Abstract

Politics in a democratic society is about securing the safety of all citizens while exercising the largest possible amount of openness and tolerance at the same time. But what is the role of Protestant ethics in such a society? Religion and politics are strongly interlinked, but of course not in a legal sense as the state has to remain religiously neutral. So there is nothing like »Christian politics« but there are Christians who have a political voice that needs to be raised in order to be heard. Protestants have a long tradition of publicly articulating their religious thoughts and political ideas. The concept of human dignity in Article 1 of our constitution, for example, has its roots in the belief that human life is a gift from God and does not despend on human merits. Such an articulation is essential for a state that exists on foundations and values that it cannot provide itself, as the former judge of the Constitutional Court, E.-W. Böckenförde, pointed out. The Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik can claim a lot of credit for the fact, that theologians and philosophers, politicans and scientists have used that forum over the last decades to articulate their views on topics concerning ethics. The variety of their positions is necessary and essential to guarantee freedom and a pluralism of opinions in our society. One experience from the First German Islam Conference, which was initiated by the Minister of State in 2006, is that a society discussing the hard questions of integration, tolerance or religious beliefs, depends on those spaces where all our substantial controversies about ethics, politics and religion can be discussed