Justice-Learning in Christian Religious Instruction: On the Analytical Power of Postcolonial Critique in a Religious Educational Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the question of under what conditions justice-learning in German-language Christian religious education (CRE), and thus in religious instruction (CRI)—both as content and as form—can live up to its normative self-image as a language school of freedom. The thesis pursued here is that this requires a self-enlightened approach to justice that critically receives the analytical power of postcolonial theories, but resists their epistemological relativism and remains anchored in the biblical heritage of God’s universal and at the same time preferential justice. After exploring the philosophical and theological heritage of reflections on justice and the resulting aporias in the theory and practice of CRE, postcolonial theories are examined in terms of their potential and their own theoretical limitations. This makes it possible to outline orientations for a self-enlightened, difference-sensitive, and at the same time universally-oriented reflection on justice that productively integrates postcolonial insights without abandoning the constitutive subject-orientation of CRE.

1. Introduction

Contemporary German-language CRE (in the context of a broader scholarly discourse in the field) has established a hermeneutic and methodological distinction between content and form when it comes to justice. Starting with content, justice is a subject matter of CRI in schools (Mette 1991, 2016, 2022; Könemann 2014; Woyke 2018; Adam 2003; Koch and Rickers 2006).1 Considering the biblical message of justice, which, alongside love, freedom, and mercy, is one of God’s central attributes, and thus a fundamental topic of CRE (Mette 2016, p. 19) that is introduced in a correlative manner (Heil 2015), CRI should promote an experience-based, reflective positionality in line with this logic and become a topic of instruction in relevant fields of learning: be it massive inequality on a global scale (Ziegler 2020, 2021), climate injustice in the relationship between the Global North and the Global South (Gärtner 2020), gender justice (Kohler-Spiegel 2017, 2020; Qualbrink et al. 2011), justice between cultures and lifeworlds, or even sustainability justice (Gärtner 2024; Bederna 2019), which is particularly violated by the anthropocentric dominance behavior of humans toward other living beings.

In terms of the form, CRI itself must be just in its planning, its design, and its practices if it is to live up to its central claim (Grümme 2014, 2015; Grümme and Schlag 2016; Könemann and Mette 2013; Könemann 2013; Uppenkamp 2024): it sees itself normatively as a “language school of freedom”2 (Lange 1980) which enables people, under the presupposition of autonomy, to claim and shape their own autonomous freedom. But this can only be achieved without contradiction by means of freedom, not by means of domination, hegemony, or coercion into autonomy. This thought leads to the realization that, in the end, content and form cannot be separated in CRI that is defined in this way. Learning about and from justice must itself be done in a just manner.

But what happens if, on closer inspection, a fundamental inadequacy of CRI becomes apparent in this regard? How can CRI still be understood in its normative self-image as a language school of freedom if, in the light of certain hermeneutical and philosophical perspectives, it does not correspond to this self-imposed standard either in terms of content or form? These are primarily the perspectives of postcolonial studies (for an overview: do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020; Kerner [2012] 2021; Loomba [1998] 2005; Young [2003] 2020), which, with reference to discourse-analytical and deconstructionist theories, question the concept of justice in terms of its content and form, as well as in their interdependence. What does this mean for CRE, which naturally also forms the underlying theoretical basis for CRI (Platow 2020, pp. 66–101)? Would postcolonial theories thus become the decisive background theory for CRE, and thus CRI, insofar as they could help it to fulfill its own normative self-image? Or are there aporias hidden in these postcolonial theories that stand in the way of their unbroken reception?

The thesis we will therefore pursue in this article is that a self-enlightened approach to justice is necessary in CRE, since only such an approach is capable of critically absorbing the analytical power of postcolonial theories, while at the same time resisting their epistemological relativism and remaining anchored in the biblical heritage of God’s universal and at the same time preferential justice. This can enable CRE, and through it CRI, to remain true to its own normative basis of subject-orientation without falling into either naive universalism or paralyzing particularism. Therefore, the following considerations aim to outline the contours of such an approach and identify the central challenges that still need to be addressed.

To explain and substantiate this thesis and the associated concepts, the following argumentation will be presented in six steps: (1) a brief look will be taken at the philosophical as well as (2) the theological heritage that constitutes (3) the background of justice-learning discussed here. (4) The resulting aporias that emerge will then be analyzed (5) in the light of postcolonial theories, before (6) the orienting contours of this self-enlightened approach to justice in CRE and CRI are outlined, alongside the central challenges that remain open for further study.

2. Philosophical Justice

The philosophical tradition offers points of reference, as it provides indispensable conceptual tools and a theoretical framework for thinking about (educational) justice in CRE. Against the backdrop of Plato’s ([1968] 1991, 434a) principle of suum cuique—“the having and doing of one’s own and what belongs to oneself”—on the one hand, and Aristotle’s (2012, 1129b–1130a) virtue ethics, according to which justice as a virtue encompasses and regulates all other virtues, on the other, the question of justice in the history of philosophy has been shaped by three different approaches (further overview: Höffe [2001] 2021):

a. First, there are egalitarian approaches. These approaches focus on justice based on the principle of equality. From Aristotle to Rawls and Habermas, such equality-based justice is advocated, distinguishing between distributive, compensatory, and merit-based justice (Horster 2011, p. 11; for example: Rawls [1971] 1999; Dworkin 2000; for the educational context: Ben-Shahar 2016).

