Open Access

Edmund Weber

• The Christian culture experienced a deep-going change with the uprising of the Civil Society ("Bürgerliche Gesellschaft"), the industrialization of economic production, the urbanization of life-style and the individualization of religiosity in the 19th century. The Christian formation of inner- and outer-world in those days became obsolete. From this conflict the civil or modern Christianity origi-nated. In a painful changing process most of the people of this new society have newly interpreted religion, moral and ritual of traditional Christianity and cre-ated to their new conditions of life new institutional forms of transmission and realization of Christian cultural heritage. Under the recourse of the Reformato-rian heritage the modern Christianity developed the religious-moral doctrine: A true Christian is before all a citizen who is living in the midst of the world self-determinate and socially engaged fulfilling all his worldly duties; the modern Christian has to get this motivation for a world-oriented existence on his own responsibility because religion is not restricted anymore. ...