Abstract

In the current debate of possible ways to reform the structure and organisation of the protestant church in Germany the general question has come up, whether concepts of the Lutheran church, which are founded on ecclesiology or protestant ecclesiastical law, in principle prohibit institutional changes or not. Regarding this problem, the essay discusses the institution of the Protestant church in aspects of theology and ecclesiasticallaw. The CA assumes that religious belief constitutes the church and gives structure to it as a means for spiritual communication between the faithful. Starting from this point the essay argues that the church is essentially non-institutional. Nevertheless it is a part of the dialectics of the concept of the institutionally organised church that even this non-institutionality gains itself an institutional structure. Because of this the essay pleads for a pragmatic view on church institutions: there are reasons to change or to cling to these structures, but these reasons are only pragmatic ones, when the concept of the church, which is derived from theology and protestant ecclesiasticallaw, is considered as given.