Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 32, Number 1 (Spring 2026)

Review of Stefan Alkier, Martin Keßler, and Stefan Rhein (eds.), Evangelische Kirchen und Politik in Deutschland. Konstellationen im 20. Jahrhundert (Christianity in the Modern World 5), Tübingen 2023, 498 pp., €84.00.

By Manfred Gailus, Technische Universität Berlin; Translated from the German by Lauren Faulkner Rossi, with the assistance of DEEPL

This anthology of twenty-one contributions is based on a conference that was originally planned for November 2020 in Wittenberg with this central theme: “the question of the constellations of action and reaction of Protestant churches, their representatives, and their members in the political sphere” (introduction, v) in Germany in the 20th century. The Covid-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works: the conference had to be postponed twice before it could finally happen in August 2021, on a considerably reduced scale. Although interdisciplinary in nature, theology and church history dominate the general thrust of this book by far. Unfortunately, the three editors’ all-too-brief introduction (v-vii) does not explain in detail what is meant by the guiding principle of “constellation research” and how this concept can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of twentieth-century German Protestantism.

Co-editor Martin Keßler provides more detail on the concept in his individual contribution. Following Karl Mannheim, Max Weber, and most recently Dieter Henrich, the term “constellation” is to be understood as Continue reading →