Religious Education in Germany – Challenges and Opportunities

The dilemma of religious education in Germany is that, on the one hand, the subject is excellently protected by the constitution, and on the other hand, conceptual and content-related changes appear inevitable due to societal transformation processes. Therefore, religious education requires justification both to society and to the church. Various perspectives must be considered for its future design: the objective for the children and young people learning it, the internal didactic structure of the subject, the global task of enabling students to deal with plurality, and questions regarding the organizational orientation of the subject.