
development and religious communication and sets the frame for this special issue.

The current situation and the expected trends and perspectives are thus the 
reason for founding the Centre for Empowerment Studies – Christian Empowerment in 
Secularity at the University in Halle. This interdisciplinary research centre combines 
different theological traditions and methodological approaches to research Chris-
tian faith and practice as well as religious communication and church development 
in a strongly secularized context like East Germany. One leading question is how 
Christians can be empowered by local congregations, the wider church and academic 
theology to express their faith in a mature, responsible and sustainable way. Another 
aim is to reflect theory and practice to communicate the gospel with as many people 
as possible, no matter if they are members of the church or not.

The team of the research centre takes a multifaceted approach, which combines 
different theological traditions as well as scientific fields like religious education and 
pedagogy, practical theology, psychology and sociology. It also combines different 
research approaches like empirical studies, discourse analyses, participative research 
etc. The team of researchers is convinced that only a poly-perspective approach is 
able to examine and describe the situation properly and is also more likely to develop 
(at least some) ideas and perspectives to deal with the German  ecclesial situation and 
its challenges in a helpful way. Thereby the different discourses on empowerment 
prove to be inspiring dialogue partners, who offer helpful insights and impulses. By 
combining theological reflection with different empowerment- related discourses, 
the Centre for Empowerment Studies aims to develop forms and variants of a Chris-
tian formatted empowerment. The intention is to develop a Christian empowerment 
that serves regional churches, local congregations and individual Christians in their 
different attempts of religious education and their various ways to communicate the 
gospel and express their faith in the triune God.

In the first article Michael Domsgen introduces the idea of Christian empowerment 
in a secular context. He outlines the genesis of this idea born out of the observa-
tion of a changed self-evidence: for a long time, Christian religion functioned as the 



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defining medium that shaped collective perceptions of reality, but this has under-
gone a fundamental transformation. Thus, the Christian worldview, which was very 
 influential for a very long period, has become one perspective among many – at 
least in the Western world. East Germany is a context in which one can observe 
these developments in a quite advanced arena. As a result, a threefold crisis can 
be described for the church in Germany: financial decline, losing trust due to sexual 
abuse and a broad loss of significance, relevance and influence. Domsgen identi-
fies two major questions: How can the gospel be communicated under secular 
conditions and how can people have meaningful and relevant experiences with 
the Christian faith? The situation outlined, and its challenges, lead to questions of 
empowerment and this perspective opens new discourses and interlocutors from 
different academic fields, like theory of social work, disability studies, critical peda-
gogy etc. The proposed translation and understanding of Christian empowerment in 
the field of practical theology and religious education is Befähigung (enablement) and 
Bevollmächtigung (structural authorization).

In the second article, Michael Herbst presents the idea of regio-local church devel-
opment and the ecclesial challenges it addresses. The structural background for 
this new approach to church development is the parochial system of the regional 
churches in Germany. Its aim is the pastoral and sacramental care of all church 
members in a certain area. Those who are members of the church are automatically 
listed as members of a local church when they choose their place of residence. This 
system is under severe pressure and proves itself as increasingly dysfunctional due 
to the rapid decline Protestant churches in Germany have been are facing for many 
years and which have grown in pace since the Covid pandemic. One way to react to 
shrinking church membership is through processes of regionalization. This means 
that communities, parishes and places of worship are becoming increasingly united 
in the region. Mostly it begins with cooperation and continues with joint worship 
service plans and united parish offices. Eventually there is often a complete merger. 
Regio-local church development tries a new approach and combines the necessity 
to act strategically more on a regional level with the potentials of local ecclesial life, 
which is more linked to the everyday life of those living in the parish. Besides prac-
tical insights and arguments, Michael Herbst offers also a theological rationale for 
developing church in a regio-local manner.

