Richtschnur und Lebensmittel

Tobias Graßmann takes a look at the basic dogmatic problem of the binding teaching of the church, its scope and its validity from a Lutheran perspective. The six core chapters of his book can be read as individual case studies, but are nevertheless closely related. A first approach is deliberately taken from the outside perspective of cultural anthropological and sociological theory of religion (C. Geertz, P. Bourdieu). Graßmann then reconstructs with the Reformation creeds and the Baroque theologian J.C. Dannhauer two important stages in the development of a characteristically Lutheran understanding of doctrine before he, based on the most recent drafts by E. Herms and G.A. Lindbeck shows that the problem of teaching has by no means been resolved in the present, despite a certain forgetfulness of teaching in the church and theology. An investigation into R. Bultmann's kerygmatheology and its history of influence serves as a hinge, pointing to a factor for the modern transformations of the Protestant understanding of doctrine that has so far mostly been ignored. By integrating cultural-anthropological, sociological and philosophical insights into a guiding dogmatic perspective, the final chapter unfolds an agonistic understanding of teaching that draws attention less to the wording of individual doctrinal statements than to the dynamic processes of articulation, officialization and criticism of church teaching. The embedding in lived piety always appears as a basic feature of such teaching, which can actually claim validity and does not remain just an abstract norm.