The principle of universalization of “the veil of ignorance” in Rawls’ ([1971] 1999, pp. 118–23; Grümme 2014, pp. 44–50) theory of justice is of particular significance in this context. It has a similar meaning to Kant’s categorical imperative, namely, to establish a universal normative morality and justice (Rawls [1971] 1999, pp. 52–53; Habermas [1999] 2004, p. 74). Inequality is not illegitimate, but it must be justified to those who are worst off. This gives them a kind of veto right. No later than here, the liberal credo of the development of individual freedoms is broken with, even if a central point of criticism is that people here are thought of as pre-historic individuals detached from intersubjective constitutional contexts (Habermas 1991, p. 15). A just life requires prior integration into a linguistically mediated coexistence of people, from which they derive meaning, belonging, and orientation. From this communitarian perspective, the problem with the primacy of the right over the good, as found in Kant, Rawls, and Habermas, is above all the purely formal definition of principles of justice and the accompanying understanding of the subject. What is implied here is an isolated self, detached from all previous traditions, values, and goals, separated from all social ties, without moral depth, determined by a purely negative liberty (Taylor [1985] 1999, pp. 211–29). It is from this orienting and motivating sense of belonging that the principles of justice arise, which derive their viability and dynamic power from their connection to communal forms of life. Moreover, this also allows us to overcome the profound social crisis into which liberalism, with its unencumbered self, has led us (Sandel [1982] 1998, pp. 178–83).

b. Secondly, there are non-egalitarian concepts. Thinkers such as Nussbaum (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2006, 2011) and Sen (2009) focus not on formal equal distribution (for critiques of egalitarianism: Krebs 2000), but on the goods and capabilities that are necessary for survival and “a life that is worthy of the dignity of the human being” (Nussbaum 2001, p. 5; to the list of central human functional capabilities: ibid., pp. 78–80; further: Grümme 2014, pp. 59–64). In addition to food, shelter, security, and social belonging, this also includes education. This concept of justice aims at a base level of justice. Once these basic goods and capabilities are provided, inequality above this basic level is accepted. In this logic, justice is achieved when “all people are enabled to live a dignified life” (Horster 2011, p. 13; further: Giesinger 2007). The lives of people themselves, in all their diversity and different conditions and contexts, thus become the focus of justice theory. This significant change in perspective focuses on how people live and what real freedoms they have (Sen 2009, p. 19). With the shift away from a pure allocation of goods, with the change from a rule-based to a “realization-focused view of justice”, freedom and capability are accompanied by a fundamental sense of responsibility (ibid., p. 20). So, the question is no longer asked from the perspective of a distributor of goods. Instead, justice theory now focuses on individuals and their capabilities, which must be recognized and, where necessary, promoted, their actual freedoms and opportunities, their scope for action and development, and their motivations for performing certain activities (ibid., pp. 65–72; on capabilities in education: Otto and Ziegler 2008; on the critique of non-egalitarianism in education: Drerup 2015).

c. These two approaches can be supplemented by a third line of argument that places the question of justice in the context of recognition and political power and combines the formal argument of a universalism of justice theory in the school of Rawls and Habermas with references to particularistic ethical theories of justice for a good life. In the same way that the good needs the just and the ethical needs the moral, the just needs the good. The ethical marks the rooting of law, politics, and morality in concrete life contexts, reflects on the concrete processes of recognition and belonging of identities, and thus forms a counterweight to the formal abstraction processes of the moral determination of justice. In this sense, communitarian criticism is “an important corrective moment for liberal theory” (Forst 2002, p. 240). Forst thus rejects its antagonistic dichotomous relationship. Instead, he attempts to differentiate “contexts of justice” (ibid., p. 230) in order to correspond both to the logic and roots of the respective ways of thinking about justice and to their mutual relationship.

Ultimately, the question of justice is a question of the right to justification, meaning who actually determines the principles of justice. “Justice requires that those involved in a context of (positive or negative) cooperation should be respected as equals. That means that they should enjoy equal rights to take part in the social and political order of justification in which the conditions under which goods are produced and distributed are determined. The state-mandated assignment of goods in accordance with ‘absolute’ standards that abstract from the real context of justice or injustice is far from doing justice to the ‘dignity’ of the individual who seeks justice” (Forst 2014, p. 25). The highest principle is that of reciprocal and general justification, insofar as every claim to rights, goods, or freedoms must be mutually and generally substantiated and discursively justified. Accordingly, conditions “which do not measure up to the standard of reciprocal and general justification and are marked by forms of exclusion, by privileges and domination” are unjust (ibid., p. 8). Conversely, structures and spheres of mutual recognition can then create institutions and conditions that promote justice, according to Forst in discussion with Honneth’s social philosophy of recognition (Honneth 2012, pp. 35–50). This concept is therefore concerned with determining who should distribute and according to which mode distribution should be carried out in a just manner (in more detail in: Grümme 2014, pp. 64–78; on the theoretical foundations of recognition in educational justice: Stojanov 2011; Hanhela 2018).

Without being able to explore these philosophical approaches further, an initial differentiated framework for considerations of justice in CRE becomes apparent. In a certain sense, they share the commitment to the conditions under which justice can be achieved. Thus, the appreciative equal recognition of human beings is thoroughly convincing. What they lack, however, is a preceding hope and liberation that undermines the reciprocal mechanisms. It is this missing dimension that the biblical tradition may be able to fulfill.

