“Kirchlich” – Was heißt das eigentlich?

Zu viert standen wir zusammen, während einer von uns fertig rauchte. Das Gespräch plätscherte dahin. Aus irgendwelchen Gründen war von Tangermünde die Rede, von dem Storchennest auf dem Rathaus und von den Touristen auf dem Elberadweg. “Da gibt es eine tolle Kneipe”, sagt Jan, “die is in einer Kirche, voll toll.” Dann auf einmal zu mir in entschuldigendem Ton: “Oh sorry, Ich hab ganz vergessen, dass Du kirchlich bist.” Ich sag nur ‘is schon ok’ und bin 5 Minuten lang perplex, dass ich ja nun augenscheinlich als ‘kirchlich’ wahrgenommen werde.

Denn was heißt das überhaupt? Das hört sich so sehr nach ‘Du bist ja ein Fan der Kirche’ an. Kein Wunder, dass Jan meinte, er könne nicht frei von Kneipen in Kirchen reden. Ich hätte mich wohl aufregen sollen, oder? Aber das Adjektiv ‘kirchlich’ ist da echt nicht das richtige für. Ich habe mich auch nicht aufgeregt. Ich hab ja selber schon Bierse in umfunktionierten Kapellen getrunken. Irgendwie komisch wars schon – aber das empfinden auch Nicht-Kirchliche Menschen so (also quasi Menschen wie Du und ich).

Also klar, ich gehe schon ganz gerne am Sonntag in den Gottesdienst. Da würden mir aber mehrere andere Adjektive einfallen. Man könnte mir zum Beispiel auf den Kopf zusagen, ich wäre religiös. Das wäre eine tolle Gelegenheit, den Unterschied zwischen Glauben und Religion in den Blick zu nehmen, im Privatleben sogar, yay! Das würde sich aber auch fremd anfühlen, dieses ‘ich bin religiös’-Label.Irgendwie fühlen sich die Labels alle komisch an. Gläubige Christen in Deutschalnd reden ja nicht mit nicht-gläubigen Christen. Da gibt es quasi gar keine Sprache, die man hier benutzen kann. Na gut, jetzt habe ich schon die Rede vom ‘gläubigen Christ’ benutzt, das geht natürlich von der Bezeichnung her schon ganz gut. Trifft es auch irgendwie. Aber damit kann man ja nicht hausieren gehen. Es gibt ja immernoch sehr viele Leute da draußen, die ernsthaft an einem zweifeln, weil man den Fehler des Glaubens noch nicht überwunden hat. Wenn frau Glück hat, handelt es sich bei diesen Skeptikern um Kulturrelativisten, die im Prinzip jede so akzeptieren, wie sie daher kommt, solange sie nichts Böses im Schilde führt. Wenn frau Pech hat, schließt sie die Glaubenpraxis von der Teilnahme an bestimmten Bereichen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens aus. Aus vielen Gründen macht es oft Sinn, es einfach für sich zu behalten, wie man den Sonntagmorgen verbringt.

Um zur Ausgangsproblematik zurückzukommen: ‘Kirchlich’ ist jedenfalls voll doof. Kirchlich sind die Sakramente, ist die (kirchliche) Eheschließung, und sind Baustile. Alles institutionell. Individueller Glauben ist nicht kirchlich und Gläubige sind auch nicht kirchlich. Das ist ungefähr so, als würde man sagen, die Fans bei einem Clueso-Konzert sind Vertreter der deutschen Hiphop bzw. singer/songwriter-Industrie. Sind sie nicht, sie haben da nur was in der Musik gefunden, was für sie wahr und wichtig war. Beim Glauben ist das etwas komplizierter…aber irgendwie auch ähnlich. Das kann man natürlich besser erklären als ich, haben auch viele vor mir gemacht (Theologenfreunde, bitte gebt Literaturhinweise!), aber Grundsätzliches kann ich auch so klarstellen:

Kirchlich ist ein institutionelles Adjektiv und nicht auf Privatmenschen und ihre religiöse Praxis anzuwenden.

