“Christianity is not the religious padding of a bourgeois life - Fulbert Steffensky on his 80th birthday.”

by Tobias Faix

[This article posted on 3/5/2015 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://tobiasfaix.de/2013/07/das-christentum-ist-nicht-die-religioese-wattierung-eines-buergerlichen-lebens-fulbert-steffensky-zum-80sten/ .]

Today, the former Benedictine monk Fulbert Steffensky celebrates his 80th birthday, which is worth an entry. Dorothee Sölle's husband is one of those people whose writings never fail to inspire and move me. Books such as 'Schwarzbrot-Spiritualität', 'Der Schatz im Acker' or 'Gewagter Glaube' are worth reading and broaden my horizons (all published by Radius Verlag). With Steffensky, it's not just about what he says and writes, but also how he says and writes it. His language always has something of “gentle poetry” about it, which is precisely why it is haunting and precise.

For a long time, he stood in the shadow of his prominent wife Dorothee Sölle and not many said that the two were like “fire and water”. While the prophetess Sölle dealt with the present, his words rather describe the quiet hope of the future. We need both. But today I think of him and thank him for his quiet and insistent voice.

Here is an excerpt:

"The second task is related to the first, to praise God. Our spirituality is not one of a vacuum. It is not a question of religious techniques, which would be independent of what a person stands for, what options he has. You can pray if you know what you are praying for. The spirituality of the Church is first and foremost its attention to the faces of people; to their suffering, to their happiness. Spirituality is recognizing the eyes of Christ in the eyes of the starving child, the tortured women, the people who have fallen from all security. This spirituality therefore teaches us to ask questions: Who suffers? Why does he suffer? Who causes suffering? Christianity is not the religious padding of a bourgeois life that it has so often become. Justice, compassion and knowledge of God are inseparable."

 

 

 

 

 

“Love Under Construction” Or: Let all that you do be done in love (1 Cor. 16:14). - The motto for 2024 between utopia and everyday life.

by Tobias Faix

[This article posted on 1/14/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://tobiasfaix.de/2023/12/love-under-construction-oder-alles-was-ihr-tut-geschehe-in-liebe-1-kor-16-14-die-jahreslosung-2024-zwischen-utopie-und-alltagsgeschehen/.]

 

This motto for the year is a provocation and, at first glance, brims with idealism and utopia, but it seems to mean it seriously. Very seriously. Because it speaks right into the tensions and polarizations of our time, into all the irritations and appropriations that shape and challenge us every day. Into all the moral conflicts of the present, which have so much explosive power. Into all the discussions and disputes in our families, workplaces, churches and communities. The tone is becoming much harsher and more merciless, especially on social media, and theology and ethics, gender roles and family images, religious and political affiliations are being discussed and judged. And so here it comes in, our motto for the year, questioning every single one of our sentences and posts and asking provocatively: “Did you do it out of love?” It is already clear that this is not about a romanticized or even kitschy love, but about an existential love. A love that has the power and strength to change everything. And everything means everything. Really? Is that possible? But first things first. I would like to take some time to take a closer look at the motto of the year in its context and in the overall biblical context and only then ask: What does it have to say to us today?

1 “Context matters” - Corinth and love

First of all, I would like to look at the city of Corinth in the first half of the first century and then go into the situation of the church.

Brief history of the city of Corinth

Let's take a brief look at the history of a fascinating metropolis that was already past its heyday at the time of the letter to the Corinthians. The rise of Athens as a leading trading and naval power prompted Corinth to side with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). After the defeat of Athens, the Corinthians allied themselves with the Athenians and fought against Sparta in the Corinthian War (395-386 BC). In 338 BC, Corinth was occupied by the Macedonians under Philip II. In 224 BC, the city joined the Achaian League and soon became one of its leading members. After the alliance was dissolved by the Romans in 146 BC, a Roman army destroyed Corinth. Caesar had the city rebuilt around 44 BC. As the capital of the Roman province of Achaia, it flourished again until it was finally conquered and devastated by the Goths under Alaric in 395.

The Christian community in Corinth

The church in Corinth was founded in the early 1950s by Paul, who spent a total of 18 months in Corinth, which was a remarkably long time for him. Paul's relationship with the Corinthians was very intensive. There were at least four letters to the Corinthians in total, i.e. a very lively correspondence. We have two of them today, and from them it is clear that there were two more to which these letters refer: an unknown letter (1 Cor 5:9ff), 1 Corinthians, then another unknown letter (2 Cor 2:3-4 + 7:8), and finally 2 Corinthians. There were also at least two visits by Paul. Corinth was a famous port city that was slowly losing its great cultural and economic importance at the time. Nevertheless, Corinth was a hub for trade goods from all over the world. Ships from all over the world brought various cultural and religious practices to Corinth. During excavations, thousands of temples and religious sacrificial shrines were discovered, demonstrating the religious pluralism of the time. The highlight was certainly the large temple on the Acropolis (Acrocorinth), which was dedicated to Aphrodite.

Church in areas of tension

In the midst of this boiling point of cultures lived the Christian community, which consisted of Jewish and Gentile Christians and was divided into various house churches in Corinth, which were located in the different milieus of the city. The community reflected the social diversity and the associated tensions. There were wealthy householders (1 Cor 1:11), where the congregation met, and slaves (7:21), who had hardly any rights, let alone land ownership. In general, there were many rather uneducated Christians (1:26) who met among themselves in their own milieu (probably in the harbor area). Then all the “house churches” came together in the large houses of the “rich” (11:22). There the conflicts of the different lifestyles came to light, there were ethical problems (legal issues, different ideas about marriage, dietary rules, idolatry, different ideas about freedom or sexual immorality) as well as problems with worship. The rich ate properly and drank before the Lord's Supper, so that some came already drunk, while the poor were hungry and had nothing (11:21-22), or there was disagreement over the use of spiritual gifts.

The Corinthians and sexual ethics

Dealing with sexuality in particular was problematic in the church in Corinth and was hotly debated. There were married people who did not sleep together for ascetic reasons (1 Cor 7:1-6), while others saw nothing wrong with going to prostitutes even as Christians (1 Cor 6:13) and had no objection to one of them having an affair with his stepmother (1 Cor 5:1f.). Their slogan was “Everything is permitted (to me)!” - but, Paul added: “Not everything is for the good” (1 Cor 6:12; 10:23). Added to this was the different religious socialization: there were Jews who became Christians (and demanded that everyone keep the Jewish law), Gentiles who became Christians (and could not do much with all the Jewish laws, as they ate meat consecrated to idols without any problems), and the proselytes (Gentiles who became Jews and then Christians, i.e. knew both sides, but were “circumcised” in contrast to the Gentile Christians). This led to additional conflicts, so that Paul felt compelled to describe in detail how it is possible to live together in this confusion (the well-known chapters on “strong & weak” in chapters 8+10). In addition to mutual consideration, Paul particularly emphasized two commonalities, firstly the focus of faith, the cross of Christ (1 Cor 1:18ff; 3:11), and secondly equality before God despite all differences (4:9ff; 12:1ff). For, according to Paul, it is not wisdom, not knowledge, not truth that counts in the end. What counts in the end is love (1 Cor 1:18-31). For: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). Towards the end of 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 contains the great hymn to love, which transcends everything and leaves knowledge, generosity and spiritual gifts behind. Only faith, hope and love remain. These three will always remain; but love is supreme (1 Cor 13). The letter then ends with the last verse that Paul writes to the church: “ My love is with you all in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 16:24).

We can therefore see that the context of the year's motto is very similar to today's context, especially with regard to the heated social, sexual-ethical and theological debates and conflicts. In the midst of these conflicts, Paul emphasizes the love that stands above everything and changes everything.

2 Some exegetical observations

Now that we have looked at the context of the first letter to the Corinthians, I would like to take an exegetical look at our motto for the year. In Greek, it looks like this: “πάντα ὑμῶν ἐν ἀγάπῃ γιννέσθω”.

The different translations then all go in one direction, but have small differences. Here are some examples:

• Let all that you do be done in love. (Einheitsübersetzung)
• Let love guide you in everything you do. (New Geneva)
• Let all your things be done in love. (Luther 2017)
• Let everything you do be determined by love. (Good News)
• In everything you do, let love be your guide. (Hope for all)
• Let all things be done in love! (Elberfelder)
• Let everything be done to you in love! (Schlachter)
• No matter what you do, the main thing is that your basic motive is love! (Volxbible)
• Let all your things be done with charity. (King James Version)

The embedding of the text in the verses in the section around the annual motto is entitled “Concluding admonitions” in most Bibles and once again summarizes Paul's essential demands to the church in Corinth:

13 Be vigilant, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. 14 Let everything you do be done in love. 15 I have one more request, brothers and sisters. You know the house of Stephanas: they are the first fruits of Achaia and have put themselves at the service of the saints. 16 Submit yourselves to them, and to everyone who works and labors. 17 I am glad that Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus have come to me; they are a substitute for you, since you cannot be here. 18 They have refreshed my spirit and yours. Give them credit!

