Shortly before the state elections, a fundamental dispute broke out in Kulmbach, Upper Franconia, over the question: Is the church allowed to do politics? The reason for the dispute is an article by Pastor Hans Roppelt in the local community newspaper. “Can Christians vote for the AfD?” he asked there and decided that every Christian had to decide this for themselves. However, Roppelt presented some arguments against the right-wing party and personally came to the conclusion: No, the AfD is not electable.
The outraged Kulmbach district chairmen and city council members Georg Hock and Hagen Hartmann immediately wrote a response in the form of a leaflet, which they have since distributed in front of churches in the community. In it, they point out, among other things, that Christian values are central to their election program – in contrast to the other parties.
However, the question arises as to how serious they are about these values in the AfD and who they are targeting with them: Only Germans? Only those who are considered German in the AfD? Or no one at all who doesn’t share your own way of thinking?
In any case, Pastor Roppelt suggests to Hartmann and state parliament candidate Hock, who is known as a southpaw in the right-wing party, that he should accommodate refugees in the private rooms of the rectory. Only then will people believe him that he is “not concerned with the asylum industry in the background,” from which the church earns “millions of euros.” That Roppelt is already doing this? Well, says Hock on the phone: “Then he should record more.”
In the leaflet he makes a further demand: The priest should “proselytise in sub-Saharan Africa” in order to prevent “the predominantly young male population” there from “entering the social system that the Germans pay dearly for as asylum seekers”. He even says on the phone: “to stop blacks from penetrating our social system.” A very unique interpretation of Christian values, all of it.
And at this point we go back to the initial question: Is the church allowed to do politics? Everyone – not just every Christian – has to find an answer to this for themselves. Pastor Roppelt has found his: The church is accused of having remained too silent during the darkest times in our country, he writes in his essay. “This can’t happen again.”