Study program
Seminar for Protestant Theology
Our students particularly appreciate
- the personal and communicative atmosphere in manageable learning groups,
- the proximity to the professors and all teaching staff, - the excellent training in the various theological subjects,
- the breadth of the courses on offer and the opportunity for personal in-depth study,
- the practical relevance and the importance of didactics in the course of studies,
- interesting and sociable excursions - highlights of student life,
- language courses to acquire the Latinum, Graecum and Hebraicum,
- the opportunity to do a doctorate (Dr. phil.),
- spiritual offerings in the Protestant student community,
- close cooperation with the Catholic Theology department.
Teacher training program
- Study of Protestant theology for the teaching degree Grund-, Haupt- und Realschule (GHR)
- Study of Protestant theology for the teaching profession at grammar schools (GYM)
- Study of Protestant Theology for the teaching profession at vocational colleges (BK)
- Extension examinations (GHR, GYM, BK)
The aim of the academic studies is to acquire the necessary skills for the profession of religious education teacher.
This includes,
- to acquire the ability to discuss theological questions in order to be able to give an account of faith, which is not just a matter of reason, to oneself and to others. The study of theology offers the opportunity to clarify for oneself the significance of the biblical tradition and the Christian faith in our world and how we can talk about God in a credible and understandable way today.
- with regard to pupils in their rapidly changing learning and living environments, to recognize again and again what theology needs to learn for the coming generation and how such learning - understood in a comprehensive sense as the education and transformation of people - can be made possible. Theology is more didactically oriented from the outset than other sciences; subject-specific and subject-didactic questions can therefore not be fundamentally separated from each other, but rather permeate and illuminate each other.
- to fundamentally place the acquisition of knowledge and skills at the service of the task of independently and creatively pursuing theological and thus also didactic questions. The study of theology requires motivation, the joy of discovery, independent, radical questioning and thinking and the willingness to engage in dialog, because the way of learning later determines the way of teaching; the study regulations aim to guarantee the necessary freedom for this.
In detail, it is necessary to,
...to know the principles of academic work and the structure of the Bible, to understand its historical and theological contexts and also to open up access to the biblical texts from the perspective of the burning problems of our time, our own questions and hopes;
...to develop a differentiated awareness of historical processes and contexts of church and theological history in an ecumenical perspective. This means understanding fundamental decisions in the history of theology in their historical context and in their significance for the current shape of theology and the church, especially the decisions of Reformation theology and the problems of recent theological history, but also critically reflecting on disastrous traces, such as those of patriarchal or anti-Jewish thinking;
...to penetrate and present central contents of faith within the horizon of the whole of faith in order to develop an understanding of God and man that is also responsible in the face of present-day questions. This also includes reflecting on anthropological and social issues of the present in the context of theological ethics and the current ecumenical debate.
...to be able to understand and make understandable the expressions and manifestations of other denominations and religions and to engage with alternative offers of meaning (non-Christian worldviews and religions)
...to develop elements of an action-guiding theory of religious education practice in the context of school, society and church. This means understanding didactics not as an applied science, but as a key to theology, which opens up surprising new perspectives on the path of elementarization in conversation with children and young people, and
...to examine conventional forms and new attempts at religious upbringing and education theologically and didactically for their appropriateness and to independently develop new forms of organization - in short: to gain the ability to convey theological content in different lifeworld contexts.