The verses begin with four imperatives: Be vigilant! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! (literally manly) and Be strong! According to the exegete Schrage, these four imperatives cumulate in the admonition to love. In the echo of chapter 13, love is taken up again at the end and placed above all else. It represents the attitude, motivation and justification of the imperatives. Everything starts from God's love, and everything goes into this love. “Everything that happens to you ...” ἐν ἀγάπῃ is to be understood modally, i.e.: “according to the standard of love”. This means that this is to be understood imperatively, and Luther's passive translation “let ... happen” is somewhat misleading. And the πάντα (all) brings this to a head once again in an impressive way: God's love should permeate and determine our whole life, our whole thinking, our whole actions. Without exception, Paul describes life in the church in Corinth, knowing full well what life is like in the church in Corinth. This becomes clear once again in the following verses, where the focus is on this effort and ordering of cooperation. Andreas Lindemann and Johannes Wischmeyer come to the following conclusion: "The object πάντα shows that nothing and nowhere in the church should happen that does not correspond to the standard of love. In this context, ἀγάπη is not primarily a feeling or a mood, but is aimed at concrete behaviors of care and recognition of the other person."

If we summarize the exegetical findings, then our motto for the year does not describe a wish, a utopia or a “but it would be nice”, but an inner attitude that manifests itself in all situations in life. It is therefore about the “how” of thinking, believing, speaking and behaving and not about the “what”, not about concrete rules of conduct.

3 Overall biblical-theological classification

In the following, the previous findings will be placed in the overall biblical framework in order to show that Paul's statement in Corinthians is not just a contextual or singular statement, but that it is part of the overall testimony of the Old and New Testaments.

God's love for people

In the Torah, the topic of love is primarily formulated in the fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy). The theological description of the relationship between God and man focuses on the concepts of election (Deut. 4:37; 7:6; 14:2) and covenant (Deut. 4:23.31; 5:2; 7:9; 28:69). The ultimate reason for this electing behavior does not lie in any achievement or qualification of Israel. God's love for us is the reason for our election: “The LORD did not accept you and choose you because you were greater than all the nations - for you are the least of all the nations - but because he loved you” (Deut 7:7-8). God's love is therefore the ultimate reason for election. The covenant relationship between God and man is based on the primordial decision of divine love and is at the same time based on a relationship of mutual love and loyalty. In the famous Sh'ma Yisrael, this relationship between God and humanity is emphasized in terms of love: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut 6:4-5).

Reciprocal love relationship

This dual understanding of love from and for God runs through the entire Old Testament and is repeatedly admonished by the prophets. Man's relationship with God is described using different images. The images of bridegroom and bride (Isa 62:5; Ezek 16:8; Hos 1-3) and of father and child (Isa 63:16; Jer 31:9; Mal 1:6) are particularly significant for our topic. These two of the most intense forms of human community provide images for the relationship between God and man. In the book of Hosea in particular, God's entire expectation of covenant faithfulness on the part of human beings can be brought to a head in terms of knowledge of God and love: “I delight in love and not in sacrifice, in the knowledge of God and not in burnt offerings” (Hos 6:6).

This reciprocal relationship of love transcends boundaries

The commandment to love God and one's neighbour is also not explained, but is directly related to the nature of God and how he presents himself to us humans. This is also made clear by the fact that the commandment to love is not tied to any conditions, neither for the people of Israel nor for strangers or outcasts: "If a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not oppress him. He shall dwell with you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God" (Lev 19:33-34). Love for your neighbor is not just the natural affection for family members or neighbors. It is explicitly about all people you meet, especially people on the margins of society, such as widows and orphans in those days (Ex 22:21; Deut 14:29; 24:17; 27:19). There were also a number of laws that represented a kind of social legislation for the disadvantaged and ensured a balance within the people. For example, landowners were obliged to leave part of their harvest in the fields so that widows, orphans and strangers could glean there (Deuteronomy 24:19-21). They also regularly received a share of the tithe, which was levied on all the produce (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). People with disabilities were also under God's special protection. “You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, for you shall fear your God; I am the LORD.” (Exodus 19:15). The close connection between the concept of love and God's electing action makes the central importance of love in the Old Testament clear. Love means affirmation, acceptance and recognition.

The reciprocal love of Jesus and Paul

Jesus and Paul take up this understanding of love and take it further in their teaching: "Therefore, whatever you expect of others, do also to them! This is the law and the prophets" (Mt 7:12). “So love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10). Or: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? But Jesus answered him: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind' (Deut 6:5). This is the highest and greatest commandment. But the other is the same: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Lev 19:18). In these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Mt 22:36-40). It is undisputed that love is described as the highest norm in the New Testament in Jesus as well as in Paul, in Johannine literature as well as in James. This is precisely what is shown in Jesus' life in a very practical way, when Jesus turns to the sick, the blind, the mute and the paralyzed. This is not a peculiarity, but a normal expression of his Jewish faith, because caring for the sick (bikkur cholim) was one of the most important ethical maxims of Judaism. However, it is not just about care, but also about “respect, dignity and participation in social life” (Baltes 2015). In Jewish literature, for example, there is a wealth of examples of how rabbis treated people with disabilities. Guido Baltes has collected some of these stories, such as the tale of two deaf-mutes who regularly came to Rabbi Jehuda HaNasi's house of learning. Everyone assumed that they couldn't learn anything there, because learning in those days was mainly done by listening to and repeating the material. But Rabbi Yehuda insisted that they were allowed to take part in the lessons. After many years, they were both healed by a prayer from Rabbi Yehuda and were able to speak. And it turned out that they knew the laws and interpretations better than anyone else (Baltes 2015).

Love of enemies as the USP of Christianity

A special feature of Jesus' teaching is his explicit emphasis on love even for enemies: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you are kind to your brothers, what are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:43-48). In every religion there is love of neighbor, in no other religion is there love of enemy. As the climax of the Sermon on the Mount, it is postulated by Jesus and explained in detail. Love of enemies, which goes beyond charity and care (don't tax collectors do the same?), reveals the transformative power of love, which calls on us to do the impossible, even to pray for those who persecute us. This is about a twofold change, because praying for those who are hostile to you makes it clear that love is rooted in the relationship with God and in being a child of God (5:44). This love applies equally to all people, and so this prayer not only changes my relationship with my enemies, but also my own relationship with God. The call to perfection (Mt 5:48) emphasizes the orientation towards God himself. God gives away His love in Christ and makes Himself small, vulnerable and susceptible so that we can understand and accept it. This love changes and thus becomes a role model for us. It is about a radical attitude and not about an ethical idealism that is not oriented towards people, but towards God's perfect love for all people. This love goes hand in hand with God's justice, his grace and mercy. It is not about perfection, about achieving a moral goal, but about allowing oneself to be changed by this love, including failure and reconciliation. This love determines the relationship between people. Justice refers to the relationship between us humans. Love is a relational concept, justice is a relational concept. Love is about personal events; justice describes the realization of this love between us humans.

This love is therefore neither a mere feeling nor an abstract ideal, neither a moral duty nor a program to be fulfilled, but a concrete relational reality of our lives. It is a visible yes from God to us and a visible yes to our counterpart. Love arises in the reciprocity and resonance of love from God and love for God and then has an effect on the concrete act of love towards our neighbor. Love takes hold of us and changes us and thus becomes the attitude of our lives.

4. interpretation & application: love as an attitude to life

So what happens when love determines our thoughts and actions? That sounds great at first, like “peace on earth”. But why do we experience this so rarely, neither in this world nor in our communities? Is God's love too weak, or is our selfishness too great? Perhaps it is because we are afraid of falling short if we don't fight back? Perhaps we are too sure that we have the truth and knowledge and see it as our duty to convince others of this? Isn't it also a form of love to point out others' mistakes? There are many reasons why our behavior deviates from what has just been described - perhaps even has to deviate, preferably in the sense of God. The problem could lie in the fact that our pursuit of truth and knowledge takes precedence over our pursuit of love. Which, as we have seen, is precisely what Paul sees differently. And please don't misunderstand: This is about ranking, not about being against each other. It is also not about no longer discussing, but about how we discuss. It is not about not striving for the truth, but about how we do this towards God, my neighbor and myself. The love of God gives me the recognition to let go and not always have to be right. To be loved means to love others.

Letting the people around me flourish

In his thoughts on the annual motto, theologian Marcus Tesch reminds me of Miroslav Volf, especially in his description of how love manifests itself: living and acting so that others can grow, blossom and develop together with me. This includes much of what has been described so far. So if we want to know where we stand spiritually and how we are doing in terms of love, then let's look at the people around us. Are they developing in my presence? Are they growing? Are they blossoming? This is the ultimate test of love, especially with people we know and who know us - similar to Paul's relationship with the Corinthians, whose weaknesses he knew well. Paul calls the Corinthians saints and role models, but also criticizes their behaviour. Spiritual gifts and knowledge neither presuppose nor guarantee a healthy and loving faith. For spiritual growth is not to be equated with social behavior; rather, spiritual growth is reflected in social behavior. Paul describes this practically and clearly in the fifth chapter of Galatians: “The Spirit of God causes an abundance of good things to grow as fruit, namely love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, modesty and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Practical love therefore also refers to everyday manners.

“Love under construction”

The greatest danger is that we fail to live up to our own ideal of love. An ideal that we cannot achieve because we transfer the perfection of God's love onto ourselves. But the love of the motto of the year is in process, as became clear in the context of the letter to the Corinthians. It is not about perfection, not about an ideal, not about a utopia, but about a relational process, about a transformation process of our own heart in the context of the dawning kingdom of God. This kingdom of God and our heart transformation have begun, but are not yet complete. Under construction - in progress - is what you could call it. The love of God is also a promise. It describes a process of change in the tense relationships described, which at the same time has to painfully endure the imperfection of our own lives. This process is supported by the eschatological hope that God has the last word, also with regard to love. This leads to a transformation of the human heart as well as to a change in social structures in the family, the community and society.