Distorting the Lord’s Prayer

I received an interesting response to yesterday’s post ‘It’s a lie’. The focus in the response is on language, esp. on translating different concepts from german into English and vice versa. With the comments there in mind I was really shocked to find out that the Lord’s Prayer has been re-formulated, i.e. the words have been changed. Here’s the news story in German.

The culprit is the current President of the German Bundestag and the words have been most significantly changed where it now says (I translate with all the associated problems ) “Your kingdom comes when Your will is done”. This is a huge semantic change. I’m sure it’s in violation of major doctrines! You can’t just have a mind to change the words of this most significant Christian prayer for a musical performance, as is the case with our apparently wacky President of the Bundestag. Surely there are limits as to how far you can go with this, and I happen to know where they are: Just leave it as it is, you moron. Sure, some things never change and some things do, as Captain Niobe said in The Matrix (one of my favourite lines ever!), but what she forgot to also point out is that some things must not change. Just leave them. Leave the Lord’s Prayer as it is. Or call for a church council to try and change it (it’s never gonna happen). Moron.

I am outraged, morally outraged.

On Islam: Tolerance is not the way to go

Says a young Muslin woman wearing a hijab to the Green Party guy who is trying to defend all immigrants to Germany as if they were panda bears threatened by extinction: “Stop victimising us! My father came here on his own accord, he didn’t have to.”Romanticising immigrants deprives immigrant communities of access to the normalcy.

The women’s rights activists: “I wouldn’t anyone who wears a veil and wants to get rid of our Constitution to come here and take over.” Right.

Speaking of tolerance of the other is wrong on two counts: Firstly, it manifests the other as other who can never be ‘one of us’ but only ever OTHER. Secondly, talk of tolerance misrecognises the problem, which is often of a social nature (education, relative and absolute deprivation, etc.). Focusing on cultural problems looks like an attempt to conceal this if social aspects aren’t looked at at the same time. Read more here (in German).

The strangely ignorant majority

Most Christians know a lot less about other religions than these other religions know about Christians and Christianity, The Christian Century reported recently. Atheists (not a religion but definitely a belief system) apparently scored best in the test, Jews and Mormons being the close run-ups. White evangelical Protestants are a meagre fourth as regards the overall test results. Interesting differences between groups become apparent if you split the subject areas of the religious knowledge test up into ‘Bible and Christianity’, ‘World Religions’ and ‘Religion and Public Life’. Check it out here.

The writer on Christian Century reflects a little bit about these surprising results and his views on the matter strike me as quite lucid.

Of course, atheists/agnostics and Jews didn’t actually do better on the Christianity questions than Christians did, just nearly as well—and considerably better on all the others. This is perfectly intuitive: minority groups know more about the majority than vice versa, because majority culture tends to define what counts as general knowledge. So most Jews know where Jesus was born, even though few Christians know much about Buddhism. Jesus makes the cover of one general-interest magazine or another ever month or so, and it only takes a couple shopping trips between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to accidentally memorize the words to “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

The real shame here isn’t that non-Christians know our tradition almost as well as we do. It’s that we know so little about others. “Only about a quarter of Americans know that [most] Indonesians are Muslim,” notes Adam Serwer, “which I guess makes sense since we haven’t bombed or invaded them yet.” It’s become clearer than ever in the last several weeks that Christians’ general ignorance of minority faiths—to say nothing of our lack of actual relationships across faith lines—is a pressing problem in American life.

Sure way to a stupid next generation: BAN BOOKS!!!

Attempts at banning children’s books in American schools have increased over the past year, the BBC reports. We’re talking about schools deciding that Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series shouldn’t be available in their libraries because it’s too explicit, that kind of stuff. (I’m sure someone also has a problem with there being too much supernatural material in it – a British (!!) teacher even had a problem with that in the Harry Potter books!) The Catcher in the Rye is apparently also on the list of banned books, or books that some schools would like to ban, as is The Colour Purple. In the latter case, rampant racism was diagnosed since the n-word is mentioned 58 times, but normally parents just struggle with the fact that some books allude to sexual matters.

