Veranderungen und Entwicklungsmoglichkeiten des Pfarramts im landlich-peripheren Ostdeutschland

The work deals with several relevant and current questions related to church theory, sociology of religion and pastoral theology, which for the first time combined in this way lead to a "contextual pastoral theology". Following and by continuing the pastoral theological debate, pastoral theology is consistently drawn into church theory. Insofar as church theory prescribes a context-sensitive approach, pastoral theology can now be related to a specific context. On the one hand, this is rural-peripheral, on the other hand, it is about East German areas, which are described in connection with the sociological research of religion as a stable, non-denominational majority culture. So what does it mean to hold a ministry in this context? How will the situation at the focal points of the church structure develop? The analyzes show a clear picture of the current situation and the most likely further developments: A pastoral theology that only considers the pastoral ministry is too weakly positioned for the coming developments.