Love - revolution of the heart

Back to the beginnings of these thoughts: this year's slogan is provocative and at first glance seems to be bursting with idealism and utopia. But it is serious, very serious. Because it speaks right into the tensions and polarizations of our time, into all the irritations and appropriations that shape and challenge us every day. The love of God means allowing yourself to be transformed by God - when love takes hold of your own heart. In Hebrew, the heart symbolizes the center of the human being: his will, his mind and his emotions. Our own heart becomes hard again and again and must be softened by the love of God, as expressed by the prophet Ezekiel, who calls for a “heart of flesh instead of stone” (Ezek 36:26). It is always a matter of God's instructions leading to life and to a relationship with God. This renewal of the heart gives rise to ethical demands for our neighbor. An interaction unfolds here between the change of heart and living according to God's instructions. Both influence each other and thus shape life before God and people. In Hebrew, the heart not only refers to the physical place, but above all to the entirety of the human person. The heart is the central organ of the human being, the innermost human being. It is the innermost and actual self, the center of consciousness and unconsciousness, of body, soul and spirit - the absolute center. The heart is the hidden birthplace of the new human being. But this heart often becomes hard in everyday life, wanders off, leaves its place in life. I therefore often pray the old prayer of St. Francis de Sales, which helps me to place my heart in the presence of God:

When your heart wanders or suffers,

bring it gently back to its place

and gently place it in the presence of your God.

And even if you have done nothing

in your whole life

except to bring your heart back

and back into the presence of our God

even though it ran away every time,

after you had brought it back,

then you have probably fulfilled your life.

Only those who are loved can love others. Only from this experience can we understand Paul's motto for the year as a transformative opportunity and not as a moral obligation. If we remain in the love of God, our hearts will change and so will our lives and actions. Only then will we experience the recognition that allows us not to constantly think that we are falling short and thus gain the strength to share this love with others.

Living love instead of talking about love

Some time ago, there was an experiment at the elite Princeton University, specifically in theology. There was an exam on the text of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), i.e. the story about the priests, theologians and spiritually well-respected people passing by the seriously injured man and then the unloved Samaritan of all people helping him. In other words, it is not what is said and preached that is decisive, but what is done. Helping your neighbor, no matter who it is. The students set to work on the text with enthusiasm and had the whole morning to disseminate it, then in the afternoon there was the exam in another building on campus. On the way there, the students passed a woman who was obviously homeless and moaning violently in pain. And we can already guess: the students all walked past the woman without helping. The stress of the exam was greater than the love of helping the woman.

Love in practice

Every person who comes to church will also be disappointed. The idea of a perfect church is a misconception that does not exist in the Bible or today. But how do we live in the tension that we as humans always draw boundaries and also live by demarcations in our identity development? Because there is no church that does not draw boundaries for itself, and that is also good and healthy, because we also have to protect ourselves from encroachment. This brings us back to the Corinthians and their manifold challenges, and that gives me hope, because the Corinthian problems are also my problems, our problems too. Here are three practical examples:

Social exclusions: Our churches and congregations are largely upper-middle class and have invisible dynamics of exclusion through educational habitus, pious language, foreign liturgies and rituals, so that people not socialized in church are often confronted with experiences of foreignness. How can we design our church services and church places in such a way that people understand them and feel that they belong? How does our love manifest itself in a church service that does not just serve to satisfy our own needs? A service that is not just about our own music or theology?

People with disabilities: One group that is often overlooked in our churches and congregations is people with disabilities. Where do they find their place? Where do they get recognition? What does inclusion look like, from barrier-free access to our events to the question of inclusive group events? Recently, I met with some people with mentally diagnosed disabilities and just listened. Their stories were nothing to write home about for communities and churches, as their lives consist of many experiences of exclusion. Nevertheless, they are looking for a home, knowing full well that their impairments challenge and often overwhelm other people. Love is perhaps shown in a very practical way by listening, giving space, thinking together about how solutions can be found. Love takes the first step towards the other person.

Living reconciliation: Precisely because we are dealing with different people, from the perspective of love, the topic of reconciliation is part of the basic attitude in every community. This is not about cheap “egalitarianism”, but about the central question of a newly emerging community. This emerging community of love that Christ established through the cross and resurrection. The theologian Miroslav Volf quotes his teacher Jürgen Moltmann: "On the cross of Christ, this love (i.e. the love of God) is there for others, for sinners - the resisting enemies. The mutual self-giving to one another within the Trinity is demonstrated in Christ's self-giving in a world that is in contradiction to God; and this self-giving includes all who believe in him in the eternal life of divine love” (Volf 2012:23). God suffers in Christ on the cross for all marginalization and thus opens the door to this new community between God and human beings. Love seeks justice in relationships and at the same time always gives a second chance. This describes the “how” of the annual motto, the attitude and culture of a Christian community or congregation. Because I need the reconciling and healing love of Christ, I also want to grant it to everyone else.

Conclusion: Learning to live love - dare to celebrate more!

Paul writes about the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. The church is always global, international and intercultural. God does not think in terms of homogeneous or national groups. That is why the local church also reflects this image. Celebrating festivals together was not only very popular in the Old Testament, but also with Jesus. Listening to one another, hearing and understanding life stories and praying for one another are the foundations of a life of faith. But we have often forgotten how to do this because of all the good programs. Recognizing, appreciating and integrating people into the community are important healing ministries in our congregations. The church is an ambassador of peace to the world (2 Cor 5:17 ff) and thus an agent of political and social change. We advocate for our brothers and sisters in persecution while being grateful for what we have and considering what we can share of our abundance. Who can we share with? What can we share? Who can we learn from? What can we accept? Where do I need additions? As Christians in our churches, we have a great opportunity to fulfill the biblical mandate to be inclusive and to share and experience this love. The first churches were all “colorful” and consisted of different generations, nations and social milieus, as seen in Corinth. It is precisely in this that the “body of Christ” becomes clear in its diversity; it is precisely in this that complementarity becomes visible. This is where we have the opportunity to learn from one another. However, we must become sensitive to this anew and take others seriously with their experiences, gifts and tasks. We can be different in personality, style of piety and political convictions. Christ unites us. It is perhaps one of the greatest opportunities for the world to see how we can treat each other in an exemplary manner in a pluralistic society. How we can perceive the differences of others as an enrichment and do not have to take fearful action against them. Despite all the differences, in the end it is neither the style of piety nor the theological truths that matter, but the love that is lived and reflected in us. This is also reflected in the way we treat each other.

 

“Trouble in paradise or what criticism of capitalism has to do with the current unrest.”

by Tobias Faix

[This article posted on 3/5/2015 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://tobiasfaix.de/2013/07/aerger-im-paradies-oder-was-kapitalismuskritik-mit-den-aktuellen-unruhen-zu-tun-hat/.]

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial and most listened to philosophers of our time and in the current period he is once again living up to his reputation by pointing out exciting connections between the emerging countries of the Arab Spring, the current unrest in Turkey and Brazil and his favorite topic of criticism of capitalism. As always, he combines good observation with interesting connections.

Here are a few quotes from the Zeit article, which is well worth reading:

"The fundamental dilemma is as simple as it is brutal: are the protests of recent years signs of a global crisis that is slowly but surely reaching us? Or are they just small-scale resistance that can be quickly contained? There are good reasons to believe that the local unrest is a sign of a global adjustment to a new era of progress.

...

Once again, the protest erupted in a country in the midst of an economic boom. The puzzle was compounded by the fact that the protesters were immediately supported by President Dilma Rousseff, who said she was “delighted” by the demonstrators.

...

Just because the real reason for the protests is global capitalism does not mean that the only solution is to abolish it. There is no alternative between dealing pragmatically with individual problems and waiting for a radical upheaval. This would overlook the internal contradictions of global capitalism. Despite the invocation of market freedom, the USA subsidizes its farmers, despite its praise of democracy, it maintains relations with the absolutist monarchy of Saudi Arabia."

 

Touching grass and practising role reversal

Why a new orientation towards lifeworlds and a fundamental grounding are necessary for the future of the church

• Philipp Greifenstein

[This article posted on 5/10/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://zeitzeichen.net/node/11139.]

After the declining church membership figures for the Protestant church were recently published, the usual discussion about the future of the church began. How can this succeed? Getting into conversation with people, not just broadcasting and organizing, but listening and letting things happen - that's part of the solution, says our online columnist Philipp Greifenstein.

Shall we talk again about the shrinking of the church? Following the publication of the Evangelical Church's church membership figures for 2023 a week ago, there was another round of the usual discussions about the future shape of the Protestant churches, their fields of activity and, of course, Sunday services. I always find it amazing that there are always people - especially digitally on social media platforms - who discuss these issues with high blood pressure. I think this is a resource - albeit a dwindling one - that the Protestant church could draw on.

But it is also noticeable that the discussion groups are getting smaller. There are many reasons for this. And unfortunately, the weariness with the simple answers ventilated on the occasion of the publication rounds will only account for a small part of the motivation to stay away from the debates on the future of the church. Rather, it is noticeable that the demand for church membership has already fallen sharply. Especially among those who help shape the (digital) public sphere. There are fewer and fewer people who want to seriously discuss the future of the church and not just as a “bourgeois casualty”.

“Central council of the hobbyless”

“Religion is a private matter” is one of the slogans of the militant atheists around the so-called Central Council of the Non-denominational (sic!), a spin-off of the Giordano Bruno Foundation led by activist Philipp Möller. But what the “Central Council of the Non-Confessional” only demands is now practiced as a matter of course by many Christians, including committed ones. The church membership studies of the past decades also show this: one's own life of piety is led in the private sphere and locally, tied to the church tower, pastor and trusted church staff, to the congregation and families. Many of these people don't take part in the supposedly big discourses about “the future of the church” - and they won't be dissuaded from doing so by fear-mongering about the “ruling through” of church leaders and their “right and important” reform ideas. That, too, is a resource, I think, of pretty resistant provinciality that the church could certainly enjoy.

