Rückkehr des Religiösen?

Religion is back on the political agenda of Western societies, which is why more and more social scientists have abandoned secularization theories which treat religion and modernity as contradictory and assume the decreasing importance of religion in modern societies. Detlef Pollack questions whether and to what extent it is justified to give up the classical secularization theory. He asks which alternative models of accounting for the religious changes in modern societies are available and undertakes first steps in order to test the validity of various theoretical models empirically. In doing so, he focuses on the religious and ecclesiastical developments in Germany since 1945, but takes into consideration religious changes in Western and Eastern Europe as well. Special emphasis is placed on religious changes within German Protestantism in the West and the East.