"Folk traditions, at their core, are the opposite of popular" - Cultural interpretative patterns throughout German Protestantism during the 20th-century

In Germany, the radical social and cultural changes since the end of the 19 th century have been the subject of a public debate on the consequences of modernization. At the turn of the centuries, the sociopolitical discourse h as been rendered into a cultural one. One of the dominating figures in this discourse was the Protestant theology in which a specific "cultural scienc e of Christianity" was about to develop. Within the conservative Protestant milieu of the rural parishes' movement - one of the biggest parish communi ties during the Weimar Republic - subjects like "custom", "tradition", "ord er", "community" and topics of folksy and popular culture with special resp ect to rural space and the rural population gained much importance. It was believed that the study of a truly "religious folklore" would secure the re ligious integration of culture within an increasingly de-religious environm ent. The changing meanings of the terms "folksy" and "popular" throughout t he debate figure as indicators of a modified understanding of culture. Simi lar observations can be made in the debates of academic folklore on the "fo lksy" and the "primitive" as used by Levy-Bruhl and Hans Naumann. The Prote stant milieu was not only aware of these discussions, but also considered t hem important and influential.