So what is the church for? In a remarkable interview for the “Junge Kirche ‘ (which you are welcome to give a new website), Klara Butting asks Fulbert Steffensky, who summarizes his answer: ’God and the bread of the poor. [...] God is already thought of when the poor are thought of. That is true. But the question remains for the church, for its sermons and services, for its pastoral care, for its songs and prayers: is it seeking God, is it seeking him happily, desperately?"

Against lamentation

His impression is rather desperate, one might say, because in view of the shrinking discourse, he recommends: “I would start by teaching all church people, especially theologians, mocking songs about their own weepiness. If lamentation is our main hymn, we lose our desire for ourselves. We lose the pride without which no one can respect us." Steffensky's semi-prophetic words are a little uplifting: The way he talks about the beauty of faith and traditional forms, about the Sermon on the Mount, which he has in his luggage, and about the church service: “I go to church on Sundays, not because I am so pious, rather the opposite: my meagre faith is not enough. In the church service, I come across the faith of my brothers and sisters. We share our thin soup of faith and we all get half-fed."

Now we may not only ask whether the services in our Protestant churches actually enable, stage and celebrate this communication between brothers and sisters, but also whether we can overlook the potential for violence (in) the church, which is currently so obvious: “Yes, the churches have practiced violence, tolerated violence. Anyone who conceals this is a deceiver. But there is also another form of deception, self-deception. It consists in misjudging the richness and beauty that have been handed down in the churches."

Steffensky believes that Christians should be “the relentless guardians and judges of their own church”, but should also be allowed to respect the “beauty of their own house” with their own “pride”.

Jazzed up and blatant

Many of the current debates in the church do not fulfill either of these demands: They are neither truly critical in a serious sense nor a search for beauty. They are more like a game, in which people are just throwing in what they have always said and meant in the same or slightly different way. I can also see my growing reluctance to be changed, inspired or outraged. Perhaps this is a consequence of progressive ageing or simply a blunting or coping mechanism to deal with the abundance of outrageous, jazzed-up and market-screaming messages. Maybe we just need to touch weed again.

In online (Twitter) discussions of days gone by, this advice was occasionally given to people whose digital tirades were miles away from “real life” and a digestible emotional balance. Today, people hardly dare to do that anymore because everything is terribly serious and important and outrageous. And that's true. There is a lot to fear. All the more so the more deeply you deal with things. Even if the outrage or enthusiasm is then certainly no longer quite so easy, because differentiation and complexity unfortunately have a sensitive effect on the density of hot takes that can be uttered. But then it could actually become really critical - or beautiful.

Contact with reality

So: touch the grass. What could that look like in our churches, a new contact with reality, a fundamental grounding, a soothing centering? Should we go out into nature? Should we seek the beauty that Fulbert Steffensky writes about? Do we need to take trips there, at least for temporary refreshment? Perhaps. But touching grass means more than enjoying the beauty of natural growth and the tranquillity of the German forest, humming Paul Gerhardt songs or tasting Bach cantatas. Where is the “real life”, please, and what about those with whom I am supposed to spoon up my soup together?

Really getting into conversation with people, not opening up a “church dialogue space”, not just broadcasting and organizing, but listening and letting it happen, that is probably part of the solution. Katharina Scholl wrote here in z(w)eitzeichen last week about a church that asks: “What do you need today?” The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was not entirely wrong with his verdict: “Hell is the others”. But without table fellowship, it just doesn't work, the Bach chorales sound like little consolation. In the “Junge Kirche” interview, which you should definitely read (PDF), Steffensky talks about “remembering stories of successful dignity and stories of the possibility of life in the midst of its threats”, for which the church is needed. But such stories always need tellers and listeners. And at the latest when no one is listening anymore, it's probably time for a change of role.

 

 

A journey through my religious worlds

 

by Fulbert Steffensky

[This article posted on 7/8/2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.feinschwarz.net/reise-durch-meine-religioesen-welten/.]

This was the title of Fulbert Steffensky 's lecture in Lucerne on July 5, 2023. The Reformed Church of the City of Lucerne hosted a celebration and book presentation to mark the author's 90th birthday. Feinschwarz is publishing the lecture here, in gratitude and with best wishes to the jubilarian.

I would like to take you on a short journey through the religious world in which I was born: 1933; through the world in which my children were born and grew up, around the middle of the last century. Last stop on the journey: today - 2023.

My generation has come a long way since then. We have lost a lot on this walk, we have gained a lot. I wonder which losses were our gains. I ask myself which losses have made us poorer. And I ask myself what we want for our children and grandchildren after our walk. So I ask about three religious worlds: my old world, the world of my children, which was probably not yet entirely different from my world, and finally the world we want for our descendants.

I find three terms for the Catholic world in which I was born: unity, wholeness, unquestionableness. It was a unanimous world. Almost everyone was Catholic. The few Protestants were easy to swallow. They did not disturb the unity of that world. Unanimity was the strength of that world. People knew what to believe. They knew what to pray and what religious acts to perform. They knew that confession had to be made during the “Easter period”, that no meat was to be eaten on Fridays and which saints were to be invoked in case of fire or throat problems. But they also knew that you shouldn't marry a Protestant; that you had to obey authority; that premarital sex was forbidden and marital sex was to be carried out in moderation. A world in which salvation was difficult to access for unbaptized children, members of other religions - including Protestants. That was a high price to pay for this freedom from doubt and unanimity. Systems that know and tolerate no contradictions and contradictions within themselves are always dangerous, including church systems. The churches have lost this compulsive unity. This loss is their gain. “The greatness of a person is shown by how many opposites he unites within himself.” So said Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues, who lived in the first half of the 15th century. Applied to churches: the greatness of a church is shown by how many opposites it unites within itself.

I am wary of being unfair to that old world of faith. So I will first mention their consolation. It was war. People feared for their husbands and sons; bombs were falling and hunger raged after the war. In those hard times, there was no time for doubt, that sublime brother of truth. There was no time for difficult considerations of faith. People sat in the house of this faith and did not ask whether the house was in need of renewal. They didn't even know what could be renewed. You prayed and didn't ask about the meaning of the prayer, you knew it, it was as natural as the air you breathed. You prayed for everything, you thought God was responsible for everything. You prayed for a sore throat, for the success of an exam, for the defeat of your enemies, for the good outcome of a journey. Theodor Fontane caricatured this way of praying in a priest's prayer: “God, let the sun shine today, my wife is hanging up the washing.” God was the direct author of everything that happened - a comforting and dangerous assumption.

Another stage of my religious journey: 13 years as a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Maria Laach, but only as a brief digression. Post-war times are always monastic times. That was the case after 1918, and even more so after 1945. The institutions had lost their naturalness: the churches, which were collaborators; the schools, which served the evil spirit; many of our fathers and mothers were among the traitors or bystanders; we mistrusted our poets and musicians because they had participated or allowed themselves to be abused. After the war and the economic miracle, most Germans considered the Nazi era to be an insignificant blip in history. AfD leader Gauland has relativized the Hitler era: The Nazis were “just a bird's-eye view” in 1000 years of German history. We live in a society of bad memories. Where does a young person go when he doesn't want to waste his life and can't stand his own country? He goes to a monastery. Many people entered monasteries out of desperation rather than piety.

So that's what drove us out of the world and into the monastery. But what drew us there, what were we looking for? We were looking for a simple life in which possessions, clothes, money and reputation played little or no role. No, the monasteries were not paradises. But they were places where there was little that was superfluous. The simplicity and absence of superfluous things made life easy to understand. “Superfluous things make life superfluous”, says Pasolini, one of the cleverest sentences in human history.

In the monastery, we sought a just life in which people shared money and bread; in which, for example, the possessive word “my” or “your” was forbidden in the language. Yes, it was touchingly funny when the monks spoke of “our pants” or “our toothbrush”. It was the comic sign of a just idea.

The idea of justice, simplicity and the search for God was a shared idea. The community and the place carried it, not the individual person alone. Ideas become strong when they are shared. Ideas must have places. They fade if they only nest in the heads of individuals and are only developed with the hands of individuals.

There were not only shared ideas, but shared tasks; each of the convents had a specific one. The Ingenbohl sisters took care of girls' education, which had been neglected. Mother Teresa and her group took care of the dying on the streets of Calcutta. After the war, the Capuchins in Germany were mainly concerned with reconciliation work and the Raue Haus in Hamburg, a diaconal group, looked after the homeless children and young people without rights on the streets of Hamburg. Tasks must have places. Monks are useless like all other Christians. But there is their place, where you simply live; where you share possessions, ideas and prayers. I also mention monastic groups that cannot justify themselves through their external work: the contemplative orders. Perhaps with their monasteries and their life in our profit-obsessed societies, they carry the most defiant idea of a life that does not have to justify itself by itself. It will be an irreplaceable loss for Catholicism and for the Church as a whole if all these groups and monasteries die out.

This concludes my monastic digression.

