Volume 29, Issue 2

This article provides a systematic overview of the disciplinary profiles and key research areas of Islamic Religious Education (IRE) and Islamic Practical Theology (IPT) in the German-speaking context. Their development is closely linked to migration and education policy processes; in particular, IRE, as the first Islamic-theological discipline at German universities, played a pioneering role in the institutional establishment of Islamic theology. While IRE has since established itself as an independent discipline with both theological and pedagogical foundations, IPT is still in an early phase of profile and structural development.

In 2022, the Flemish (Belgium) bishops drew global attention by establishing a pastoral support network for lgbtq+ believers. This initiative sparked debate, with some viewing it as overly progressive and others questioning its potential impact. Against a backdrop of increasing societal acceptance of lgbtq+ individuals and declining Church affiliation, this contribution explores the experiences of Flemish lgbtq+ individuals within the Roman Catholic Church. Through thematic analysis of seventeen in-depth interviews, five key themes emerged: religious identity and practice, lgbtq+ identity and community, Roman Catholic Church, dual identity and loyalty, and vision for the future. The qualitative empirical research yielded three main conclusions regarding the experiences of lgbtq+ individuals with the Roman Catholic Church. First, reconciling lgbtq+ identity with religious identity emerged as a fragile yet empowering process, with participants developing various strategies to integrate these aspects of their identity. Second, participants expressed a preference for integration into the mainstream Church community over specialized pastoral care, although the latter is seen as a necessary intermediate step toward integration. Third, the study revealed a variety of critical connections to the Roman Catholic Church, indicating that while participants are highly critical of Church teachings and practices, they also exhibit different forms of loyalty. Based on these findings, three recommendations are proposed. First, the Roman Catholic Church in Flanders should focus on comprehensive reform, as dissatisfaction among lgbtq+ believers extends beyond lgbtq+ issues. Second, the Church is advised to take accountability for past injustices experienced by lgbtq+ individuals as accountability is a prerequisite for reconciliation. Third, a nuanced discourse is needed to conceptualize the relationship between lgbtq+ individuals and the Roman Catholic Church, moving beyond simplistic notions of “critical” or “loyal” to recognize the complexity of these connections.

The field of Queer Theology can be enhanced by qualitative research on queer lived experiences. The present article addresses this through exploratory observations. The authors examine how two queer pastors (@amen_aber_sexy and @tovja_behuetet) express queer issues on Instagram, interact with Christian tradition, and engage in Queer Theology. Within the scope of this article, Instagram emerges as a productive space for lived Queer Theology based on Felix Stalder’s principle of referentiality.

The Your Story research project surveyed Australian young people to explore the experiences and practices they associate with faith, spirituality, and religion. Analysis of data collected from over 400 young people aged between sixteen and twenty years who were connected to a Christian organisation identified eight faith journey narrative types and analysed factors that were either supportive of or contrary to a positive engagement with Christian faith. The study commends attending to adolescent faith as a narrative, recognising how faith is formed in a relational ecosystem, and enabling young people to activate resources by incorporating them within their stories of faith.

The continuing education of imams and Muslim caregivers in Europe, which complements their basic training, has so far mostly been analysed within social and political debates. Continuing education is understood as a contact zone where multiple perspectives and bodies of knowledge meet, where border thinking emerges and leads to the development of creative strategies for dealing with this diversity. In this article, we will focus on the active role imams and caregivers have in such programmes. Our case study example shows how imams and caregivers reconcile binary preconceptions and strive for innovative perspectives on Islam and society, resulting in transformative ideas which are not only useful for the continuing education of these target groups, but also for an emerging Islamic practical theology.

This article provides a fundamental reflection on Islamic military chaplaincy (IMS) in Germany. It explains who can provide this service, how it is structured, and the value it adds, while acknowledging that there are no easy answers. The argument centers on four key questions: 1) The juridical-legal basis of Islamic military chaplaincy; 2) The theological foundation of the new research and working field of IMS; 3) Peace ethics in Islam and its contribution to the German military; and 4) The challenges and future prospects of IMS. Through this multifaceted approach, the article highlights the potential of the emerging field of IMS in Germany.

In the German landscape of Protestant Practical Theology, a new subdiscipline has emerged which is called church theory (Kirchentheorie). It is characterised by analysing the church in general – moving towards the task of systematic theology–-yet including methods and theories from the social sciences. How does the combination of theoretical and empirical approaches actually work here? How do the scholars balance and combine descriptive and normative aspects? The article analyses three leading monographs in German church theory, written by Jan Hermelink, Eberhard Hauschildt and Uta Pohl-Patalong, and Christian Grethlein. This will not only give an insight into the specific Protestant German research landscape, but also contribute to methodological reflections in practical theology.

This article introduces and develops pastoral assembling as a complementary concept to the established notion of pastoral imagination, which has shaped discussions on pastoral learning and agency in practical theology. While pastoral imagination foregrounds the embodied and relational capacity of individual pastors, it remains limited in addressing the distributed and networked nature of pastoral work. Drawing on sociomaterial theories, this study explores how pastoral agency and learning emerge through dynamic networks of human and non-human actors. Two empirical cases from Scandinavian studies are presented to illustrate pastoral assembling: one involving a novice pastor navigating a bereavement situation and another featuring a senior pastor engaging with a scattered rural parish in Sweden. By emphasizing the distributed nature of pastoral agency, the notion of pastoral assembling complements and expands the theological insights of pastoral imagination, offering new pathways for studying and supporting pastoral learning and practice.