By Gunnar Schupelius
The Evangelical Church’s political behavior is so one-sided that it defies description and leaves many members perplexed and angry. Things cannot continue like this, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The Evangelical Church is my religious home, but I no longer understand it. She takes political sides one-sidedly and follows the spirit of the times.
Last Friday, the group Fridays for Future called for a “climate strike” in Berlin and demanded “100 percent renewable energy supply by 2035.”
The Evangelical Church took the lead with regional bishop Christian Stäblein and called for an “immediate phase-out of coal”. Stäblein: “The climate strike is an important sign that I very much support. (…) Living Christian faith means taking responsibility for the preservation of creation.”
A day later, on Saturday, the “Federal Association for the Right to Life” organized the annual “March for Life” in Berlin. Christian groups demonstrated for the protection of unborn life (“embryos are full human beings”) and against assisted suicide.
The Evangelical Church was missing from this event. And not only that: the bishop didn’t even comment on it. That was like a statement. In the case of an abortion, it is also about “taking responsibility for the preservation of creation”.
The church behaves in a partisan manner: it joined the bandwagon of the left-wing and green groups of “Fridays for Future”, while the more conservative Christians of the “March for Life” are not worth a single word to it.
And that is just one example of many. Let’s take the campaign “Hate is harmful to the soul – love is good for the soul,” which was launched by the Mitte church district. Posters with these slogans hang on many churches in Berlin. “The background was (…) the increasing radicalization towards the right-wing conservative spectrum,” write the initiators as justification.
Why doesn’t the church oppose all forms of extremism? And it’s not just the politically narrow orientation that is surprising. The statement is simply flat. Of course, hate harms the soul and love certainly does good – but is that enough as the main message of such an important institution like the church, which is posted everywhere?
When the federal government introduced the new “Self-Determination Act” this summer, there were only words of praise from the church. All the problems that come with being able to change your gender once a year in the future are not taken into account.
The church underlines its Instagram appearance with the rainbow flag, it calls its pastors “parish people,” and it writes G*d instead of God. The Berlin pastor Maike Schöfer wears a T-shirt with the inscription “Ave Vagina” on Instagram.
Anything is possible in this church if it is in the green-left woke mainstream. This procession passes the members. According to an INSA survey, only 15 percent of them are in favor of their church showing solidarity with climate activists, but they are doing it anyway.
Many people can no longer tolerate this political church. They step out. I won’t do that. I got married in the church and my children were baptized here. The church is my space for faith and prayer. The voice of the church must not be silenced and it must not be drowned in the sea of zeitgeist slogans.
You can leave a club and also a party. I once left a party and the ADAC. I cannot leave the church. That would be like leaving my family.
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