3. Biblical Justice

Justice in the Judeo-Christian tradition is particularly compatible with a reciprocal theory of justification, but it is not reduced to mere exchange and distributive justice. From the perspective of biblical tradition in particular, a radicalization of the concept of justice can be observed, which can be introduced into CRI in a critical and productive manner. It is a fundamental shaping of human behavior by the justice of God and its worldly and intersubjective mediation. It honors equality as well as difference before God. All people are, in their own individual, unique, and irreplaceable way, images of God. All stand before God in the same way and yet in their own different-individual way. In light of this, the ethical maxim suum cuique takes on its specific character. It is to be understood as that fundamental disposition which seeks to grant each person—only that, and unconditionally that—which they may claim by virtue of God’s will for them (Pesch 1995a, p. 503; for clarification: Grümme 2014, pp. 88–95). In this partiality of God, the specificity of the biblical concept of justice becomes clear in contrast to the Aristotelian tradition’s notions of justice based on reciprocity. In breaking down intuitive or outdated categories of calculation of exchange, justice in the Kingdom of God is supererogatorily bestowed in the abundance of freedom liberated by God, as Habermas (2006, p. 166) also notes: “the ethic of Christian love does justice to an aspect of devotion to suffering others that receives short shrift in an intersubjectively conceived morality of justice […]. A supererogatory act that goes beyond what can be reasonably expected of everyone on the basis of reciprocity […] enjoins even such an inordinate sacrifice on the believer, on the condition, of course, that she freely assumes this active sacrifice which is sanctified by a just and good God and an absolute Judge”. This supererogatory cannot be achieved by purely reciprocal justice. Instead, a theory of justice should be outlined here that, based on this biblical heritage, allows itself to be called to justice and liberated by the other. From an epistemological perspective, this theory would not be designed from the subject’s point of view, but rather from the perspective of alterity theory (further: Grümme 2007), without, of course, undermining the constitutive conditions of autonomous subjectivity (Grümme 2019, pp. 140–44; 2014, pp. 79–87).

God’s justice, which is testified to in an optional practice of justice that takes the side of the victims (Metz [1973] 1992), thus breaks down the reciprocal conception of justice based on equality. Such partisan justice is therefore anything but particular. Rather, it is universal in that its partisanship includes everyone, including those who are excluded (Johnson 2008, pp. 73–78). This emphasizes the covenant character of justice. God’s justice (tzedakah) is essentially a category of love, of loving relationship, or, in biblical-theological terms, of covenant (Werbick 1989, p. 77). This justice is based on precisely that dynamic-relational character, which refers to an action that rectifies what has fallen into disorder and is therefore wrong, whereby the standard is not a fixed law, but rather the social relationship with the people affected. God is just as a judge who stands up for those who suffer injustice and who has revealed himself as primarily taking the side of the oppressed and the weak (Mette 2016, pp. 7–8). That is why the victims of history implore God’s judgment. He is not a vengeful God who retaliates according to a rigid formal pattern, but a loving and merciful God who acts out of this covenant relationship. God is a just and therefore merciful God out of his faithful love. This does not mean exculpation of those responsible but opens them up to taking responsibility themselves through this prior promise. As such, he does not level the difference between perpetrator and victim in an eschatological perspective. Rather, he creates a just compensation for the victims of the history of suffering and injustice. God’s justice thus proves to be a justice of love, united with mercy, care, and faithfulness, and standing within the horizon of his universal will for salvation (Kasper 2014; Ansorge 2009). Pauline theology takes up these covenant-theological concepts of justice and applies them to the theology of justification. Justice becomes the core of Pauline doctrine of justification, not the law (Gal 2:16; Frankemölle 2009, pp. 74–80, 214–21). God’s justice cannot and does not need to be deserved. Paul contrasts righteousness based on works of the law with righteousness based on faith (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11), which accepts justification by God in Jesus Christ through the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. Because of their sin, human beings do not possess such justice as justification on their own. God grants them justice, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. God is just by making one just (Pesch 1995b, p. 506).

In such a complex concept of justice, faith and politics, mysticism and just practice are also intrinsically linked in the option for the poor (Mette 2016; further: Aguirre and Vitoria Cormenzana 1990). This particularly highlights the lasting merit of Latin American liberation theologies (for example, Gutiérrez [1973] 1992) in rediscovering for the present day the unity of faith and justice that runs through the entire biblical tradition: faith and justice are not two autonomous realities arbitrarily intertwined, but rather interrelated or corresponding realities that form or should form a single structural whole—thus, the justice we strive for is profoundly clarified by faith that is lived out in the preferential option for the poor (Ellacuría 2000, p. 362). This “‘option for the poor’ is an encounter, a practical action that changes how people interact. It leads—specifically in liberation movements, on the side of the landless, raped women, street children, etc.—to the ‘empowerment’ of the poor, allowing them to discover their own dignity and enabling them to participate in their own liberation through concrete projects to combat poverty and provide education, in which they themselves discover the structures that rob them of their human dignity” (Eckholt 2012, p. 160; Freire ([1973] 1991, pp. 25–26) uses the term conscientização).

This anticipatory act of justice articulates an excess of promise for an eschatological, fulfilled justice of universal shalom, which combines the hope for a fulfilled creation and a healed coexistence (Schröer 1988; Bederna and Vogt 2018). Here, social, individual, and ecological justice intertwine, thereby achieving precisely the perspectives that were briefly mentioned at the beginning. If we thus attempt to relate philosophical justice here once again, it becomes clear that the universalism aimed at in philosophical theories of justice, as we have seen it in the approaches of the aforementioned thinkers, is only realized when and insofar as “priority is given to the inclusion of the oppressed, the recognition of the marginalized, and the protection of the weak” (Huber [1996] 2006, p. 197). But it is precisely the biblical understanding of justice, which is based on the memory of suffering, that opens up the possibility of universalizing justice, which in this sense should be given an independent place in the structure of justice thinking as iustitia correctiva (Grümme 2014, p. 93). But how can these be incorporated into Christian religious instructional processes of justice?

4. Justice as Content and Form of CRI

With the normative horizon of justice now established philosophically and theologically, the next step is to examine how it shapes the concrete planning and practice of CRI in two interrelated dimensions: justice as a content and justice as a form of CRI.

