Introduction

Since the turn of the millennium, awareness in liberal democratic societies has grown that religion cannot simply be regarded as a private matter, but that it has an indispensable public dimension. It is obvious that this public dimension is highly ambivalent. Public Theology is linked to the topic of education in at least three major ways. First, it is quite obvious that in liberal pluralistic democracies that are based on the premise of free and equal citizens, legal measures by the state cannot be the only and favourite way to ensure the sustainability of a democratic human rights-based culture. Second, public education is an important subject matter of Public Theology. Third, religion in public education can be identified as a special topic of Public Theology—and of “Public Religious Pedagogy”, a newly developed concept in Germany within the academic discipline of Religious Pedagogy.