Yes, that is very, very bad indeed. Having grown up in Europe, of course, the likes of me are completely insensitive to these issues. Yes. Because everyone in Europe is frisky. Not born that way, no, but made that way through our horribly liberal European values. It’s our values where we are wrong, just as those concerned parents are absolutely right with their conservative values. And as we know, you can’t argue with someone’s values. Says one farmer from Stockton, Missouri: “This is a community with the type of values that are consistent with the way we like to raise our children.” [so take those darned national prize-winning books away!]

I don’t know…I’m worried, I’m very worried. Values are being used in this instance as in many others to justify all things for one particular group of people, and that simply can’t be right. Carrying out research into conservative values myself I can tell you how bloody hard it is to actually understand what people mean, first of all, when they talk about their ‘values’. Most of the time ‘values’ are a placeholder of ‘what I desire to come to pass’. It remains fuzzy and blurry like that. But because values are conceptions of the desirable, and because we live in a society in which we would hate to restrict our neighbour’s freedom to pursue their own happiness (just the children’s, but that’s ok – we mean well), the moment he/she starts talking about their values we go ‘oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that this has something to do with your values. Please accept my heartfelt apologies, I didn’t mean to interfere.” (“Do go on killing that dog with the spade then.”)

I mean, c’mon! And anyone who thinks that we are being too liberal here and that that’s the downfall, forget it!! Freedom of the individual, parents deciding which books to ban at their kid’s school? We’re looking into the ugly heart of conservatism here, and it ain’t pretty (as is the case with most ugly things). Which is a shame, because conservatism has lots to offer, as I keep pointing out ever so neutrally. But something like this is not part of it, or it shouldn’t be:

“[The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian] is just chock full of vulgarity, profanity, obscenity and sexual explicitness involving minors,” [the farmer from before] says. “People around here, where it’s pretty rural and conservative, they will go a long way, but this book was so far over the edge. It doesn’t belong in a school.”

Because people in this rural area aren’t smart enough to deal with this kind of book? Adults maybe but not the kids? Gee-wizz, isn’t this sad? So there’s a book written from the perspective of a North American Indian who lives in deprivation. And it’s written for kids. Maybe it’s a truly horrible book – as awful as The Catcher in the Rye maybe, who knows – but banning it? Surely that’s not the way forward to raising intelligent kids with strong moral characters? Kids who already know that their childhood world isn’t all there is and perhaps even that it isn’t the best of all possible worlds? Kids who have imagination? Because this kind of kid, living with parents just like that, will grow and learn from good books. But perhaps we’re not supposed to raise intelligent kids? Maybe, if our kids become too clever, even by half, some of us would expect problems with family relations? Hm.

Banning children’s books means banning a degree of learning. Reflecting on whether or not we have become too unconcerned with sexual stuff as a society as a whole is a different matter; I presume that a modicum of screening happens in the American children’s book industry to safeguard that. Of course, if those approving of certain kinds of contents as innocent for the kinds of kids they know are of a super-reckless moral disposition, as one could easily argue, then not much can be expected from that person and very soon all the little American fat kids will want to make love to vampires and werewolves (tough luck, humans).

Which brings me at least back to the point where I initially began pulling my hair out: Is there really no communication possible about different groups’ values, and would some of us go as far in protecting their values as homogenising the world their kids grow up in by banning books? C’mon, it’s a wonderful world, wouldn’t we want to be open about it? What’s the fear? Maybe there’s something I don’t get here. Perhaps the BBC misrepresented facts, I don’t know. It’s just – I get really scared when I hear about limiting children’s scope at exploration and trying very hard to protect one’s own little corner of the earth from change. Change is inevitable and children need to learn about the world, including the fact that things change. Trying to protect them from that will turn them into little whimps! And stifling children’s intellect – in the children’s section in the school library, for Pete’s sake!!! – does not bode well at all for our future.

Almost put my foot in!

In case you haven’t noticed, I do have a bit of a penchant for drama and it’s got me into many scrapes over the years actually. (I remember the time I threw plates around someone else’s kitchen) Anyway, I will be leaving these British Isles shortly and I thought just a few minutes ago that I could jot down a few words about how sad it is to leave etc. The intended title of the blog post was ‘The time of the last things begins’, sort of ‘this is the last time I’ll go shopping at Tesco’s, how sad’ or ‘this is my last pint’ etc. Boring, I know. I’m really glad I decided that it would be way too dorky to write a kitschy post like that because just by accident, in choosing that title, I would’ve been talking about the end of everything! According to the Global Catholic Network, the “the last things are death, judgment, heaven and hell’. Yikes!

