2 - 1997

Solidarity and Justice

The mood of the times

Are the churches taking a new role?

by Henrik Müller

All political disputants greeted the joint church statement with varying emphasis as an important contribution to the discussion. As a result, there were fears that it would be "praised to death." Criticism came from the industry associations - and from the churches themselves. In the face of these reactions, what matters to the author is that the churches continue to pursue their cause with vigour. Henrik Mîller is an editor at Das Sonntagsblatt.

Even the anti-tax Secretary General of the FDP liberal party suddenly saw the churches as intellectual brothers-in-arms. After all, as Guido Westerwelle would have us know, elements of liberal policy can certainly be made out - to wit, "a cautious admission by the churches that past levels of welfare provision cannot be maintained in all areas."

The alternative left-wing tageszeitung did not quite see it this way. On the contrary, the statement was a "blunt rejection of neoliberal plans for the future" and "an affront to a clientist and greedy concept of politics in the style of FDP Secretary General Guido Westerwelle." And so it went on: The Chancellor, the leader of the centre-left SPD, the Greens, the Unions, the employers - all felt vindicated, none hit upon, when the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the German Bishops´ Conference last Friday presented the joint statement of the churches on the economic and social situation, under the title "For a future founded on solidarity and justice."

It was the most significant event in domestic politics this weekend. And hardly anyone has yet dared to tangle with the churches. Hermann Barth, Vice President of the EKD Church Office, is still hoping for some heavy criticism: "Things only get interesting when they come to a head."

But the criticism has not come. Instead, Chancellor Helmut Kohl prides himself on having at least attempted to reach the social "basic consensus" that the churches demand: last year, in the Chancellor´s talks with the unions and industry - though these did fail a few months later. Dieter Schulte, head of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), sees in the statement "a pronounced shift away from the tendency to reduce people to their economic utility." And SPD leader Oskar Lafontaine sees himself vindicated in the call to reintroduce the wealth tax. "Analytically in keeping with the times" and "refreshingly relaxed and optimistic" in attitude, congratulated even the liberal-conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

If there is any criticism at all, it is subdued. Eduard Oswald, Parliamentary Party Secretary of the conservative CDU-CSU, for example, objects that the church statement takes "too clear a stance on current political issues," as with the financing of social welfare insurance. "If anything," says Oswald, "this hinders the cause of helping society reach basic consensus on a sustainable social order," this being the true aim of the writers.

The main sticking point in industry circles is the call for a "wealth report." "This is a relic from times past," says Barbara Mrytz, head of the Church and Industry section at the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), an industry-affiliated research centre. But notwithstanding all objections on specific details in the statement, Mrytz, too stresses "consensus-forming" as an important church activity.

The statement thus catches the mood of the times. With unemployment persistently rising, and with the political parties debating repeated rounds of cuts, the longing for consensus is rife among the population at large. The political scientist Kurt Sontheimer has observed a "counter-movement away from the pure neoliberal position." And the churches are riding this wave with their statement. After all, it is their job to "stress human over purely economic aspects."

In the face of rapid economic and social change demolishing old certainties, there is growing need for guidance - a need that is also felt by those in charge in politics and industry. Even a declared pragmatist like Oswald Metzger, Green Party parliamentary spokesman on budgetary policy, is "very taken" with the church statement. The church delivers a "moral view, guidance on values that is lacking almost everywhere in politics."

It seems questionable, though, whether the churches themselves can profit as institutions from the newly awakened longing for consensus. The general image and membership loss is barely stoppable, as Sontheimer prophesizes.

All the same: as the welfare state increasingly nears its limits, many wish for greater church involvement. Not only in political debate, but also in very concrete terms: according to Peter Hinze, CDU Secretary General and originally a pastor, the churches face "the important task of promoting guidance to the common good and solidarity among the people." Above all, "voluntary work in the church" sets an important "example for secular activities."

With all praise from outside, the fiercest criticism of the church statement comes from within the churches themselves. The Catholic Employers´ Federation thus hammers the call for a wealth report: rather than "inciting social envy," the statement would have done better to report "on successful entrepreneurs, especially from the middle ranks of industry, who create new jobs and training places." After all, envy is "in church doctrine a cardinal sin." The Association of Protestant Employers, too, would have liked to see a clearer admission "that Germany´s competitive position as an industrial location is partly a result of inflated social welfare expenditure that weighs down the labour input factor." This fact "sometimes goes unappreciated."

The Jesuit padre and social scientist Friedhelm Hengsbach sees this in quite a different light. In his eyes, the church statement is far too well balanced. It is a consensus work with not enough bite - an appropriate programme for a grand coalition.

Reprinted from Das Sonntagsblatt, No. 10, March 7 1997,
slightly abridged, and translated for publication in this magazine.