In the third article Felix Eiffler (i.e. myself) offers an introduction into the so-called 
Erprobungsräume (spaces of trial) – an innovation programme of the Evangelical 
Church in Central Germany – and the research which accompanied the programme 
from the very beginning. The text sketches the contextual conditions and develop-
ment of this programme, which started in 2015 and functioned as a role model for 



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similar programmes in other regional churches in Germany. The article outlines the 
criteria for being an Erprobungsraum and what forms of new ecclesial expressions 
grew out of this attempt so far. Furthermore, the text gives some insights in the scien-
tific evaluation, which started in 2016 and was finished in 2023. Since 2022 a redesign 
of the research was undertaken and among other perspectives an empower ment-
orientated approach was influential. Next to results and the redesign, the text also 
depicts the challenges and limits of ecclesial innovation as well as the potentials and 
limits to research those innovations and to learn for a wider discourse and prac-
tice of church development and communication of the gospel to people today in an 
increasingly secular society with its specific chances and challenges.

The fourth article, by Thomas Schlegel, is thematically closely linked to the text 
about Erprobungsräume, because Schlegel is outlining insights about ecclesial inno-
vation which he gained by initiating and developing Erprobungsräume in Central 
Germany. His main question is how innovative expressions of church emerge in 
mainline churches (Volkskirche). He asks about the formal and informal connections 
as well as the reciprocal dynamics between the different ecclesial levels that are part 
of this process. On the one hand is the “below” level of new expressions of church, 
which are mostly bottom-up grass-roots initiatives. On the other hand, is the “above” 
level of the institutional church and her aim to foster new initiatives without insti-
tutionalizing them. The new expressions need time (and freedom) to grow – some-
times in a different direction from that originally intended. This process is important; 
to engage with the surrounding (mostly secular) context of those initiatives and it 
often depends on the willingness of the institution to grant the needed time and 
space. To describe the reciprocal dynamics of levels, people and rationales, Schlegel 
refers to the heuristic model of church being a hybrid with different paradigms (that 
of institution, organization and movement) existing along each other and shaping 
the different ways church is organized. Regarding the Erprobungsräume Schlegel 
detects and describes four ways of how new expressions of church (new congrega-
tions, respectively) emerge in mainline churches.

The fifth article, by Hanna Kauhaus, presents reflections about diversity in local 
congregations and how more diversity can be fostered. The ecclesial context is the 
Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and for the aim of diversity she asks two main 
questions: What variety of people show up in local congregations? And how well are 
those present included and have the chance to participate and contribute? For this 
purpose, she introduces into the concept of diversity management (DiM) and asks 
what churches and congregations can learn from it – in theoretical reflection as well 
as in practical implementation. To put the learning from DiM into congregational prac-
tice Kauhaus developed a framework with two parts. The first part is about raising 



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awareness that (non)accessibility and exclusion often reach further than expected. 
The second part explores areas of church activities where actual barriers can be 
found and removed. Within the model, she describes four levels of accessibility and 
exclusion, which build on each other: basic accessibility, understanding, positive 
experience and belonging. Besides levels of accessibility and exclusion, Kauhaus also 
identifies and describes areas of accessibility. To structure the areas, she provides a 
framework of five areas of congregational activities: information and public commu-
nication, buildings and times, content and culture of events and meetings, personal 
contacts and networks, and opportunities for participation and contribution.

This issue outlines the current socio-religious dynamics in Germany and the latest 
ecclesial attempts to deal with these realities. It shows how extensive and rapid the 
processes of secularization are and how fundamental their effects for the churches. 
It also sketches the consequent transformations the churches in Germany are under-
going currently. The perspectives might be helpful for other contexts with similar 
societal dynamics and ecclesial challenges.

About the Author
Dr Felix Eiffler is head of the research unit for Missional Church Development at the 
Centre for Empowerment Studies – Christian Empowerment in Secularity at the Martin- 
Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (GER). He also works as ordained pastor in the 
Evangelical Church in Central Germany. Contact: felix.eiffler@theologie.uni-halle.de

Reference
Wunder, Edgar. 2024. “Ost-West-Vergleiche zu Religiosität und Kirchlichkeit – die Unterschiede 

nehmen zu, nicht ab”, in SI/KAMP (Hg.): Wie hältst du’s mit der Kirche? Zur Relevanz von Religion und 
Kirche in der pluralen Gesellschaft Analysen zur 6. KMU. Leipzig: 192–207.

mailto:felix.eiffler@theologie.uni-halle.de

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	EDITORIAL
	Special Issue: Christian Empowerment, Secularity and Church Development in Germany
	Felix Eiffler


