Tragende Netze und schwankende Böden: Neue Herausforderungen für Religionsgemeinschaften in der Migrationsgesellschaft

Abstract

Immigration presents new challenges for European societies, Christian churches, and academic research. The paper argues that first of all a change in the terminology of describing the phenomenon of migration/immigration is needed. Secondly, it is of crucial importance to discern and appreciate the different educational services provided by religious immigrant communities, but likewise to consider and observe concurrent trends toward reinforcing different aspects of conservative or backward oriented power structures and liabilities. As for the Christian churches, they face new forms of internal plurality and multifaceted forms of spirituality due to major changes in their constituency, caused by a decrease in traditional membership and an influx of new members coming from immigrant communities. Academic research, being committed to critical impartiality, is facing major challenges in view of its task to analyse such dramatic transformations caused by immigration and religious changes in a sober, rational, and factoriented way in order to provide basic information for policy makers and civil society.