By Oliver Zimski
A Disaster is Transfigured
For three months, German politicians has found themselves on an unprecedented wrong track. With false signals and incentives, they have broadened the refugee movement in western Europe’s direction from Middle East civil war regions to an international millions-fold mass influx to Germany, violated international treaties and destroyed an already fragile cohesion within the EU. They neglected the legally prescribed differentiation between war refugees or politically persecuted individuals and economic migrants, and “graciously” forewent the registration of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, with consequences still to be seen for internal security. They alone must bear the responsibility for the massive loss of trust by many citizens in their own country. As though this complete failure were not bad enough, this is being systematically smoothed over by politicians and media and with a dishonest welcome campaign as “politics with a friendly face.”
When in a secularized society in which TV comedians prefer to a large extent to work over the Catholic church and the “defenders of the Christian West” that have been presented as ridiculous, suddenly original Christians virtues are popular; when politicians who otherwise have just opinion polls and the next election cycle in mind all at once brim over with goodness and philanthropy and call for “love of neighbor,” “mercy” or “hospitality; then all the alarm bells should ring among both state churches – Catholic as well as Protestant. But instead of asking for the internalization and pondering of the present course, the church leadership has positioned itself at the top of the welcome campaign.
This campaign is founded on the fiction that immigrants after a weeks-long trip through various EU countries would quasi reach the saving shore at the last second like those drowning at the Austria’s border crossing to Germany. In all this it is finally apparent that besides those who are truly needy and qualify for asylum, great numbers of fortune seekers – strong young men mostly without families – from all regions of the world are pouring into the country, the ones who intentionally throw away their passports or escape a registration and their irrational hopes for quick prosperity – without knowledge of the language and an appropriate professional qualification as well as with a somewhat incompatible cultural-religious background – will also not be contented even with the best will and greatest financial investment.
Cheap Morality Overdose
In their position statements, church leaders communicate that only those who welcome the masses and physically help them are behaving “like Christians.” And so, Catholic Bishop Overbeck sweepingly declared all Migrants as “brothers and sisters” with whom the Germans must share their prosperity. EKD (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany) council president Bedford-Strohm warned of a situation, since the German borders are being overrun daily with 10,000 – with an increasing tendency – of a threatening “isolation” and demanded that Chancellor Merkel should continue her course, without upper limits, without limitation of family reunification and without expanding the list of secure countries of origin.
“People are being given to us!”, praised former EKD Synod leader Göring-Eckardt, as though Germany were a fruitless wilderness and not one of the most densely populated and sought after countries in the world for immigrants. Their argument that the migrants would pay the retirement for present AfD (Alternative for Germany) voters springs from pure wishful thinking. With this, once again they fall for the trick of the demagoguery demands of economic organizations that promise themselves through the mass immigration of uneducated cheap labor and a deviation of the minimum wage and want to shift the immense consequential costs to society onto the taxpayer. Instead of a rational analysis of reasons and possible consequences of the refugee crisis – even for the countries of origin whose middle classes are being robbed through Germany’s “maelstrom” – there exists simply an overdose of cheap morality by the church leaders. Bedford-Strohm’s predecessor, Margot Kässmann, constantly circles around “our weapons exports” and “our blame” for the problems of the world in her numerous interviews and ignores the complex bundle of causes for the destabilization of the Middle East, which mostly have nothing to do with Germany: Bombing of Libya by the US, a failed “Arab Spring,” Syrian civil war, financing of islamic terror by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Erdogan’s war against the Kurds.
Foreign is Sexy
In an irritating contrast to the effervescing cordiality with which the church leaders welcome those who are totally unknown, their abrupt rejection of that portion of the population that doesn’t sing in tune with the Welcome Choir or even takes to the streets with “Pegida.” The one who dares to articulate his unease publicly is pigeon-holed as a cold-hearted xenophobe or even a potential “right-wing terrorist.” And so, Bedford-Strohm draws a direct connection from speech choirs to arson attacks on asylum centers. In the Spiegel interview, Kässmann condescendingly confessed that she always had to “smile a little” regarding the “concerned citizens” that were afraid of an “islamization.” Those who attended church on Sunday needn’t have fear of filled mosques. Doesn’t she know then that the Syrian Christians who are strikingly underrepresented among the masses pouring into Germany are persecuted and killed just because they go to church? That the alarming reports are stacking up about maltreatment of Christians by Asylum applicants in German refugee homes as well? And that these very kinds of reports are the ones that are causing the number of “concerned citizens” of whom she makes irony to increase more and more.
“A foreigner that lives among you shall be considered like a native,” it says back in the Old Testament. However it doesn’t say there (or anywhere else in the Bible): Attract the foreigners with unfulfillable hopes. Or: accept so many foreigners that the community decays into diverging parallel societies. Also, the greatly encumbered “hospitality” requires an intact community. However, the “old” inhabitants with their burdensome concerns and fears are not as sexy to the politicians and church leaders as the dazzling newcomers about whom so little is known, and who are being declared as threatened welfare objects or much needed labor forces depending on the rhetorical need at the time.
