Religious Education for Everyone: The “Hamburg Way”

Religious education in German schools remains a hotly contested issue – even though ties to the Christian churches in Germany are increasingly eroding. There is a simple reason for this: Hardly any other school subject is so confronted with the requirements of multicultural integration, which is particularly charged with identification when it comes to questions of faith. Can a student of Islamic faith be expected to take part in Protestant religious education? Does a Jewish schoolgirl have to make do with Catholic religious instruction for lack of alternatives? In view of the growing number of non-believers, does it still make sense to have religion as a school subject?

These questions arise above all when religious instruction is understood to be denominational. Then the religious affiliation decides on the appropriate religious instruction – in most German federal states the students have the choice between Protestant and Catholic religious instruction, as a secular alternative a subject is often offered that is described with vague terms such as “ethics” or “values”. After all, anyone who wants religious diversity can also get it at German schools: In some federal states, separate Islam classes have also been offered for a number of years.

What is welcomed in many places as progress for more tolerance and diversity in society reaches its limits where dialogue between religions is sought and religious education is not understood as a profession of faith, but as a place for imparting knowledge – just like in any other school subject. Hamburg, which is the only federal state that practices “religious instruction for everyone”, shows what this can look like.

Hamburger special way

The so-called “Hamburger Weg” does not separate classes according to denominations, but has been offering all students, regardless of their religious affiliation, comprehensive religious education for around thirty years. The subject of the lessons are all world religions and not just Christianity.

For a long time, this concept was solely the responsibility of the Protestant Church; since 2020, Jewish, Islamic and Alevi religious communities have also been involved. Teachers are not Church officials, and until recently they were not even required to be members of the Church. That should change now, at least for the newcomers. Anyone who wants to teach religion at a state school in Hamburg must from now on be a member of one of the participating religious communities.

After much hesitation, the Catholic Church now also wants to participate in this unusual interreligious model. As the Archdiocese of Hamburg recently announced, the Catholic Church has declared its accession to “Religious Education for All”. One stands in the “responsibility for the religious education of the pupils at the state schools”, said Archbishop Hesse.

Cooperation with Ditib

Most state schools in Hamburg do not offer Catholic classes. In order to offer the approximately 24,000 Catholic students an alternative, the archdiocese apparently felt under pressure. Hamburg’s school senator Ties Rabe finds the approval of the Catholic Church remarkable; the Social Democrat even spoke of a religious “earthquake”.

One could also simply say, somewhat less pathetically, that Hamburg’s schools and religious communities have recognized the signs of the times. A society that is characterized on the one hand by religious pluralism and on the other hand is becoming more and more secular can hardly justify offering religious education that only admits one faith. How is interreligious dialogue supposed to work if everyone remains in their own faith community? Anyone who separates lessons according to denominations prevents direct confrontation with the “other” in each case. But integration can only succeed through encounters, and here the school can even point the way.

However, it is not that easy on the “Hamburger Weg”. The heavily disputed Ditib association is one of the religious communities involved, which are responsible for organizing religious instruction. The Sunni Islamic organization has repeatedly drawn criticism for allegations of anti-Semitism, Islamism and a lack of distance from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It is questionable to what extent the association influences the content of religious education. But here, too, interreligious cooperation could prove to be an advantage: there is greater control, going it alone is hardly possible.

separation between state and church

But the Hamburg model also makes something else clear: Anyone who makes class participation dependent on one’s own creed misunderstands the task of pedagogy. Church and state are separated in Germany. Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law declares religious instruction in public schools to be a regular subject. At the same time, there is freedom of religion, which gives the legal guardian the right to decide on the participation of their child in religious instruction.

In Switzerland, the situation is much more confusing. Basically, there is a distinction between school religious education, which is independent of the religious communities, and church-bound instruction, which is offered either separately according to denominations or interdenominational. There is no Islamic religious education in Switzerland. The individual cantons and municipalities have sovereignty over the orientation of the lessons, which has so far prevented a standardization of the system.

Not a place of religious instruction

In recent years, denominational religious education in Switzerland has increasingly been pushed into the fringe hours. In some places, religion is given up as an independent subject and integrated into general studies. Even more than in Germany, one gets the impression in Switzerland that religion no longer has a clear place in school. In this respect, too, the Hamburg model could provide important impetus.

Because it would be wrong to see religious education primarily as a place of religious instruction. It is primarily about imparting knowledge. One does not have to be a believer to understand the teachings of the Bible, Torah or Quran; but knowing it is a key to the world, which rests on its cultural-historical foundations. This is not the subject of “ethics”, as the often watered-down alternative subject to religion is called in some places, but of religion. The “Hamburger Weg” shows how interdenominational teaching can work. Religion is not a side issue. It belongs to education.