Balancing mainline protestantism with conservatism

From the 1960s on, mainline Protestant churches in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom developed a left-wing politicisation. This study investigates whether under these conditions mainline Protestantism is still compatible with Conservatism. For this purpose, it compares the understandings of religion and the Church hold by three Conservative and Protestant authors: Hermann Lübbe, Richard Neuhaus and Michael Oakeshott. The result shows three varieties: immanentisation and policitisation of Protestantism for Lübbe; immanentisation of Protestantism by liberal theology without its politicisation for Oakeshott; neither immanentisation nor politicisation of Protestantism, but continuation of a traditional theology and its role for the Church for Neuhaus.

Dr Maria Grazia Martino, born in 1981, studied Political Science in Constance and Tübingen. She wrote her PhD thesis at Freie Universität Berlin on 'State, Church and Religious Minorities in Italy and Sweden'. Since 2013, she has held a number of positions as a lecturer in Political Theory and Religion and Politics at different German universities.