“So help me God” – it is a voluntary formula that can be spoken at the end of an oath of office. When Olaf Scholz is soon to be sworn in as the next Federal Chancellor in the Bundestag, he will leave this sentence out. Gerhard Schröder, a Protestant, once got along without this formula. Olaf Scholz, however, becomes the first non-denominational Chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic.
Scholz has resigned from the Protestant Church, nevertheless, he says, he draws his framework of values ”from his Protestant roots”. His future Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who grew up in a Christian family, also turned his back on the Protestant Church and today describes himself as a “secular Christian”. Soon-to-be finance minister Christian Lindner was once Catholic, but is now also without a denomination.
Fewer and fewer people in Germany belong to one of the two Christian churches, and in the not too distant future their number will exceed that of church members. So it is only logical that this should also be reflected in the government.
In the coalition agreement, the churches come between a paragraph on dealing with SED victims and corporate law. “Churches and religious communities are an important part of our community and make a valuable contribution to living together and conveying values in society,” it says, and: “We appreciate and respect your work.”
The “state services” to the churches are to be ended
In the coalition agreement between the Union and the SPD, the churches were still “partners of the state”, “important pillars in education and social affairs”, the Christian character “the basis of our country” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/ One expects such sentences in the Union, “says SPD MP Kerstin Griese, Parliamentary State Secretary for Labor and Social Affairs in the executive cabinet and member of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). “I think it’s very positive that this appreciation is also expressed in a traffic light coalition agreement, where we have a tradition that is more remote from the church with the FDP.”
Is a stronger wind blowing in the face of the church now? “I don’t think much of such categories,” says Benjamin Strasser, religious policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group and himself a Catholic. “We talk to one another as equals and with mutual respect.” Nevertheless, the traffic light sets the accents differently: This is how it wants, as it is said immediately after the brief appraisal, to create the legal basis for the so-called state services to be ended between churches and federal states.
At first this is not surprising, the topic has been, well, on the agenda for a long time – namely since 1919. The Weimar Constitution already provided for the abolition of these payments to the churches. To this day, they receive around 500 million euros annually from the federal states in order to compensate for lost proceeds from ecclesiastical property expropriated in the 19th century.
“We want to work together with the churches,” says Kerstin Griese. “It is more courageous to write that into a coalition agreement instead of just leaving it lying around, as the Union has long done. It was always the elephant in the room, and now we are tackling it.” In the same way, church labor law, which prohibits employees in church companies from going on strike and requires them to be particularly loyal to their employers, should also be put to the test. Here, too, this should be done in cooperation with the churches, here the SPD prevailed in the coalition negotiations, says Griese.
“Protection of life” now means “reproductive self-determination”
The socio-political turnaround is particularly clear in the case of “protection of life”, as it is called in the churches, or in the case of the “reproductive self-determination”As the coalition calls it: In the future, doctors should be able to provide information that and how they perform abortions. It is also to be examined whether abortions can be regulated outside the penal code, as well as the legalization of egg donation and surrogacy. This meets with rejection, especially among Catholics.
The churches are important for “imparting values in society”, says the coalition agreement. Here is the Caritas “One Million Stars” campaign for people in need worldwide.
(Photo: Uli Scharrer / DPA)
Reiner Anselm, professor of Protestant theology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and chairman of the EKD’s Chamber for Public Responsibility, perceives the coalition agreement as having “definitely changed the tone”. Christianity is “a humus for society”, for whose maintenance sensitivity and awareness are necessary, says Anselm. “It is difficult to pinpoint this in concrete terms, but you can see, for example, on church doors or at church or Catholic days: Christians push differently, also and above all on political issues. A society needs this basic attitude. An awareness that others are still there.”
On the other hand, it is a fact that churches are shrinking – so why should they lay claim to social relevance as much as they did before? “Above all, it is a symbolic problem,” says Rainer Anselm. “We church members are still significantly more than, for example, the employees in the automotive industry, who are often used as a frame of reference in politics.” Churches should therefore advertise their importance. One pillar is diakonia. “For example, care within the church has to be organized differently,” demands Anselm. “We have to be more edgy towards the cost bearers, perhaps also pay higher salaries, ask ourselves: Does it make sense to lean on the collective bargaining agreement for the public service?”
When it comes to dealing with abuse, a topic that has attracted a lot of criticism from the churches, the traffic light strengthens the position of the Independent Abuse Commissioner. The demand for a state reappraisal, as demanded by those affected, is not taken up, however. “In my opinion, the state will not succeed in dealing with it alone. The churches must take an active and leading role,” says FDP politician Benjamin Strasser. “Unfortunately, a lot of trust was lost among those affected by the behavior of some officials in the process of processing.” Therefore, the state should play a stronger role “and create legal foundations where this is necessary”.
The Muslim Cem Özdemir studied at a Protestant university
Germany has become more diverse – this is what it says at the beginning of the coalition agreement. In a further section under the heading “Diversity” there is also a commitment to the protection of Jewish life in Germany. The anti-Semitism commissioner is to be structurally strengthened. In addition, the traffic light wants to better involve Muslim communities in the future and check “whether additions to the legal status of religious communities are necessary for this”. The upcoming government wants to involve progressive Islamic communities based in Germany in this process.
With the designated Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, a Muslim will also become a member of the federal government for the first time, albeit a “non-practicing” one, as he himself says. He is married to a Catholic, the children get to know Jesus and Mohammed equally. Because there was no Muslim religious education in the Swabian province, his mother once sent him to Protestant classes with the words: “They also believe in a God, just like us.”
Özdemir later studied at a Protestant university and was active in the Protestant youth organization in his free time. This time taught him “what strength people draw from their faith to actively help their fellow human beings,” he once said in an interview. “But it also taught me to doubt. I have tried to maintain both of these to this day: curiosity paired with deep respect as well as healthy doubt.” Perhaps a very good heading for a new political-church relationship.