I knew the phrase ‘the last things’ was awfully familiar! From watching ‘Supernatural’! Which is the normal person’s access road to Christianity, or rather Christian mythology. How weird is that eh…but how absolutely delicious to watch too!

Gee, it’s been a long week. Anybody interested in learning about the Last Things, read below and look forward to the weekend. Cheerio.

Death is the separation of man’s mortal body and immortal soul. It comes to all men as a result of original sin. It is a temporary state, for at the end of the world, all men shall rise again to be judged by Christ. Thus the whole man, body and soul, will be rewarded for the good or evil that he has done, body and soul, in this life.

At the moment of death, each human person is judged by God based on his conduct in this life, and goes immediately to his reward or punishment.Moreover, at the end of the world, Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. At that time, God’s whole plan for the world shall be revealed, and his mercy and justice demonstrated.

Heaven is the eternal state of perfect happiness resulting from the face to face vision of God, which is the reward of those who have served Him in this life.

Hell is the eternal state of torment and despair which awaits those who, in this life, have freely rejected God and the happiness which He offerse.

Before the end of the world, there will be an intermediate state called purgatory. There, those who are bound for heaven, but whose love for God is still marred by some imperfection, undergo a temporary period of purifying suffering. When this purification is complete, they are fit to enter God’s presence and are admitted to the joys of heaven.

Irreverent but funny

I heard the new minister at my church is quite, ehm, shall we say – different. I’ll go to check him out myself tomorrow. I am not sure what to expect because I forgot how precisely our friend who already had the joy of hearing him preach thought he was falling short but I am pretty certain that checking out the new minister will remain my main motivation for attending the service tomorrow morning. Partly that is because the arrival of a new minister is a momentous event in a church congregation, partly it is because I simply refuse to stop thinking about life the way I normally do when and just because I am in or near a church. I normally pay attention to the way people speak or conduct themselves, to their little mannerisms and facial twitches etc., and I therefore do that at church, too. Just because someone is a minister doesn’t mean he or she is not an interesting person to observe and reflect upon – to the contrary! So, new minister, you better prepare well for tomorrow’s morning service!

I am aware of how utterly irreverent above comments will seem to many a church-goer. I am sorry, my devoted friend, but I can’t help thinking all sorts of things whilst I am snugly sitting in my pew there. Church services are so relaxing! So I relax and my thoughts drift off. In my head, I have been to many really interesting places during a service. The stained glass windows also always attract my attention; I find myself thinking about colours and shapes and paintings I have pained or want to start working on very soon, on how I never have the time to paint anymore, on how time-consuming a PhD actually is etc etc. It just goes on like this.

It is important to me to point out that my trains of thought always occur in response to something in the environment. It’s not like I go to church and then I close my mind off to what happens there, no no. I just open it a bit too widely perhaps…(As Tim Minchin mused a while ago, ‘If you open your mind any wider than this then your brain might fall out.’ Good point.) Recently, as the Reverend walked down the aisle to prepare Communion, the sound of his robes swishing reminded me of this extremely funny cartoon that I found in the blogosphere. I imagined that the swishing was caused by wind and saw before my inner eye the drawing of the angry girl shouting – at the wind – STOP PUSHING ON ME. Ahh, good times!

I am not trying to be irreverent, I am just myself even when I’m at church. I mean well by it and I think that trying very hard to think extremely worshippy thoughts would be hypocritical. When it’s time for thinking in serious lines, then I do that, and with pleasure even. I also worship with pleasure and with the utmost sincerity; certain things one just doesn’t joke about. When it’s more an ‘I’m so relaxed and at peace’ moment, then my mind is probably going to wander a bit…to consider the new minister’s hair cut and use of hand gestures maybe, we’ll see.

The Killing

This was the day they killed the Son of God
On a squat hill-top by Jerusalem.
Zion was bare, her children from their maze
Sucked by the demon curiosity
Clean through the gates. The very halt and blind
Had somehow got themselves up to the hill.