“If you didn't have the Church”, I hear my mother say in those days of my first religious world; a world in which faith was not yet conceivable without the Church, at least not in Catholicism. She didn't say: if you didn't have faith. She comforted the house whose foundations were considered stable. “A house full of glory behold” was sung, the house that housed many with the same intentions and the same faith. The faith was credible because it was supported by so many. We are human beings, i.e. we are dialogical beings; we are dependent on being seen and affirmed by others. Our self-confidence, and therefore also our faith, is not formed alone and in solitude, but in exchange and in community with others. You can only understand yourself if you have a counterpart; if you live and believe in the context of others. In other words, faith cannot survive in the long term without the church; not without a group in which people share their convictions and have a common confession; a confession that is not just expressed in sentences, but takes shape in many gestures, performances and stagings. I confess that I sometimes feel homesick for that old house where everything had its place, its signs and its explanation. I confess that I sometimes feel a trace of homesickness for that world in which one did not always have to be the complete author of oneself and in which one could take refuge without question in the faith of the dead and the living brothers and sisters; could pray and sing with the voice and the songs that were holy because so many before us had sanctified them; that were true because so many before us had believed them to be true.

What I have said so far has spoken my Catholic heart. The Protestant-modern part of that heart murmurs. It demands that I consider what that wholeness, unity and freedom from doubt has done. It grumbles and demands that I be the subject of myself; of my own faith, my own knowledge and my own decisions. “Let the dead bury the dead!”, it demands in the words of that young man from Nazareth. But I am old and need the faith of my dead in order to believe. There is not only a conversion away from the dead and against them. There is also a conversion to the dead; to Hildegard von Bingen, who resisted the Bishop of Mainz; to Karl Rahner, who honored his church and made it shake; to Dorothee Sölle, who could not be driven out of the church, although many tried; to my mother, who prayed her evening rosary, three of them in October.

I ask: What was it like with the church house when our children were born in it and baptized in it? The economic miracle delighted us all and we put on fat, unemployment was low and we watched Robert Lembke's cheerful career advice. In 1955, the movie “Das verflixte siebte Jahr” was made with Marilyn Monroe. Oh, you younger ones, what did you miss if you missed the scene where she tried to hold her skirt over a subway shaft! Not only did theology change, but theology changed because people's lives had changed. We were no longer just concerned with survival. We had time and leisure to ask and question. The old house of my childhood had not yet collapsed when our children were born. They were still asked at their baptism: Do you resist Satan? A layman was still not allowed to touch the host with his hands and the denominations still claimed that they were the only owners of the truth. The old house was still standing, but it was shaking and some pictures were already falling from the walls. Many had the vague feeling that things could not go on like this, but what should not go on like this was unclear. We didn't yet know what we should and could wish for. You also have to learn to wish. Let me give you an example: from the mid-1950s, the idea of a necessary council grew. A little later, when the council had been convened, a council father took me on a trip and asked me what I wanted from the council. My answer: the Epistle and the Gospel should be read in German. O holy simplicity of humble wishes! Yes, we soon learned to wish in both churches.

I have to add a fundamental change that has taken place for faith and the church since my childhood, it is called Auschwitz. For our faith, for our religious feelings, it is no longer the same God to whom we pray after the experience of the great destruction. We have lost our illusions about man. We have lost our illusions about God. We can no longer sing Joachim Neander's wonderful song from the 17th century without hesitation:

Praise the Lord, who rules all things so gloriously.
Who led you safely on Nobleman's wing,
Who keeps you as you please yourself;
Have you not felt this?

It is no longer the same God to whom we sing. We did not realize it for a long time and acted as if the world and faith had not been shaken to their foundations. Since Auschwitz, atheism has never been completely banished from our hearts. The prayers of those who were driven into the furnaces of fire have not been answered. We suffer from God, whose angels are promised and yet are so far away, when we are caught up in the maelstrom of doom. The rainbow reminds us of what we owe to God, it reminds us of what God owes to man. I have no desire to defend God and claim that he hears us in a higher way and saves us in a different way than we see and desire. The people, the people who were driven into the ovens, did not want to be heard and saved in a higher way. They wanted to breathe, and they suffocated. They wanted to live, and their bodies turned to ashes. Their suffering was pointless, and I refuse to attribute a higher meaning to that suffering. The older I get, the more I stop trying to explain the world. Our faith doesn't explain anything either. There are great and irreconcilable contradictions between the promises of God and the state of this world. Only an eternally valid theology that disregards the state of this world can explain everything. But it would be a nightmare. When we Christians talk about hope, we must not be accused of being people who have not taken a close look; naïve people who have not yet realized what speaks against the rainbow. Learning hope also means unlearning illusions, including illusions about God.

In the 22nd Psalm, I hear the old and unanswerable “why” question that all the tormented of this earth ask: Why, God, have you forsaken me? Why do you not hear? Why do you not answer? Why do I have to live like a worm that has been kicked? I hear a completely different voice in the same 22nd Psalm; the voice that praises God, albeit from a croaking throat: “You are holy, God. You are enthroned above the songs of praise of Israel. I will praise you in the congregation." There is no obvious solution. What should we do? Sing the glorious old song against all experience: Praise the Lord, the mighty King of honors. Praise the Lord who rules everything so gloriously. Contradictions that you can't get over. Nicholas of Cusa again: The greatness of a person is shown by how many contradictions he unites within himself. Freedom from contradiction was an ideal of ancient theology. Now it is time to save the contradictions. What have we lost over the last 90 years, I ask? We have lost the plausible systematics of theological statements. But this loss is also our wealth, our painful wealth.

I ask further: What have we lost? What have we gained? We have lost the old certainties. As believers, even as theologians, we grope our way like blind men and women towards the great mystery of God. We try and reject and have become capable of being wrong and capable of approaching new truths. We doubt theological finality. We no longer believe as a church in our uniqueness and singularity. We have learned that there are other languages in which God is praised and glorified. And so we have become more fraternal. We have grown up and no longer believe in the childish notion that different groups of Christians should not sit at the same table and share the bread of life.

Another loss that we happily chalk up as a gain: Some of the crowned heads of creation have lost their crown. The men have lost it to the women. The whites have lost it to the blacks. Men have lost it to the animals. No one is the head of creation any more. I say: they have lost it, as if everything had already happened. But at least we are on our way. Our church has never been as beautiful as it is today. The Church has become smaller, poorer, more powerless, and it has become more beautiful. Its attention to peace and the just distribution of goods has never been greater than it is today. It has lost its prestige among the respected, and it has become free. She has only one Lord to serve. You can only live in the house of our faith if you can see how beautiful it already is. Slight exaggerations are permitted and desired when praising this house!

What loss is a gain, what loss remains a loss? I will name one loss that worries me the most: it is the fading of the question of God. Yes, we have the word and we hear it everywhere. But where do we approach the great mystery, the heart of the world, seriously, hesitantly, desperately, speechless, comforted, admiring its beauty, horrified, angry? Two things are important in our passion: God and the bread of the poor. Everything else is unimportant.

It could be that we as a church, in order to enlighten society, only tell it what it already knows. But we have the difficult task of telling the mystery of God with our weak voice. The danger is that, due to our own weakness of faith, we stick to what is easy to say, to the small truths that everyone can relate to. What has increasingly disturbed me in recent years is the lack of courage to use big and unspeakable language; the modesty with which we limit ourselves to reading out of the Bible what can be said in a human voice, a little morality and a little humanity. Morality and humanity are a lot, but the Bible is the book of the unspeakable, it is the book that names God and Christ.

I ask myself two questions that the old world of which I have spoken teaches me to ask:

The first question: can there once again be a religious world that, without betraying the subject and its freedom, knows a general that can be agreed upon, at least halfway agreed upon? We see the collapse of the general in many places, including in the church. We see the pampering of subjects, the pampering of groups. Yes, there is also a pontification from below, a claimed infallibility in which it is difficult to think of a generality. In Switzerland, I go to both Catholic and Reformed church services. In Reformed services, a profession of faith is rarely spoken because it is not possible to agree on one. What a pity! The creed is like a pair of shoes that belongs to everyone and doesn't really fit anyone. A wonderful game: I don't have to be just me with my puny faith. I have the sentences of my brothers and sisters, and I don't care whether I fully understand them or not. It is also not important to me whether I think the sentences of a confession are right or not. In the confession of faith, I also play the believer in the language game of my dead and living brothers and sisters. This is a kind of prelude to faith, which faith may or may not catch up with at some point. You don't have to believe everything.

The second question: can there once again be a religious world that does not consist mainly of high theology, but that can connect with the simple desires of life? A world in which bread, water, animals and the air we breathe have a religious meaning? A world that not only knows redemption, but also creation? This seems to me to be a special question for Protestantism. The Reformation spiritualized faith against the reification of the Middle Ages, which was necessary. But it also neglected the gifts of the present, it unworlded Christianity and thus abandoned the world to many demons.

Can there once again be a religious world in which one can escape from one's own plaintiveness into the good powers of habits; into the habit of observing times and rhythms; into the habit of honoring places; into the habit of bowing to gestures and rituals; into the ability to honor the language of the living and the dead? Is the subject allowed to finally tire of pure inwardness and take refuge in the great celebrations handed down by tradition? I have learned from Protestantism and with the Reformers to be a free spirit. I would like to learn from Catholicism the humility to transcend myself and to ally myself with the great conversation with God of our dead - our traditions are nothing else. Is it possible to submerge our own subjective plaintiveness in the objectivity of forms and gestures that have long been practiced and not just invented by ourselves? Forms and language that are greasy because they have passed through so many hands. No, they are usually not original. They shine from the faith of many generations, that is their fat. I want to practise learning my own truth from the truth of the universal, from the truth of the Church. It is too exhausting to exhaust myself in my own freedom. It is too exhausting for me to only be the church of freedom. We are the Church of God, that is something more. No, I don't want to go back to the old, pre-enlightened Catholic world. But perhaps we can learn something from what the ancients already achieved.

