How they do it in Deutschland: Signposts for Interreligious Dialogue in Germany

The Christmas market attacks in Magdeburg — and the heated political atmosphere that followed — have stressed a range of issues ahead of Germany’s snap elections on February 23.  

Voters across Europe’s largest economy are concerned about domestic security, immigration, upholding the rule of law and strengthening democracy against perceived enemies within and without.  

An important aspect of this equation is how followers of Germany’s various religious communities might work to address these concerns together.  

With a total population of nearly 85 million, there are an estimated 23 million Catholics (27 percent), 21 million Protestants (25 percent) and nearly 5 million Muslims (5.7 percent). There are also smaller populations of evangelicals (2 percent) and Orthodox Christians (1.9 percent), as well as Jews, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Yezidis, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pagans and Sikhs. Notably, 44 percent of Germans (or 37 million) claim no religious affiliation, but may practice some form of spirituality or hold some kind of enchanted worldview.  

In my latest for Interfaith America, I explore how members of these various groups work together — or against one another — is of great importance for the future of plural, open societies like Germany. 

Does the world really need interreligious dialogue?

Growing up in what could best be described as a decidedly non-ecumenical Protestant denomination, I was taught to treat “interfaith” like a bad word.

But the negativity around interactions between people of different religious, spiritual and humanistic beliefs always sat a bit awkwardly with my everyday experience growing up in Los Angeles, one of the most religiously diverse cities in the United States.

I couldn’t square the alarming discourse around interreligious interactions with the lived reality of diversity that defined my teenage years (and beyond). My friends were Buddhist and Muslim, Jewish and Christian, Pagan and atheist.

And so, despite the warnings, I stayed curious about different traditions, learning about other religions as I dove deeper into my own.

As I’ve made religion my profession, I’ve also come to appreciate how interreligious dialogue has changed over the years and how it is far from the caricature I was brought up to believe it was.

On the occasion of the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago (August 14-18), I shared some thoughts on interreligious dialogue and its role in the contemporary world on my column, “What You Missed Without Religion Class.”

Interfaith dialogue often gets a bad rap as a project concerned with surface level “feel good” conversations. Today, interreligious dialogue (a more widely preferred term) has grown into a multifaceted and critical field of interaction with real-world impact and implications for your life and mine.

What Hath Religious Studies To Do With Interreligious Dialogue?

When I moved to Germany, I was invited to take part in a pioneering project to map interreligious dialogue (IRD) efforts across the country.

In the aftermath of the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace in Lindau in August 2019, a group of colleagues got together to pursue the idea of an interreligious cartography in Germany. The goal was to make a comprehensive survey of local, national, and international interreligious initiatives and actors in German municipalities to serve as a reference for future research.

Through our investigation, we gained a clearer picture of what IRD looks like in Germany and who is taking part. From Bonn to Berlin, Flensburg to Freiburg, one of the things that became evident was that many of the local initiatives involved, or were led by, religion scholars and academic theologians. Based on my own research and experience, this holds true in the U.S. and elsewhere, with scholars often actively involved in IRD efforts at the local, regional, national, and international levels.

As I reflected on this, I pondered a few questions: Are religious studies and IRD natural companions or should they be carefully delineated and divided? Should those who study religion lead the way when it comes to multi-religious responses to the world’s pressing issues? Or, as some argue, should IRD remain an object for critical study and not participation?