In the Gospel of Luke is written: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God those things that are God’s,” which means: The keeping of laws and the maintaining of national order are no unmerciful formalisms for Christians, rather the requirement and the protective frame for making sure that mercy and welfare can even develop. Without this two-kingdom teaching by Jesus, Christian states, the “West” with its enlightenment as well as our modern Western civilization could never develop. Also the two state churches in Germany wouldn’t exist along with their record revenues in church taxes this year.
What Jesus Would Do
Kässman claims in her sermon in Wittenberg that Jesus would invite refugees to his table, but that is only a half truth because, for Jesus, ALL PEOPLE mattered to Him. He would also engage the natives – especially those of lower social classes – with their only all-too-often justified cares with the same “empathy” that Bedford-Strom single-sidedly demands for the migrants. Because THEY (the natives) are the ones that must compete with the migrants for positions of employment and dwellings, meet them on the streets, while shopping, in public transportation, schools and sports facilities. Of course Jesus would invite the refugees, but also together with the Pegida demonstrators, and perhaps these two groups, if they would enter in conversation would understand each other better, as would please some polarizers among the church leaders.
It was Christians who contributed through their constant mediatory efforts that made decisive contributions toward the turnaround of East Germany taking place peacefully. Also in the refugee crisis, it is last but not least the Christians at the grassroots giving concrete aid to the arriving migrants. But their leadership, from whom no stale phrases but rather consideration and new insights are expected, are failing miserably. Together with the politicians, they have put themselves on the wrong track to an untenable position. It would be necessary that they take on a mediatory role and weigh out the reasonable arguments from all sides. The church has at its disposal, unlike political parties that are fixated on the daily agenda, centuries-old, rich experiences and deep sources of energy. It doesn’t need to join the unholy alliance of State and media, which camouflage their mistaken assessments and failures with the mantel of unlimited charity.
Hypocrisy and Self-Interest
While the Catholic Church of Poland, for example, has always had its ear to the people, their advocates and supporters and was against foreign domination and the arrogance of its own government, the leading representatives of the German state churches – Catholic and Protestant – have at all times liked to be in the role of instructing and educating the dumb populace on the side of those in power. And as such, in the case of the refugee crisis. However, aren’t the church leaders are acting against their own interest when, in doing so, they snub their members, don’t reach the majority of Muslim immigrants anyway, and abandon the few Christians among them? A certain sickening suspicion is arising. The charted preference of the exotic foreigners over their own people who have become uninteresting indicates materialistic way of thinking that sees a person no longer as a unique individual but rather as a disposable commodity. Since both state churches are at the same time giant social corporations, they belong to the main profiters of the mass immigration. Along with the migrants, funds pour in for Diakonisches Werk (Welfare and Social Work organization) and Caritas (another charitable organization run by the state church): more homes, more employees, more consultation facilities, more-more-more, come hell or high water. Simply put, church in capitalism. Then all the cosmopolitan and welcoming rhetoric was pushed forward, and in truth, more than anything it was about material interest.
“My yoke is gentle and my burden is light,” Jesus said. More and more people through leaving the church are answering the yoke that the church leaders have stretched over their circle of influence, to the arrogant moral superiority, to the uptight fuss of dismay with which they drive even the best-hearted away from their worship services where often no joyful message but rather common social-pedagogic clichés are preached. The Bible, by the way, recognizes this type of self-righteous Pharisee very well; they are called “false prophets” there. They are hypocrites that lay burdens on other people that they wouldn’t bear themselves. The “false prophets” appear in sheep’s clothing, but in reality they are ravening wolves, persecute views other than those they pretend to have. “By their fruits you will know them!” it says. The fruits are now already smelling rotten.
The Sermon on the Mount
If Jesus would return today, he would, I think, climb up the Calvary Mount on a December evening so that he could proclaim the following Advent message to the capital and the whole country:
1. Be friendly and helpful with those among the immigrants who are fleeing war and persecution. Make it clear to all others that they can build and bring about something in their own homelands while they are not needed here but for the most part will have to live on social benefits in the margin of society.
2. Keep a distance from those who split the rich reality rich in grey areas into black and white, into light and dark and raise up people against each other out of whatever good intentions they might have. You know, though: The way to Hell is paved with good intentions.
3. Do not follow those who try out of self-interested motives to persuade you that you are to blame for the suffering of all the world. Don’t forget that I took your guilt upon Myself! Every person makes mistakes – that is in their nature – from which they must learn as much as possible. Therefore, trust your own feelings, articulate wishes and fears without letting yourselves be taken over by them. Live your lives in a responsible way, but full of joy. Because you have only one on this earth!
Oliver Zimski is a translator, social worker and author. His crime novel “Wiosna – Fatal Spring” appeared in 2015.
Original on Achse des Guten excerpted on PI-German / Translation: Anders Denken