Gewissen und Kirche

Daniel Schenkel was one of the most influential Protestant theologians and church politicians in the mid-19th century. During his theological career he developed from a student of de Wette into a pietist before finally becoming one of the leading representatives of theological liberalism during the conflict on church union in Baden. Dorothea Noordveld-Lorenz examines Schenkel's theological thought and his actions as a church politician. Schenkel's theory of Protestantism focused on a specific interpretation of conscience: Schenkel saw man's conscience as the place in which an immediate relationship with God is realized in a way that God is actually present in man's conscience. The essence of Protestantism is to restore and preserve this immediate and non-substitutable relationship between God and a person. Thus Schenkel understood Protestantism as the religion of freedom and as such as the spiritual foundation of a free and modern society.