German Evangelical Church Congress: When is the time for peace? – Politics

St. John’s Church rises high above the graves of the cemetery of the same name. Up here you hardly notice the hustle and bustle of the Kirchentag in the old town, the colorful scarves, the stages and trombone choirs. And yet there is also a Protestant Church Congress here. Perhaps twenty people have found their way into the little church, bowing their heads and praying: “O Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. That I love where one hates, that I forgive where one offends, that I unite where there is strife.”

Dieter Oberländer and Matthias Sengewald are standing in the front of the sanctuary, taking turns saying prayers. You have come from Erfurt and will be a guest at the Johanniskirche during the Kirchentag. You are one of the organizers of the so-called Erfurt Peace Prayer – the oldest prayer initiative in the eastern federal states.

The Inspector General of the German Armed Forces is sitting on the podium for the first time

Since 1978, Protestant and Catholic Christians have been meeting every Thursday evening in the Catholic St. Lorenz Church in Erfurt to pray for peace and justice. At that time, the initiators wanted to demonstrate against the introduction of military studies by Margot Honecker and the progressive militarization of the GDR. Since petitions and protests were unsuccessful, they met from then on to do the least – and perhaps the most powerful thing Christians can do: pray. They have been doing this without a break since then, during the peaceful revolution, in the years after that, until today, every Thursday.

Also on that Thursday last year when Russia invaded Ukraine. “We were at a loss, angry and powerless,” says Dieter Oberländer. “Actually, we were much further along. We managed to establish a new peace order after the Second World War. The war of aggression called everything into question, and the military has become a matter of course again.”

Bible study with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Church Congress in Nuremberg.

(Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa)

So self-evident that for the first time in the history of the Kirchentag on Friday afternoon, the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Carsten Breuer, was to take a seat on a podium in the Nuremberg exhibition halls. At the time of going to press for this issue, the event was not over. But it was also clear beforehand: the war is one of the central themes at the German Evangelical Church Congress, which will last until Sunday. It is the first meeting since the Corona pandemic, numerous prominent politicians are represented: Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are coming on Saturday, and Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder spoke on Friday.

“Now is the time” was the cloudy motto of the Kirchentag, it was thought up long before Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of the “turn of the era”, but the analogy was used again and again at the Kirchentag, starting with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the opening service on the main market shouted: “Now is also the time for weapons.” He got whistles and boos for it, but not many.

How clearly can one still stand up for pacifism?

The war in Ukraine has changed something, including in the debates about peace at the Church Congress – a forum with a decidedly pacifist past. Does a just war exist? What happened to the ban on killing? And from “Swords to Ploughshares”, the Bible verse from Micha, which was also the motto of Christian peace and disarmament initiatives in the GDR?

The discussion was morally extremely heated, says Jan Gildemeister, managing director of the action group Service for Peace, and there are hardly any overtones. “It feels like the Cold War in general: it’s all about whether you’re for or against.” Gildemeister is also involved in the Ecumenical Peace Decade, an association of various Christian peace initiatives. The political situation is enormously difficult and complex, but: “The task of the Peace Decade is to ask questions and keep the perspective of non-violence alive. We have to fill these gaps with questions.” Because there is a great deal of uncertainty among people as to the extent to which one can still clearly stand up for pacifism.

An important figure in German Protestantism, the former EKD Council Chair Margot Käßmann, has taken a stand against arms deliveries in the past, for example. She also signed the controversial call for peace negotiations by Sahra Wagenknecht and Alice Schwarzer and received a lot of criticism for it. Käßmann, who otherwise reliably fills huge exhibition halls at church conventions, is not there for the first time, she just smiles larger than life from the stand of her book publisher. The explanations differ as to why she did not come: Käßmann says that her event was not wanted, the Church Congress Presidency rejects it. It’s complicated.

“If the wind blows in our faces, do we want to stop working for peace?”

The pacifist position is now only represented on the big podiums by Friedrich Kramer, the peace commissioner of the EKD and regional bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany. On Friday afternoon he celebrated a peace service in the well-filled Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg. Kramer warned against simple answers, against friend-enemy schemes. And he asked the rather rhetorical question: “If the wind blows in our faces, do we want to stop working for peace?”

Kramer is also the evangelical bishop responsible for Erfurt, and the issue of arms deliveries has already been discussed a lot with him, Dieter Oberländer says in the small St. John’s Church: “I’m a pacifist – and I think arms deliveries are bad, but necessary in this case.” , he says. One cannot negotiate with Putin. The war in Ukraine could be ended immediately if Russia withdrew its soldiers, then no one would have to die. You are stuck in this dilemma. But, says Oberländer: “It’s good that we have prayer for times when we don’t know what to do.”

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