Both Reformation and Catholic theology asked what the traces and signs are by which a Christian church can be recognized, the notae ecclesiae. The essential characteristics of a universal church have been identified as its unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity. I name further traces of a church in which one can breathe, seek God and help uphold justice. I am looking for an open church. An open church is not simply a diluted church; a church that does not show that it is church. It is a place of different beliefs and unbeliefs. It is a place where people come together who are not expected to be together. It is a place in the dawn of faith; a place where the ambiguity of faith is greater than its clarity; a place also of new truths, because one is not blinded by false finality. But this place is called church, open church. Perhaps in a different form there: more experimental, more playful, more open: capable of truth because it is open to error.

I am looking for a proud church. With its traditions, the church is a treasure house of memory. A society cannot live without the sources of a great narrative of the dignity and success of life. The morality, hope and confidence of a society do not live from arguments and clever reasoning alone. They live from the memory of stories of successful dignity and from stories of the possibility of life in the midst of its threats. My example: the Sermon on the Mount. Where does a society tell itself that the hungry will one day be fed? Where does it say to itself that the meek shall possess the land and not the power-hungry? Where does it promise that the suffering will not be desolate? Where does it say that the peacemakers will be the sons and daughters of God? Where does it say that all who are persecuted for the sake of justice will be heirs to the fullness of God? Society needs these stories.

I am looking for a humble church that knows: we are not the only ones in our society who tell about God and worship him. Our homes are not the only ones where people know something of the charm of prayer. We are not the only ones who stand up for peace and insist on the rights of the poor. We are not the only ones who tell great stories of the salvation of life. Living with other people and groups means saying goodbye to our own dominance. For a long time, we thought we were the most important. We are not. We are players in the great game of humanity, not referees and not linesmen. We are important, but we are not everything. God is everything, and that is enough. Our question cannot be: From whom do we separate ourselves and affirm ourselves by means of separation? The question is rather, with whom do we play the great game of humanity and worship of God?

I am looking for a missionary church. To name the name of God before others and for others is mission. I don't want to do without this word, but I do want to interpret it. Mission means showing what is important to you, what you focus on and what you love. Mission: showing yourself and not forcing anyone. Faith needs publicity, it needs to step out of its own shadow and become a witness. You become who you show yourself to be. You gain face by showing your face. This applies to all beliefs, not just religious ones. That's why I can't imagine anyone with a real life option who doesn't promote it and go public with it. All essential processes that affect a person's existence do not just take place within them. They push outwards, they want to be staged and seen, they need an audience and witnesses. It therefore confirms faith if you show yourself to be a believer.

I don't want to teach or convert anyone in an open church. I do want to show something of the beauty of my own faith tradition. The beauty I advocate is not just a formal aesthetic matter. I call our traditions beautiful because they show the freedom and dignity of man and the dignity of God. I call the concepts of guilt and sin beautiful because they emphasize human freedom and subjectivity. Of defiant beauty are the stories that tell of the God who loves the poor and does not abandon the lost. Of breathtaking beauty is the story of the God who loses himself in Christ and becomes one of the tortured of this earth. To describe our own tradition as beautiful, as worthy of man and God, that would be the rhetoric that makes it plausible to people that Christians believe.

I am looking for a hospitable church. Secularization is progressing, at least in Europe. At the same time, a kind of “chapel-less faith” (Rilke) can be found everywhere; i.e. a longing that is no longer bound to clear traditions and institutions; a faith that is temporary and ambiguous.In 2002, there was an attack at the Gutenberg School in Erfurt, which deeply disturbed the children. The pastor invited them to a church service on the evening of the attack. The churches in the very secular city of Erfurt were full. They were open all week for silence, prayer and conversation. The people, who hardly knew any prayers, borrowed the Christian language for this time of need. On the Saturday after the attack, there was a large service on the cathedral steps. The cathedral square was full of people. The churches are a kind of costume and language lending institution. They lend out clothes, masks, languages, songs and gestures to those who have none of their own and yet occasionally feel that they need them. Where churches maintain the clarity of the message, people can take crumbs of this bread with them into their thirsty, longing and “chapel-less” everyday lives. Secular society needs the publicity of the churches. It needs their unspeakable news, where it no longer has any “master narratives” of its own. It needs their gestures in the most dramatic hours of life. Temporary faith forces its way into a place that is foreign to it. People are guests in temporary faith, and the task of the church is to be available to strangers and to offer hospitality, to lend language to mute mouths and a house to faith without a chapel. Temporary faith is also a form of faith. Who would despise it in austere times?

Dear brothers and sisters, you have to start believing at some point if you want your life to have a shape, a meaning. I don't have to constantly ask myself whether I believe deep down inside. We modern, enlightened, intellectually honest Christians, especially those from the theology guild, often stumble over our own religious legs. Such a modern Christian takes the following bumpy path. Firstly, he considers whether it is still possible to pray as a modern contemporary. Secondly, he prays. Thirdly, he observes himself praying. Fourthly, he writes an article about his observations and the difficulty of praying. What I wish this Christian: a ton of humor. Humor towards her own doubts, humor towards herself. In any case, no one should court their doubts. When I was a young theology student, I had to give a presentation on prayer in the seminary. I was already modern back then, tossing the topic back and forth, looking at it from top to bottom, looking at it historically and psychologically, marinating it in plenty of on the one hand - on the other. My old Swabian professor thought it was too much clever bullshit and rudely shouted: “Pray and shut up.” I won't be so rude as to inflict this sentence from the professor on you at the end of my lecture. But I can say it to myself: Pray - and shut up!

Lucerne, 5.7.2023

Fulbert Steffensky, born in 1933, studied Catholic and Protestant theology, 1975-1998 Professor of Religious Education at the Department of Education at the University of Hamburg. He now lives in Lucerne.

100 years of radio devotions: Hunger for stories of possible life

Radio broadcast a morning devotion for the first time during the Easter holidays in 1924. Since then, this form of preaching has been part of the permanent repertoire of public broadcasters. What to wish for and what is hard to bear.

By Fulbert Steffensky

[This 2024 article is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.herder.de/hk/hefte/archiv/2024/3-2024/hunger-nach-geschichten-vom-moeglichen-leben-100-jahre-radioandachten/.]

Herder Korrespondenz 3/2024 pp. 45-46, essays, reading time: approx. 6 minutes

Catholic and Protestant morning devotions have been broadcast on public radio since 1924. I reflect on the world into which these first morning devotions of 1924 were spoken. How has that world changed?

In 1924, well over 90 percent of people belonged to one of the major churches. The teachings of the churches and their morals were known and taken for granted and therefore did not need to be defended. The authority of the preachers was self-evident, perhaps not as self-evident as they believed. The religious worlds of the time were already more fractured than the church people suspected. However, atheism and distance from the church were more hidden. After all, it was not entirely safe to profess one's distance from the churches in those days.

On the assumption that Christianity was a language known to all and accepted by most, the speakers of the morning devotions were able to speak apodictically rather than in a promotional manner. Didactic considerations played a lesser role. Moral considerations did not frighten people, because morality was also known (even if not followed). Morning devotions did not have to be interesting, they were meant to proclaim the truth, which people believed could be said and heard at any time.

All this has changed. Most people today no longer belong to a church; they hardly know its symbolism and basic narratives. Most people's distance from religion does not need to be hidden. It is a public and no longer sanctioned option. This is an advantage for the public appearance of the churches. The more it has lost its sanctioning power, the less one has to defend oneself against it. Hostility towards religions has decreased, but indifference towards them has increased.

I think about what the morning devotions mean to me in this situation, what I want for them and what I don't want.

A place for half the faith

I like listening to morning devotions - in principle anyway. In reality, however, it is often the case that I don't let the speaker survive his second sentence. Nevertheless: I arrange my work so that I can listen to the devotion. Why? I appreciate hearing a serious word in passing. I organize papers, put books away and listen. I appreciate the informality of this situation. It's not like church, where I have to make a more serious decision to go and where there are no side issues. There I have to be whole, with more existence, with more faith and with undivided attention. But our hearts are heavy, and half faith also needs its place. And so I hear on the radio what someone else is saying. I can't see the person speaking, the radio distorts their voice and my hearing.

I don't need to be pious; I don't need to agree. I do not interrupt my work. The casualness of the situation protects me from any existential overheating. I can silence the speaker, and sometimes the speaker herself, without effort and without a guilty conscience. There is something playfully shameful about the situation: it is not without seriousness and it allows me to keep my distance.

I have often dealt with church broadcasts on the radio and have also interviewed colleagues who are not in the church. To my astonishment, many of them occasionally listen to morning devotions, and they describe their interest in them in almost the same way as I do here. The casualness does not force you to belong and does not take away from the seriousness of the matter. The casualness protects the seriousness from existentialist triviality. There is a seriousness that needs the protection of distraction. Human beings are vulnerable and only rarely can we tolerate being touched by the truth or by another person without a veil. We know that the best conversations happen when one person is peeling potatoes and the other is chopping onions. That's how I can listen to morning devotions: on the side.

So who I can't stand at these devotions is, first of all, the evangelicalist also-you-love-Jesus pesterer who gets too close to me. He wants to affect me directly. If someone addresses me in pseudo-personalistic immediacy in such a devotion, then he is already out of the picture. I can tell from the murder metaphors I use how important morning devotions are to me and how disappointed I am when the time is wasted. The type of soul-kneader wants to take away the distance I need. Radio is a medium, nothing more. And the thing becomes a lie from the outset when the medium suddenly gives itself away.