Such justice requires, first and foremost, that CRI itself be conducted in a just manner. Justice is therefore inherent in CRI in a normative and critical-analytical sense, insofar as it essentially sees itself as a language school of freedom. What was simply asserted at the outset can now be justified. The message of God’s saving justice, which does justice to and makes justice for each individual, demands just forms of CRI. Here, such justice is performed in the act itself and thus learned at the same time. Insofar as education is to be understood as God-given education in the image of God, and God wants “everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4), education is a God-given right for everyone (Markschies 2011, pp. 101–2). Education for justice and educational justice are therefore by no means a question of individual education or individualized educational opportunities (Schweitzer 2007, p. 62). This applies equally to the inclusion of diverse individuals (Schweiker [2017] 2024), to overcoming the disadvantages of boys or girls in religious learning in the context of gender justice (Kohler-Spiegel 2017; Arzt 2016; Grümme 2017, pp. 284–317), and thus to the realization of educational justice as a whole (Grümme 2014; Könemann and Mette 2013). The massive educational injustice that can be observed in Germany (as noted by Hattie in Fokken 2025, p. 48) in particular therefore represents an integral theological, religious educational, and socio-political challenge, which, of course, cannot be overcome by education alone due to its complexity.

At the same time, justice-learning is a fundamental task of CRI (Mette 1991; Koch and Rickers 2006). CRE understands itself as education for justice. In the strict sense, the search for educational justice and education for justice correlate with this. Of course, this requires consideration of developmental psychology. Thanks, in particular, to the tradition of Kohlberg (1974, p. 60, 1981, 1984; Streib 2015; Blasberg-Kuhnke 2007, pp. 249–53; Mette 2016), insights into age-related changes in perspective and the development of one’s own post-conventional judgment, which are of fundamental importance, have been gained.

This is not the place for a systematic discussion of the relevant learning paths, teaching methods, and methodologies in this field. A brief example will suffice. In the field of school education, the concept of the Just Community (Kohlberg 1985), which follows in the tradition of Dewey and understands school as a space for political action, should be mentioned (Grümme 2014, pp. 188–219); in the field of extracurricular learning, Service Learning (Seifert et al. [2012] 2019) or—particularly influential for CRI—Compassion Learning should be discussed (Fricke et al. 2018; Domsel and Steffens 2024). For CRI itself, role model learning or the Local Heroes Project have proven fruitful (Mendl 2015). From ethical learning and its four-part distinction between value transfer, value development, value clarification, and value communication, the last of these is certainly to be favored in the service of autonomous judgment formation (Lindner 2017, pp. 250–60). At the same time, the question of motivation must be considered, since thinking justly does not necessarily mean wanting to act justly, let alone actually acting justly. That is why Hilger (2006, p. 239) favors prosocial sensitization as a holistic moral education. Justice-learning requires empathy with perspective-taking, social cognition as learning through insight, and prosocial action. It is therefore important to initiate attitudes of perspective-taking, commitment to the community, participation, and socio-moral responsibility in an action-oriented manner and with recourse to experiential and Gestalt-pedagogical foundations (Rekus 2000).

5. Aporias

The considerations so far point to the thesis that justice in learning and learning about justice are fundamental components of CRI, even though they challenge it, because the more seriously this demand is taken, the more clearly certain deep-seated tensions and contradictions come to light that affect both the theory and practice of CRI. Nevertheless, they manifest what is probably the decisive fundamental theoretical axiom of CRE and CRI: the axiom of subject-orientation (Altmeyer et al. 2022; Grümme 2025, pp. 22–123). Religious teaching and learning processes are not concerned with the self-referential reproduction of institutions, be they the church or the state. Rather, they aim normatively at the self-determination and autonomy of young people. Freedom and justice are inherent in this subject-orientation as a normative point of reference (ibid.). But the more weight this is given, the more aporetic structures become apparent in terms of both content and form:

a. The notion of universal justice has come under suspicion, particularly in postmodern, poststructural, and postcolonial discourse (for further reading: Bartels et al. 2017; Butler et al. 2000). Does the normative teleologization of such educational processes not already imply the exclusion of those who do not want to submit to this universalizing and thus generalizing approach, or who are so encompassed by this concept that they lose their uniqueness (on this, already Adorno 1973, 1974)? In other words, how can universalism and particularism be conceived in such a way that both are appreciated without burdening the other pole?

Does such a justice-related educational process not refer back to the concept of a subject that is believed to have agency and thus the power to begin (see, for example, Arendt 1961, p. 167), in short: to the concept of the subject, which thrives on prior assumptions of freedom? Does this not speak in favor of an idealized, abstract subject that is removed from the historical struggles for justice, which not only overlooks the subjectivizing mechanisms and the power of discourse (Foucault 1980, [1991] 2012), but also affirms precisely those social, political, and economic processes that counteract this free subjectivity?

b. On a didactic and formal level, justice-learning must guard against the trap of depoliticization. Compassion education in particular is suspected of merely serving as compensation for social deficits or even as part of a socially dominant activation ideology of the subjects (Wohnig 2017, p. 349). Furthermore, such depoliticization would be caused by an unbroken transfer from the microcosm of the school to the macrocosm of the world. Of course, this seems “somewhat naive. The logic of action in conflict resolution between students in a classroom or on a schoolyard is different from the logic of action of actors in the political system, for example in a parliament” (Sander 2007, p. 79).

