Monthly Archives: May 2017

Berlin, God, refugees, society, vision

So out of touch!

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In 2017 there will be a major gathering of the German protestant church from 24th to 28th May.  Doubtless the gathering is even more significant this year because it is 500 years since  the Reformation began with  Martin Luther in 1517.

One of the most striking aspects of this event is the large amount of prominent advertising with its slogan attempting to reach out to the nation with the good news about Jesus Christ: “Du siehst mich,” from Genesis 16:13.

This verse can be translated as “You see me” or “You are watching me” and the connotation is unavoidable. It smacks so strongly of at best Monsters Inc. with “I’m watching you, Razelski, always watching you” or at worst George Orwell’s “Big Brother is watching you.” And this at a time when, thanks to Donald Trump, “1984” has recently become a best-seller again in the US.

One of the least palatable ideas to many human beings is the idea that they are being constantly watched or observed by something or someone. This is especially unpopular in Germany where nearly all professionals are obliged to hold all private information as confidential, at no matter what cost. Germans set great store in protecting their private space and very strongly object to being observed by the police, government officials, hackers, etc.

If the protestant church is trying to reach out to the millions of unbelievers in Germany, then they certainly chose the wrong slogan! Whereas I honour and admire the great social work done by the church in Germany, when it comes to evangelism, they would have been much better off by choosing to quote their countryman, Friedrich Nietzsche, when he said: “Gott selbst ist tot.”

I guess the only consolation is that the church leaders have with this slogan quoted Hagar, the genetic mother of Islam, and so they will have at least managed to reach out to the growing number of Muslims in the nation.

Berlin, God, new writer, society, vision

Fundamentalist inconsistencies

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As I walk around my beautiful city, I often observe women wearing headscarves. I assume that the vast majority are of Turkish origin.

This got me thinking about Christian women and why so many of them do not wear headscarves, in particular during church meetings.

In the Bible it says in 1 Corinthians 11:4-5: “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved.”

I used to belong to a church where the members believe absolutely that the Bible is the word of God (often termed as fundamentalism) and that all its teachings should be respected and put into practice by believers.

I find it fascinating that our leaders taught us that the above quotation from the Bible is, however, a culturally determined aside that is no longer applicable to the church today. Women covering their heads amounted to so-called legalism from which the church should be set free. Hence, some young men prophesied wearing base-ball caps and women prophesied without wearing a head covering.

The same unusually liberal interpretation applied to this interesting quotation from 1 Corinthians 14:34: “Women  should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”

Women were actually encouraged to speak up during our church meetings, since this verse too was passed off as a culturally determined relic. Women were not allowed, however, to preach or to lead churches.

I could provide many similar examples, but two suffice to get to my inevitable question: if the above two verses of the Bible are historical relics that are no longer applicable today, even for fundamentalists, how many other quotations fall into the same category? And how are we to distinguish the one category from the other?

All of which goes to prove, no matter how inerrant the Bible might be, the multi-faceted and completely differing ways of interpreting the same text render it errant in terms of its application to daily life. Ultimately, Christians, like every other socially determined group of human beings, do what they want to do and then find a narrative that can be used to justify their actions.

 

Berlin, European Union, God, new writer, politics, refugees, society, vision

Ban the burka?

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Recently I listened to a speech given by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the new German President, in which he spoke with such passion, factual accuracy and clarity about the importance of the European Union. It was an outstanding speech, almost on a level with Obama’s rhetorical skills, in which he pointed out, amongst many other things, the long-lasting peace, the abolition of dictatorship in certain key nations and the social advantages of being together as a union of nations. The financial advantages were barely mentioned. All of which goes to show how little the current UK government understands about the raison d’être of the EU, a fact that does not bode well for the current Brexit negotiations.

All the more surprising, therefore, is the recent EU decision to ban the wearing of the burka within its member nations. As I know from many of my friends here in Berlin, the majority of women wear headscarves and burkas for cultural, not religious reasons, and I am disappointed that the EU has not displayed its usual cultural tolerance in this issue. I do not think we should go down the line of “When in Rome, you absolutely have to do what the Romans do”, rather as Europeans have to do when they visit Muslim nations. Such a tit-for-tat attitude does nothing towards furthering cultural understanding and international co-operation.

I must admit, however, that the burka crosses a, let’s say “common sense” line, since it enables people to hide their identity when they are, for example, opening a bank account, registering with a local authority or crossing an international border. Yet this common sense issue surely has nothing to do with nationality, culture or religion. There are obvious, practical solutions to this issue if mutual human respect is to take precedence over cultural prejudice and racism.

To conclude, it occurred to me recently that the biggest problem with regards to the burka is that the wrong people are wearing it! How many beautiful women are daily hidden from our sight, when, actually, we would all benefit so much more, if only it were worn by people like Theresa May, Marine Le Pen and, for that matter, Donald Trump.