The next one that makes me want to kill is the entertainer type, which is becoming more and more common. She believes that only those who are easy to please, talkative and entertaining will be heard. The interest in entertainment often devours the interest in the truth. Certainly, even in such morning devotions, you get the pneumatic leaf shot at some point. But you hardly feel it. It is padded with foam rubber. The gospel comes as an operetta. I often wonder why the churches are so patient with these spiritual grimacers. A senior church councillor recently gave me an answer to this: “You know, we're already happy when the church appears in public and when it doesn't appear in the context of conflicts.” Well, that's a modest goal!

So what do I want? First of all, a strict form. Form is not just formality. I can tell what someone thinks of the cause they represent by their form. It is the body of the spirit and should therefore be as little neglected as the spirit itself. I don't mean that everything has to be so terribly serious. Satire also has its form, as does humor and the anti-sermon. However, these are the heavy forms and are not readily advisable for the average preacher. It is fatal when formlessness itself becomes a principle; when language becomes sloppy, random, slipper-like and cozy. I believe that the destruction of the spirit can also be seen in the destruction of language and form.

The Church of the Word is responsible not only for the content, but also for the form of its language. I often wish that our church would have the stubbornness not to play along with what everyone is playing at the moment and what is going on. For morning worship, I would like a messenger to tell me a story of possible life. A story of the resurrection of the dead, of the miracle of justice, of the overthrow of tyrants, of the cunning of grace, of the holiness of the poor, of the forgiveness of sins. It should tell me what I need. It is not natural for life to be saved. It is not natural that one should not become the prey of another. I have to be told this, I have to practise it in stories and images. In a society from which morality is disappearing more and more and in which the vision of a good life for all people is being obscured, the church with its reminder of a successful life is becoming increasingly important.

A messenger should be the teller of these stories. This means that she does not need to glow with faith. I would like her to realize that she values her stories. I want to see that she doesn't make fools of herself with them. But I want to be gracious with her: she doesn't have to stand behind everything she says. Our faith is weak, even the narrator's; her doubts don't bother me, if only I can hear the longing in her voice that what she tells is true. The messenger is not the message. This allows him to present it calmly, without missionary zeal and without violence. He can present it calmly as someone else's message. Our hunger for the stories makes it possible for him to speak, even if it sometimes does not go through his own heart.

In the end, two wishes for those who publicly interpret religious traditions; a small and a big wish; the small one: they should not spend an entire evening talking about the church's betrayal of the Gospel. Good! What must be said must be said. But we are all hungry. The sometimes never-ending criticism of our own tradition does not satisfy anyone.

It would be bread to interpret the traditions of the Gospel as texts of freedom, comfort and beauty. The Sermon on the Mount is beautiful with its brazen revaluation of all values. Charming is the promise that great things do not remain great and small things do not remain small. And above all, the God who is responsible for the upheaval in his own house, who has become as small as the smile of a child and the sigh of a dying woman, is charming. “Beauty is the only means of persuasion” (Thornton Wilder).

Most of those who listen to the morning devotions are probably not Christians, but they do listen to them. No one is being proselytized. But the men and women who speak on the radio do have an interest: they can show why they love what they preach. They can show the charm of what they are talking about. Then morning worship would be mission. Because mission means showing what we love and what is vital to us.

The right to be inconsolable... and the longing for true consolation

Angelika Daiker, Stuttgart

[This article posted on 2/26/2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://fernsehen.katholisch.de/katholische-horfunkarbeit/am-sonntagmorgen-deutschlandfunk/am-sonntagmorgen-26022023.]

Death, illness, the failure of relationships, professional losses or just small mishaps: in moments like these, comfort is good. Sometimes a hug or a conversation can help, sometimes silence and sometimes a prayer can be beneficial.

We are in need of comfort - at all ages. But there is no technique for comforting well. When it works, it is a happiness, a gift. Just how easy it can be for consolation to fail is revealed by the language: no one wants a consolation plaster, and anyone who only receives a consolation prize is actually one of the losers. Under no circumstances do we like to be consoled. We prefer to remain unconsoled.

For me, a painful memory from my childhood has to do with a lack of consolation. A stupid mishap happened to me: The contents of a coffee cup spilled over my new Sunday dress. I was very sad, but didn't feel guilty at all. It had just happened, as mishaps do. It was a reason for my mother to punish me.

What was worse than the punishment was that I was left alone with the mishap. That made it more important than it actually was. I needed someone by my side who would have looked beyond the relatively minor mishap with me and put it in relation to something bigger. That would have comforted me, even if the dress wouldn't have lost its stains.

The Swiss writer Peter Noll aptly describes how we are unable to grasp what happens when we are comforted:

"What does comforting actually mean? Even as a child, I never quite understood. I had a bump, my mother comforted me, but the bump stayed!" [1]

Fortunately, the bump eventually goes away. But some pain remains. In the worst cases, it's about death and grief and the fact that the world has gone completely off the rails. We need comfort because life is the way it is and because helping alone doesn't always help and sometimes our abilities are at an end. Consolation is about the question: how can we continue to live in the face of suffering, loss and pain without despairing? A fine art!

The Holy Spirit is a comforter

Perhaps it is easier to find comfort if people can believe that there is something other than earthly life. After the death of close relatives, many people say:

“If only I could at least believe that we will meet again!”

If we could stay connected after death, that would be comforting. Even before death, it would be helpful to talk to each other about how we would like to stay in touch.

Jesus does this with his disciples in the farewell discourses recorded in the Gospel of John. In it, he assures them of his closeness, divine comfort and the help of the Holy Spirit. In Greek, “parakletos” means succor, bringer of courage. It also means comforter - as Martin Luther translated it. The Holy Spirit will remind the disciples of everything Jesus said (John 14:26). By connecting them to him in this way, he comforts them.

The pastor and writer Kurt Marti formulates his search for the divine Comforter in a poem, because he has experienced that people are fooled by false comforters and distrust all comfort. He asks the Comforter to step out of the darkness.

"come out
out of his darkness
the comforter
out into the light!

not need
his coming
his face
to become visible
a breath
that touched
a truthful
tone of voice was enough

us: who - fooled by false
comforters - were
all consolation
mistrust

us: the - desolate
living and dying -
cannot comfort one another
are not able to comfort one another."[2]

Experiencing the support and comforter promised by Jesus to his disciples is not a matter of course, even for people of faith. Like Kurt Marti, we can only ask for this tender and yet lively breath of comfort. But many people no longer have access to the comfort of faith. They prefer to seek help from therapists and counselors. People today do not want to be comforted by the Bible and certainly not by the church.

But there are so few alternatives and our world can neither answer nor eliminate the longing for consolation. Because it is not always possible to change or treat what is bad. When someone close to us dies - especially if it happens suddenly or if the person concerned was still very young, perhaps even a child - then it is bad and it remains bad, perhaps for a long time.

Finding comfort in the Bible

For many, it is comforting to find a place for pain and grief in churches, synagogues, mosques and other sacred spaces - in silence or by lighting a candle. It is comforting to have the support of spiritually experienced people who create spaces to talk about hopelessness.

Comforting are tried and tested rituals and texts in which generations have found solace. This is how the Canadian philosopher Michael Ignatieff, who wrote an impressive book “On comfort in dark times”, describes it. He made the astonishing experience in himself that religious texts speak to him deeply, even though he sees himself as a non-believer. Old texts of consolation help him to find words for the unspeakable. He calls them a “solidarity that transcends time” - for him, the most comforting consolation imaginable.

Michael Ignatieff is particularly moved by the psalm prayers of the Bible. They speak of existential fears and loneliness and the effort not to let them get you down - as it says in one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 30:

“I will praise you, Lord, for you have pulled me out of the depths... To you I have cried and you have healed me... You have turned my mourning into dancing, stripped off my garment of mourning and girded me with joy...” (Psalm 30)

The Bible is full of texts that plead for comfort and do not conceal the disappointment of a lack of comfort, as it says in Psalm 69:

“In vain have I waited for compassion, for a comforter, but I have found none.”

Biblical faith in a just and merciful God is surprisingly open to doubt, fear and even anger at God's inscrutability. The Psalms are probably so comforting precisely because they name disappointed longings for consolation and also allow for lamentation.

The Bible is familiar with the disappointment of a lack of comfort and touching promises, such as those made by the prophet Isaiah - comfortingly set to music in George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah:

“Comfort thyself my people...” (Is 40:1-10)

The consolation of Job

The biblical story of Job is a lesson in consolation. Job lost everything that was important to him, wealth, children. Simply everything! As a pious man, he first tries to console himself spiritually:

“The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

But this self-consolation does not work, because he is constantly being asked to bear new losses. But then something wonderful happens: three friends come who have heard about Job's losses.

"They agreed to go to show him their sympathy and to comfort him. ... They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him. For they saw that the pain was very great." (Job 2:11 f)

The friends initially do the right thing: they remain silent. And they sit down on the ground with him, they put themselves on the same level as him. Their consolation happens in existence. Actually an ideal consolation encounter. But then the friends' silent sympathy turns into an attempt at a consolation conversation in which they try to explain Ijob's fate. After seven days of silence, Job accuses God. He would rather not have been born at all than have to live like this.

Because Job begins to doubt God, his pious friends look for something to blame in him for his misery. There must be a reason why he is experiencing so many bad things! In their opinion, it can't be because of God.

It is comforting to have friends who can listen and endure suffering, as Job's friends did at first. Without clever sayings. This is how the theologian Fulbert Steffensky experienced the comfort of his friends after the death of his wife Dorothee Sölle:

"They didn't find words of comfort, they were there and they didn't let my misfortune drive them away. The grief was not alleviated, but it was shared. The friends' consolation was their presence, no wise words and no attempt to rescue me from my abyss."