Even more serious, of course, is the praxeological suspicion of a performative self-contradiction, which is raised not least by postcolonial and poststructuralist hermeneutics: are hegemonic, exclusionary mechanisms at work in the practices themselves, effectively torpedoing the intended educational justice? Are practices of addressing, drawing on authentic experiences, and identity-related learning processes not already inherently unjust? Through practices of essentialization (Schellenberg 2023), reification (Schwarzkamp and Witten 2021), and othering (Freuding 2022), does CRI itself create the very injustice that it seeks to combat? In an effort to enable just learning about justice, educational injustice would thus be reinforced. Injustice is therefore not only located outside CRI, but is also reproduced within it (Grümme 2021, pp. 148–67, 369–410).

This insight into the intrinsic connection between power, normativity, and aporetic CRI practices, which run counter to the normative definition of CRI as a language school of freedom, owes much to the critique of postcolonial theories. These theories are gaining enormous importance in many fields of CRE due to the power of their analysis and the horizons of possibility they open up. Do they have the power to become a reference theory, precisely in order to promote justice in learning and as a subject of learning?

6. Postcolonial Theories and CRE

Without giving much attention to the conditions under which CRE interprets and receives (interdisciplinary) reference theories (a first attempt can be found in Schambeck 2025), a quantitative increase in the number of references to and adoption of postcolonial theories in CRE can be observed, as evidenced in doctoral theses (Freuding 2022; Brandstetter 2020; Henningsen 2022), journal volumes (Brandstetter and Lehner-Hartmann 2023; Gearon et al. 2021; Freuding et al. 2024), and shorter articles (Brandstetter 2025; Hemshorn de Sánchez 2024; Henningsen 2024; Henningsen and Herbst 2022; Simojoki 2024; Simojoki 2025; Vasser Santos Batista 2025). This broad reception is remarkable, especially since postcolonial perspectives were ignored for a long time in CRE. For example, Said ([1978] 1979; further: do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, pp. 99–159), one of the leading figures in postcolonial theories, published his important work Orientalism at the end of the 1970s. At around the same time, a group of South Asian scholars came together to critique European historiography on India and historically connected states. With the term subaltern (on this: Guha and Spivak 1988), the group took up a concept that became influential in postcolonial theories to describe people who are subjugated and exploited in various or even multiple ways (Silber 2021, p. 17; Chakrabarty 2000). An important member of this group was the Indian literary scholar Spivak ([1993] 2013; further: do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, pp. 161–228), the second prominent figure in postcolonial theories.3

Their first broad reception within CRE can only be dated to the end of the 2010s (Scholz 2018; Simojoki 2018, 2019). This raises questions such as: why this delay? Providing an answer to this question would certainly be useful, but it would go beyond the scope of our article. There are other questions that are more important in this context and can at least be partially answered: what does it mean that postcolonial theories are now being acknowledged after having long been established in other disciplines (for example, in art history, as Karentzos (2012) demonstrates), frequently criticized (e.g., Chibber 2013), and in some cases perhaps even superseded (see Tlostanova 2020)? The answer to these questions depends largely on what exactly is meant by postcolonial theories and how their analytical power can be and will be harnessed for the Christian religious educational question of justice.

Postcolonial theories can be understood, as do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan ([2005] 2020, p. 25) emphasize, as a heterogeneous and diffuse “set of discursive practices” that seek to oppose colonialism, colonialist ideologies, and their legacies. Any attempt of homogenization, categorization, and systematization, as attempted by Thomä (2025, p. 250), makes it even clearer “that it is impossible to describe satisfactorily what [their studies] might entail” (Loomba [1998] 2005, p. 2). For the purpose of further perspectives and the usability of postcolonial theories in the respective self-selected discourse, this is nevertheless attempted, so that do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan ([2005] 2020, p. 25) see the common key momentum in the concept of intervention. In other words, the focus lies on the “‘double inscription’”, which removes “the clearly demarcated inside/outside of the colonial system on which the histories of imperialism have thrived for so long, which the concept of the ‘post-colonial’ has done so much to bring to the fore” (Hall 2021, p. 299). Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that we are engaged in a highly academic discourse that has emerged from both “the social sciences and […] literary and linguistic studies, and therefore cannot simply be replaced by everyday terminology” (Loomba [1998] 2005, p. 2). Strictly speaking, postcolonial interventions are therefore dependent on and framed within “the very terms of the Western post-structuralist, neo-Marxist, post-Lacanian or affect theories, or at least with some curtsey to the West as an uncontested producer of disembodied universal knowledge” (Tlostanova 2020, pp. 167–68; on the relationship between poststructuralism and postcolonialism: Hiddleston 2010).

In addition to rather banal geographical and temporal differences (Bhambra 2014, p. 115), it is perhaps this aspect that highlights the difference between postcolonial theories, in their homogenized description here, and decolonial theories (for an overview: Schulze and Wolfesberger 2025). For Tlostanova (2020, p. 168), Latin American decolonial theories do not originate from poststructuralist and postmodern traditions of thought, whose approaches they merely modify slightly and adapt to the analysis of postcolonial realities. Instead, at least according to the narrative, they focus from the outset on the genealogy of their own decolonial tradition and thinkers and their epistemic tools. This means that a “postcolonial version of affect” is replaced by “a decolonial geopolitics and corpopolitics of knowledge, being, and perception […] and a decolonial aesthesis […] that focus on who produces knowledge, from where, and why, and never starts with applying the established theories to some new postcolonial material” (ibid.). The postcolonial adaptation strategy outlined above seems to lead only to the reproduction of a “monotopic hermeneutics […] with its privilege of controlling knowledge and meaning from the position of sameness and through inventing its otherness. Hence the postcolonial discourse still interprets the (post)colonial other for the same, in a language that the same is able to understand and share” (ibid.; the opposite of Mignolo’s ([2000] 2012, p. 18) desired “pluritopic hermeneutics” is used here).

