Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus für den Sozialstaat und seine Zweitstruktur der Wohlfahrtsverbände – eine von Ernst Troeltsch übersehene Wirkung

Abstract

Troeltsch, whose 100th death anniversary is being commemorated this year, gave an important impulse for Germany’s path to theWest with his 1911 Protestantism treatise “The Significance of Protestantism for the Emergence of theModernWorld,” insofar as, on the one hand, he emphasized the importance of Anabaptist sects for the development of human rights and democratic forms of community. According to Troeltsch, on the other hand, the decisive contribution of Protestantism lies in that of “religious thinking and feeling”. What is striking, however, is that Troeltsch devalues the social-caritative association system of the two large churches as amere restorative carity. In doing so, he overlooks the development toward a dual welfare state, in which the churches with their “diaconal secondary structure” of Inner Mission and Caritas continue to play an extraordinarily important role to this day, as can be seen, among other things, in their contribution to the BVfG’s ruling on Hartz IV 2010.