THERE IS NO APOLITICAL CHURCH!

by

Jurgen Klute

[This article was first published in 1994 and is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.amos-blaetter.de. Jurgen Klute is an industrial and social pastor in the Evangelical church of Westphalia.]

Alongside associations, parties and unions, the church is one of the great social institutions. Through church services, community circles, discussions and public functions, the church reaches more people on the weekend in direct conversation than any other organization. "5% church service attendance" is only half the truth. What institution reaches as many people Sunday after Sunday? An even larger number of persons come together in community circles than in Sunday church service. According to lutheran understanding, church service also takes place there. This state of affairs is already political. An apolitical church does not and cannot exist!

The political church - as its name reminds us - arose out of protest against abuse of church power. Even before Luther, a sedries of renowned persons grappled with this abuse. They were mostly persecuted or killed.

The reformation of Martin Luther and the protetant church could not have happened without the support of different sovereigns who were also opposed to the church and the emperor at that time. Thus our church as an institution is a product of a political conflict around the relation church and power, church and politics.

This genesis of the protestant church in Germany led to an alliance of throne and altar (state church) which lasted up to 1918. Following Paul (Romans 13,1-7), the church supported the very onesided position that all authority was instituted by God and every authority including a criminal authority had to be obeyed unconditionally. This was undoubtedly a very political attitude!

This connection of church and state and this onesided partisanship for state power obscured the view of the protestant church in the 19th century for the exploitation and social misery of workers. Apart from exceptions, the protestant church understood their legitimate protests and demands for dignified working- and living conditions only as sinful rebellion against a divinely ordained government. The state church forgot God's concern for people, the example of protest of Old Testament prophets against injustice (the prophetic office of the church). Instead, the prophetic office of the church was observed by another part of the church, by workers and their organizations. They were certainly part of the church which is emphasized in the parable of the world judgment in Matthew 25: "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (verse 40).

In 1918, with the end of the wilhelmian imperial church, the state church became the national church.

With the Barmen Theological declaration of 1934, the protestant church grappled again with the relation of state and chruch. In the face of the Nazi dictatorship the church revised its position toward authority. In Thesis 5, the Barmen declaration formulated that God should be obeyed more than authority (literally at that time the Nazis). The authors of the Barmen declaration understood that obeying a government unconditionally is sin against God when the government pursues oppression, persecution, injustice and abuse of power against people.

In 1955, the EKD (Evangelical church in Germany) redefined its relation to free unions and the DGB. At that time, the EKD rejected Christian unions and urged evangelical churches and Christians to cooperate with the DGB and its unions. In this resolution, church service in the world of work or industrial- and social work was strongly affirmed in the protestant church. They had the commission to make contacts with the world of work and the economy and develop corresponding expertise within the church. In the following years, the EKD published a memorandum on social and labor policy questions. A memorandum on the relation of church and democracy followed in 1985 and then a memorandum on the relation of the church and economy in 1991.

In the 80s, the discussion of social and political questions continued in the ecumenical conciliar process for peace, justice and preservation of creation. Peace, social justice and environmental protection were interpreted theologically and intellectually.

The church never lived and does not live today in a space free of politics. As part of the society in which it lives, it is always joined in the political disputes of this society.

If the church is necessarily political, the question is naturally raised about political themes and standards.

What is true for the church is also true for the Old and New Testament. The Israelites, the early community and those who wrote the biblical texts did not stand in a realm free of politics. Conflicts with power, injustice and justice pervade the whole Bible. The question about God is never separated from the question of fellow human beings and cooperative social life.

In the Bible, the motivation for grappling with politics is God's love for humankind. Concern for neighbors and one another - regardless of whether he or she is a Christian or not - not domination and exploitation of people by people is the clear orientation for cooperative human life.

The New Testament community was a consolidated community and a protective space of the most different victims of society. Through Jesus, they experienced themselves as accepted and loved by God and sought and practiced a solidarian and cooperative spiritual life in the community.

As the prophets of the Old Testament knew, the prophetic office of the church developed in relation to politics: controls on power, accusation of abuse of power and oppression of people by people and rulers, pleading for humanly just social conditions pleasing to God. A church that takes seriously its pastoral function in the present learns much about the distresses, problems and fears of people. For the church, being political means reflecting this knowledge and these experiences in a biblical-theological way and putting things right in politics.

The protestant church does not exercise state power as was the case up to 1918. Because of its disenthronement, it can reflect more intensely on its protestant origins. Happily there are cautious beginnings.

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