Nevertheless, Tlostanova does not unfold the complete genealogy at this point. It is true that decolonial thinkers primarily draw on their own traditions (Schulze and Wolfesberger 2025, pp. 23–39)—such as Latin American liberation theologies and liberation pedagogy (Freire [1973] 1991), which would themselves be inconceivable without dependency theories (Cardoso and Faletto 1979; Gutiérrez [1973] 1992, pp. 142–51) refers to them several times)—but these traditions are themselves rooted in European-influenced post-Marxist, and even post-imperialist, theory (Silva 2009, p. 41; for further reading: Müller 2003). Even if decolonial theories are not based on poststructuralism and postmodernism, they are nevertheless deeply anchored in the European tradition of critical theory of the Frankfurt School (Bhambra 2014, p. 115), as Allen and Mendieta (2021, pp. 1–4) trace for the decolonial liberation theologian and philosopher Dussel. And even this genealogy remains incomplete. A broader historical–philosophical overview would be helpful here, one that includes Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Ricoeur, and others not mentioned here.

In view of these complex genealogical entanglements, the question of what constitutes postcolonial theories in their analytical specificity becomes even more important. The answer lies in the specific mode of intervention of postcolonial theories, which are directed against Eurocentric narratives and the European amnesia inscribed in them, and aim at the transformation of hegemonic structures. These cannot simply be thought of as something that follows colonialism in time but must rather be understood as a form of resistance against colonial rule and its continuing consequences (do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, pp. 24–25).

A first point is that colonial discourse analysis, based on Foucault, as an essential component of postcolonial theories, opens up an alternative new approach to reading colonial history. Cultural and economic processes are not separated but understood as mutually dependent formations of colonialism (ibid., p. 25). For Said ([1978] 1979), it is crucial that cultures and history cannot be examined in isolation from the power configurations that underlie them.4 The second point to mention here is that Spivak then shifts the focus to the entanglement of postcolonial knowledge production itself. She problematizes her position as a “native informant[] for first-world intellectuals” (Spivak [1993] 2013, p. 79) and warns against postcolonial intellectuals generally being read as representatives and native informants of the South. Accordingly, she calls for the unlearning of privileged knowledge that has been corrupted by colonial and neocolonial interests (do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, p. 174). A final point worth mentioning here is the focus on ambivalence rather than resolving it. Bhabha shows that the identities with which colonialism attempted to fix ruling and ruled classes prove to be unexpectedly unstable and fragile (ibid., p. 232). He succinctly sums this up with the formula that mimicry, as a reaction to the circulation of stereotypes, “is at once resemblance and menace” (Bhabha 1994, p. 86; further: do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, pp. 229–95).

How this analytical potential can be used in CRE is demonstrated by Brandstetter (2025) in one of her most recent articles, in which she provides concrete examples to show how postcolonial hermeneutics can enable self-reflective processes in CRE. As she exemplifies, these are used productively to expose “stereotyping, one-sidedness, and invisibility in the representation of subaltern subjects and their lifeworlds” (ibid., p. 204). The desire to make CRI more just is unmistakable, as demonstrated, for example, by her analysis of representation practices. This is evident in CRI settings and methodologies, which she points out, where, for example, children are introduced to people, cultures, and religions through images, songs, food, and rituals—“often in a highly stereotypical way” (ibid., pp. 203–4). An analysis of German-language religious teaching materials as a whole also concludes that the problems mentioned above continue to exist (Henningsen 2022), while Western European societies appear primarily as helping entities in various situations of need and are thus portrayed in a “paternalistic and superior” manner (Brandstetter 2025, p. 204).

Her reference to religious mechanisms of othering is also noteworthy (Freuding 2022, 2024), in which members of non-Catholic or non-Christian religious communities are addressed in class as authentic representatives of their respective communities and thus appear “‘different’ or ‘foreign’” (Brandstetter 2025, pp. 205–6). It is precisely this perspective that highlights how well-intentioned interreligious education (on interreligious education in schools: Meyer 2019) can unintentionally create differences in a performative manner. Therefore, according to Brandstetter (2025, p. 207), dealing with postcolonial theories in CRI can help to tell multiple stories and, through complementary contextualization, initiate a “‘counter-representation’ of dominant narratives or a ‘decolonization’ of hegemonic conditions”. This could contribute to incorporating subjects, perspectives, theologies, and lifeworlds of the Global South in all their heterogeneity and representing them in such a way that their own perspectives are voiced (ibid.). Overall, a postcolonial-inspired critical self-reflection by religious instructional teachers on their own positionality and hegemonic power, “as well as the ubiquitous self-perceptions, notions of normality, and evaluation systems”, could lead to CRI becoming a little more just (ibid., p. 206).

As productive as these approaches are, they remain affirmative on important points. Postcolonial theories are received as analytical tools, but their deeper provocations are toned down. Brandstetter herself admits that postcolonial theories reach their limits insofar as they tend to culturalize political and economic inequalities, while concrete materialistic resources and structural conditions often remain underexposed (ibid.). But this is not the core of the self-contradiction that CRE falls into when it receives postcolonial theories. The underlying problem lies in the relationship between universalism and particularism advocated by postcolonial theories—a relationship that threatens to undermine the normative foundations on which CRI’s commitment to justice rests.