After the ceremonial preparation,
The scourging, nailing, nailing against the wood,
Erection of the main-trees with their burden,
While from the hill rose an orchestral wailing,
They were there at last, high up in the soft spring day.
We watched the writhings, heard the moanings, saw
The three heads turning on separate axles
Like broken wheels left spinning. Round his head
Was loosely bound a crown of plaited thorn
That hurt at random, stinging temple and brow
As the pain swung into its envious circle.
In front the wreath was gathered in a knot
That as he gazed looked like the last stump left
Of a death-wounded deer’s great antlers. Some
Who came to stare grew silent as they looked,
Indignant or sorry. But the hardened old
And the heart hearted young, although at odds
From the first morning, cursed him with one curse,
Having prayed for a Rabbi, or an armed Messiah
And found the Son of God. What use to them
Was a God or a Son of God? Of what avail
For purposes such as theirs? Beside the cross-foot
Alone, four women stood and did not move
All day. The sun revolved, the shadow wheeled,
The evening fell. His head lay on his breast,
But in this breast they watched his heart move on
By itself alone, accomplishing its journey.
Their taunts grew louder, sharpened by the knowledge
That he was walking in the park of death,
Far from their rage. Yet all grew stale at last,
Spite, curiosity, envy, hate itself.
They waited only for death and death was slow
And came so quietly they scarce could mark it.
They were angry then with death and death’s deceit.

I was a stranger, could not read these people
Or this outlandish deity. Did a God
Indeed in dying cross my life that day
By chance, he on his road and I on mine?

Edwin Muir

Dog-head, Son of Adam

Saint Christopher, it might not be very well known, was widely depicted as a dog-head, i.e. a man with the head of a dog. Yes. As all dog-heads, Christopher, or Reprobus as he was then still called, also did not have the power of speech, nor of fully coherent thought. He could therefore not pray as effectively as others – but well enough to ask God for the power of speech. His prayer was granted, Reprobus could all of a sudden speak, and making the best use of his new-found powers he renounced the pagan practices he saw around him in the early Roman Empire. He confessed to be a Christian. We’re talking about the 3rd century here, and Reprobus died pretty quickly after ‘coming out’ as a Christian. (Which seems a shame for that gift of speech; he couldn’t use it for very long. Long enough though to become martyred and immortal in the Christian world.) Saint Christopher, as Reprobus is known today, is venerated in the Roman Catholic as well as Eastern Orthodox Church.

But it is true, Saint Christopher was a dog-head. What do we know about these interesting creatures? (Bear with me, it is worth it.) (But don’t expect a practical applicability in what follows. There is none. This is merely interesting.)

The 9^th century theologian Ratramnus was asked by one of his disciple monks who was preparing to travel to Britain: ‘What do I do when I encounter the dog-heads? Do I preach to them? Can I thereby save their souls? Or do I look at them as animals and therefore don’t preach to them?‘ Ratramnus who was a great expert on dog-heads replied: ‘Ask them first if they are descended from Adam.’ (Ignoring the fact here that dog-heads don’t have the ability of speech, but anyway…) He further reminded his disciple that dog-heads live in villages, wear clothes, and practice agriculture; that they cover their genitalia (sensitivity on these matters is a sure sign of humanness); and that they keep their own animals, and dogs no less. Ratramnus concluded that dog-heads are clearly descended from Adam and that their souls can therefore be saved. He consequently commanded his disciple to always preach to the dog-heads.

Who else, after reading this, also sees a dog-head farmer bowed over some sort of agricultural equipment in the field? I do and I haven’t been able to get this image out of my head – not that I want to – since I came across this. Dog-heads, according to medieval sources, lived all over Britain and were really common on the Continent as well. In fact, there are more sources from the Continent; Isidore of Seville and Pliny also wrote on dog-heads.

It isn’t sure what the significance of the canine features was intended to be, for medieval sources do not interpret it in the way that we would now. To the modern observer the topic of dog-heads can therefore be hardly anything more than amusing. It is surely an intriguing part of medieval mythology, a bit quaint, a bit wonderful…

You can find more on dog-headed saints here.