And Steffensky experienced this too: There were times when he did not want to be comforted. There is, he says, a right to be inconsolable at certain times. Job also exercises this right. And when he hurls his distress at God, the amazing thing happens: He has a profound experience of God.

In his encounter with God, he begins to understand that his small fate is suspended in the incomprehensibility of God's creation and finds comfort. Job's eyes are opened to the wonders of the world. By the end of the conversation, he has experienced God anew:

“By hearsay only had I heard of thee, but now mine eye hath seen thee”,

it says. (Job 42:5) Fulbert Steffensky also found this great consolation in creation:

"One could call it an objective consolation that the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, that the birds sing and the lake has not lost its smile. Nobody says the stupid saying: 'Life goes on'. But you can feel it in the rays of the sun, in the play of shadows and in the color of the rose: the world has ended, and it has not ended. Life doesn't make stupid statements. It shows that it goes on."

Broken light

Reflecting on the Holy Spirit

blog by Erik Thiesen

[This article posted on March 7, 2019 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://gebrocheneslicht.wordpress.com/category/dem-glauben-auf-der-spur/jesus/.]

Thinking about...In this little series about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, I try to summarize what has become important to me in recent years. It's a personal confession of faith, so to speak, and takes up the idea of “Christianity to go” again.

The decision to hold the service on February 17, even though everything spoke against it health-wise, was not a conscious decision. I was aware of how I was feeling, but it didn't matter. Something inside me had already made the decision. When Ute told a friend about it, she spontaneously said: “It was the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit. He's hard to pin down and just blows where he wants, as Jesus says. And depending on who you ask, he seems to appear in very different places and have very different characteristics. Charismatics , for example, identify it wherever supernatural gifts can be detected in Christian people: Miraculous healings, exorcisms, unintelligible speech, for example. In feminist theology, it is often called the Holy Spirit in a gender-appropriate way. After all, the feminine element must not be missing in the Trinity either, and the basic Hebrew meaning of רוּחַ is also feminine. The idea of how or who the Holy Spirit is has a lot to do with the idea of God.

It is through the Holy Spirit that the message of Jesus becomes concrete today. And for me, the most important characteristic of this Spirit is that he is the Comforter. “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever”, says Jesus (John 14:16). We have received countless words of comfort in recent years. They touched our hearts, they lifted us up, they were undoubtedly saturated with the Spirit.

For Ignatius , consolation plays a central role. When I love God - and for me that means: when I love life - when faith, love and hope grow in me, when I become calm and balanced inside, then these are clear signs: The good spirit is at work here.

“The love of life,” writes Fulbert Steffensky, "brings fire and water together: the hard facts and the hope that is plucked up but not slain. The love of life cannot be beguiled by false coherence. It does not become cynical and it does not remain blind."

This sentence echoes central elements of my faith. First of all, the Song of Songs: love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things ... But now faith, hope and love remain. But love is the greatest of these." (1 Corinthians 13:7) And the image of fire and water reminds me of the water of baptism, which Jesus associated with the Spirit ("Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, ” he says in John 3:5) and the fire of Pentecost (Acts 2). On that day, the disciples are be-spiritualized (a popular church spelling).

Neurobiologist Gerald Hüther emphasizes that enthusiasm is a prerequisite for learning and requires an environment in which we are connected with other people and can grow personally. That sounds like a community where the spirit is in charge.

The gifts of the Spirit are the “charisms”, the gifts of grace. “Charisma” is a derivation of “charis”, grace (Greek χάρις, Latin gratia). We understand this primarily as a gift that a powerful person gives to a guilty person: the remission of punishment - in theology the consequences of sin, in justice the consequences of guilt. In principle, however, the guilty party remains guilty and dependent and the powerful party powerful.

Originally, however, charis had nothing to do with law, but with aesthetics. It meant beauty or, using an almost forgotten word, grace - a quality that Navid Kermani misses so painfully, especially among Protestants. Later on, the meaning also changed to benefit. The Hebrew chanan (חנן) also changes in meaning - only in the opposite direction from beneficence to beauty. Is the merciful God perhaps more of a beautiful God? And what changes if instead of “The grace of God be with you” we say: “The beauty of God be with you”? This idea opened up a whole new world of faith for me.

And I remembered one of my favorite sentences: “It can't be as beautiful as here in heaven” (Christoph Schlingensief). This word was given to him by the Holy Spirit.

Thinking about Jesus

March 5, 20196comments

Jesus is said to be fully God and fully human. But how is that to be understood? People argued about whether “the Son” was of the same essence as “the Father” or only similar in essence - Greek ὁμοούσιος or ὁμοιούσιος. It was about one letter, the smallest in the alphabet, the ι. That's why wars were fought and denominations divided. Was it worth it?

No, definitely not. I don't even care about the question.

What is important to me is not whether he is similar or even identical to the Father, but to me. Because I have a deep feeling: He is on my side. He is like me. Or I am like him. Or rather: I am on his track.

Like him, I turned down a skilled trade. We were both probably more drawn to books - him to the Holy Scriptures, me to Karl May. We both sought our own path, especially when it came to dealing with family. I also like his tendency to celebrate, whether in Cana, with the tax collectors or the Pharisees.

He is always looking for and finding the positive and light side of life - and of God. God is someone who protects the birds and flowers - and me even more so. God does not ask about guilt and mistakes. Anyone who finds their way back like the “prodigal son” is first served a coffee or a feast. And he is well aware of the dangers and shallows of life, the fickleness of fate and the unpredictability of the Father. Don't look too closely, says Jesus. Hope against experience.

And again and again he seeks the path of peace, of balance, of justice. Even if this brings him into great difficulties. After all, he only has the choice of either abandoning his path or going to the cross. And this inner battle, as he fought it out in the Garden of Gethsemane, is my battle with illness. “God, Thy will is hard, but you hold every card...” (Jesus Christ Superstar). And none of his last words on the cross should be missing. For they all encompass both life and death: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34 and Mt 27:46), “It is finished” (Jn 19:30) and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46).

Paul himself repeatedly emphasizes that we are one with Jesus. Yes, we have died and risen with him (Romans 6:3-5). Jesus lives in us and we in him. However, I can't quite understand that (yet?).

For now, it is enough for me to be able to call Jesus my friend. Who supports and sustains me and at the same time gives me the space to develop. Who tells me the truth that is good for me right now. Who walks my path with me.

This icon is on my meditation mat; I walk past it every day. It reminds me of my longing to be safe and secure and to find peace. The reality looks different at the moment. But this icon always takes me out of reality and into the reality of Jesus. That does me good.

____________________________
Featured photo: Jesus mosaic in the Ayia Napa Chapel, Cyprus. Image by dimitrisvetsikas1969 on Pixabay
Menas icon: I can no longer trace the source. Please let me know if there is a copyright infringement.

The three holy kings

January 6, 20197Comments

"When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem and said: 'Where is the newborn King of the Jews? We have seen his star rising and have come to worship him." This story, which was to become one of the most famous in the Bible, is only recorded by the evangelist Matthew: the story of the three kings. And we see: They were obviously neither holy, nor three, nor kings.

They only became three in the 3rd century because of the three gifts, kings in the 8th century, and they only got their names, skin colors and ages in the Middle Ages. And they were never canonized by the Catholic Church. Did they even exist?

Some say so, others say so. I tend to be one of the skeptics. For the historian, the facts are extremely thin, even thinner than with the other stories of Jesus. In general, it is difficult to “prove” the Bible historically, because archaeological finds from the time are rare. And for those that do exist, the statement by detective Phil Marlowe from Raymond Chandler's “Farewell, My Darling” applies: “‘Proof,’ I said, 'is always a relative thing. A very strong preponderance of probabilities. And then there's the question of how much these probabilities impress you." For this reason, discussions about the historicity of the Bible continue to go round in circles to this day. Theologian Armin Baum claims: “The Gospels do not contain fictitious legends, but the earliest historical information about the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth.” The religious critic Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, believes that the Gospels are “fictitious from beginning to end and pure fiction”.

However, many other theologians point out that the biblical authors were not interested in listing historical facts, but in calling people to faith. For ancient authors, fiction was not an untruth, but a stylistic device to express a theological truth (Manfred Diefenbach). And Klaus Wengst, for example, understands the Easter stories as “real parables” and “true stories”.

That sounds complicated and very far-fetched. However, I can understand it quite well in my situation. The biblical storytellers were well aware of the historical circumstances, and they were not good at the time: occupation by the Romans, injustice, poverty, illness. And they told the counter-story: of Jesus, who liberates, heals and lifts people up. These stories are not authenticated by historical evidence, but by their effectiveness.

Our objective situation is not good either, if we go by the statements of science and conventional medicine. We need the counter-stories to give us hope. And the story of the men from the East is one such story of hope: they followed their star and came to the child who can heal. Their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh tell of this. All three were recognized remedies at the time.

Whether this story is true does not depend on its historical credibility, but on whether we can believe it. And if we can believe it, then it may be able to help.

Bright spot of the week

December 28,2018Leave acomment

To say that Christmas has been our “ray of hope” would be something of an understatement. It was a whole chain of bright spots that began with singing in the woods, continued with the Christmas tree purchase in the enclosure, then came the Christmas oratorio in the Michel, the little Lord with the family, Christmas Eve too, followed by the church service, and finally two radiation-free days.

May the Christmas light continue to shine for a long time, for you and us and the whole world.