As Pluckrose and Lindsay (2020, p. 76)5 point out in their critical analysis of postcolonial theories, which they understand as applied postmodernism, a core thesis is that the West constructed the idea “that rationality and science are good in order to perpetuate its own power and marginalize nonrational, nonscientific forms of knowledge production from elsewhere. Therefore, we must now devalue white, Western ways of knowing for belonging to white Westerners and promote Eastern ones (in order to equalize the power imbalance)”. If CRI sees itself as a language school of freedom that aims to enable all subjects to claim their autonomy and dignity, this claim necessarily has universal validity. However, in their radical critique of Western universality, postcolonial theories tend to relativize precisely those normative principles—human dignity, freedom, recognition, and justice (do Mar Castro Varela and Dhawan [2005] 2020, p. 339)—that make criticism of injustice possible in the first place. The reference to postcolonial theories becomes even more complex when its “radical skepticism” leads to the conclusion that knowledge “can [never] be objectively, universally, or neutrally true”, as this simultaneously entails the conviction “that rigor and completeness come not from good methodology, skepticism, and evidence, but from identity-based ‘standpoints’ and multiple ‘ways of knowing’” (Pluckrose and Lindsay 2020, p. 79). This results in the problematic perspective that established knowledge must always be considered unjust, regardless of how reliably it was produced (ibid.). This creates a performative contradiction, because CRE would use theoretical tools that potentially delegitimize its own normative obligations, which is also evident in its approach to human rights, because violations of these would not be conceded without imposing Western ideas of human rights on a particular culture, which is unacceptable in this logic. Taken to the extreme, the rights of women and sexual and religious minorities would then be ignored if they were threatened by anyone other than “white Westerners”—an obstacle to the realization of social justice (ibid., pp. 86–88).

If universalism itself is rejected as inherently Eurocentric and hegemonic, on what basis can we insist on universal human rights, educational justice, or the dignity of all subjects? How can CRI maintain its critical stance toward injustice while at the same time adopting theoretical frameworks that question the possibility of normative criteria? These tensions call for systematic examination. A self-enlightened approach to justice in CRE and CRI requires a critical engagement with both the analytical gains and the theoretical aporias of postcolonial theories. This means that CRE must apply to its own reception of postcolonial theories the same critical reflexivity that these theories demand from others. It must ask itself: what do we gain? What do we risk? Where do uncritical appropriations threaten to undermine the very subject-orientation that constitutes CRE’s normative foundation? Only through such reflexive work can CRE productively integrate postcolonial insights without abandoning its constitutive commitment to subject-orientation and universal justice.

7. Orienting Contours

These cursory considerations on the formation of postcolonial theories reveal both gains and aporias in the reception of postcolonial studies in CRE in the context of the question of justice. If we focus in particular on the axiomatic significance of subject-orientation in the formation of CRI theory and practice, two indispensable gains become very clear:

a. From an analytical perspective, postcolonial theories can expose the mechanisms of power and hegemony that epistemologically counteract the goals of this subject-orientation. They reveal structures and practices of epistemic injustice (on the term: Fricker 2007) that come into effect when subjects are not recognized as equals with equal rights. In doing so, they highlight areas of religious educational thinking and practice where voices are marginalized or silenced and subjects are denied their right to have rights (according to Arendt: Benhabib 1999), even conceptually. Postcolonial theories, unlike almost any other theoretical tradition—leaving aside decolonial theories, in all their heterogeneity, for the sake of this argument—allow us to expose the interdependence of hegemony, justice, and freedom with regard to practices, speaker positions, and epistemological and economic structures with utmost clarity and to demonstrate this in its lasting effectiveness.

This is precisely where the productive potential of postcolonial theories lies. By revealing mechanisms of othering, essentialization, and homogenization as epistemic practices of injustice and exposing economic structures of power and exclusion, they simultaneously tap into a motivational and critical potential to counteract these tendencies. This is why postcolonial theories are particularly important for praxeological analyses of CRI practices and overcoming the counter-intentional effects of stigmatization, addressing, and discrimination in areas relevant to justice (Grümme 2021; examples include: Stockinger and Ziegler 2023; Henningsen 2022; Winkler and Scholz 2021; as a postcolonial background: Mbembe 2025, pp. 175–208), and can give CRE the opportunity to become even more itself.

b. In contrast, it is this demand for justice, recognition, participation, and inclusion that manifests the aporia of postcolonial theory formation and, consequently, the problem of an unbroken, unenlightened reception in CRE, in which CRE does not allow this reception to become self-reflective and critically and productively address the recognizable aporias. Probably one of the main problems of selected postcolonial theorems lies in the overly simplistic relationship between universalism and particularism, which not only leads to epistemological and ethical relativism, but also tends toward a polarizing escalation of neo-tribal identity politics and can cultivate parochial thinking (Thomä 2025, pp. 233–318; Grümme 2023, pp. 122–36).

We take a brief digression here, because this relationship is certainly not simply a theoretical thought experiment, but proves to be highly dangerous in the current geopolitical situation. This is particularly evident in the case of Putin’s in-house ideologue and neo-fascist Dugin (Umland 2007), who is considered one of the intellectual architects of the current Russian regime and whose words are often repeated, if not verbatim, in statements made by Russian government officials on the war and the global political situation in general (Ekardt 2023; further reading on the connection between postcolonial and anti-Western narratives: Jacobs 2025). Dugin radicalizes a simplified, functionalized postcolonial critique of universalism into a Manichean worldview, in which he contrasts the universal (which he pejoratively calls Jewish-American mondialist: Salzborn 2021, p. 172), enlightened, civilizing approach of Western Enlightenment with a particularistic Eurasianism (ibid.). Therefore, he posits that the main law of geopolitics is the assertion of fundamental dualism, which is reflected in the geographical structure of the planet and in the historical typology of civilizations. This dualism manifests itself in the antithesis of tellurocracy and thalassocracy (ibid., p. 173; Luks 2018; Umland 2004, p. 441). Dugin transforms this supposedly geographically based dichotomy into an existential culture war between Eurasian Russia, which, according to him, is a “special form of civilization—neither European nor Asian, but Orthodox” (Salzborn 2021, p. 172), and the Atlantic West, which represents the empire of the Antichrist (ibid., p. 178).

For Dugin, the totalitarian and violent consequence of this particularistic ideology means that “as long as power is in the hands of the global oligarchy, no laws need to be observed—with the exception of the laws of war and revolution […]. War is our homeland, our element, our natural mother environment, in which we must learn to exist effectively and victoriously” (Dugin in Umland 2022, p. 2). What he stylizes here as a Eurasian ideology of liberation is nothing less than a radical rejection of any form of universalism, human rights, and rational discourse—there is no room for any kind of justice. In Dugin’s fight against the terror of reason and classical rationality, he instead propagates the resacralization of a mythically understood community (Salzborn 2021, p. 175). The supposed fight against Western hegemony thus culminates in a nihilistic (Umland 2022, p. 6) and bellicose particularism that not only legitimizes the destruction of the other but also presents it as an ontological necessity. What remains is absolute terror—all the more frightening when one considers the accompanying rewriting of history, in which Putin’s new veneration of Stalin (Aischmann 2025) is intended to make people forget and legitimize the atrocities of the 20th century (Baberowski [2007] 2018). This example illustrates with clarity where radical, non-self-reflective particularism leads when divorced from universal principles: in this case, to fundamentalist thinking that legitimizes totalitarian claims to power under the guise of anti-colonial liberation rhetoric, thereby abandoning the universal principles of human dignity, freedom, recognition, and justice that postcolonial criticism must necessarily invoke.

Returning to CRE, this kind of radicalization of particularism, without maintaining universal normative criteria, does not result in justice, but rather in the legitimization of injustice. Such an overly simplistic characterization of the relationship between universalism and particularism threatens to undermine the very claim to subject-orientation and thus render CRE self-contradictory. Insofar as subject-orientation is essentially based on a normative focus on adolescents remaining subjects, becoming subjects, and being subjects in educational processes (Grümme 2025, pp. 22–123), this normative dynamic determines its universal validity. Either this claim applies to everyone, at all times and in all places, or it does not apply at all. Of course, it would be important not to use this universalism to overlook the concrete subjects, their lifeworlds, and their contextual struggles for identity, freedom, and self-determination in a holistic-universalistic approach, thereby marginalizing these subjects once again and silencing their voices. But this claim would be performatively undermined if it were relativized in view of the diverse identities and contexts in a halved universalism and if this negation were justified with an epistemological recourse to a Eurocentric, neo-colonial, and thus per se imperialistic-hegemonic concept of reason (Rieger-Ladich 2025, p. 18).

In contrast, the indispensability of universal categories can be clearly demonstrated by the aforementioned self-imposed requirement to recognize everyone in their voice and participation and to unconditionally honor their right to have rights. In this context, a context-transcending universalism demonstrates its power to critique and provide orientation in the face of postcolonial and culturalist relativizations. Against the backdrop of his biblically motivated and Kantian-inspired radical universalism, philosopher Boehm (2022, p. 62) points out that “[w]ithout the abstract idea of humanity, it is completely unclear what is wrong with racism in the first place”.

At the same time, these discussions draw attention to the postcolonial necessity that a merely formal universalism constructed along the lines of idealism raises serious problems of its own. Joas (2025) has attempted to develop a moral universalism that is aware of the dangers of its political instrumentalization and, at the same time, of the inevitability of concrete cultures and individuals, without tending toward epistemic violence. Moral universalism thus refers to a moral orientation “that transcends all particular collectives such as family, tribe, people, state, nation, and religious community. It is a normatively charged concept of ‘humanity’ that can also extend beyond the people living today to the conditions of existence of future humans and the suffering of humans in the past” (ibid., pp. 40–41). What is needed, therefore, is a concept of universalism that is self-reflective in its awareness of its own instrumentalizations and hegemonic tendencies, while also being sensitive to differences and contextual heterogeneities. This would then be a universalism that recognizes that “universality cannot exist without dialectics, without contradictions”, and which therefore correlates fundamentally with difference and must become practical as “universalizing difference” (Balibar 2025, pp. 154–55). Such a self-reflexive, difference-sensitive universalism, which can be grounded in a form of thinking based on the theory of alterity (Grümme 2023, pp. 147–68), could now also serve CRE as a principle of its subject-orientation in order to deal with justice critically and productively. Perhaps biblical justice as iustitia correctiva can be applied here, as it is dedicated to the concrete memory of the suffering of history’s victims, thus breaking down the self-sufficiency of a purely idealistic universalism and anchoring it in the preferential option for the poor—that partiality which, as has been shown, is universal precisely because it includes everyone by giving priority to the excluded.

This means in terms of CRE that particularly when subject-oriented CRI is interested in justice and freedom for subjects, when it wants to critically analyze injustice and contribute to education in universal solidarity and justice (John and Mette 2024; Mette 2021; Peukert 1988), a certain universalism remains indispensable (Grümme 2025, pp. 98–123). If we take the critical-enlightened subject-orientation (ibid.) assumed here as a normative criterion of CRE, then this certainly allows for the reception of postcolonial theories in the discussion of justice. However, CRE must be aware of what it is doing, what hermeneutic, analytical, and normative–constructive potential it gains, but also what counter-intentional problems it brings upon itself. In other words, a justice-related CRE must be self-reflective and at the same time structured in its thinking according to the theory of alterity.

But what this means for concrete material areas of CRI’s field of justice, what concrete implications this has for the question of climate justice, for example, in which process theologies or theories of the materialistic turn are currently being discussed in CRE, which merely assume a weak subject, is one of the central challenges that CRE should address, particularly in its productive and critical engagement with postcolonial theories.