4 - 1999

Shopping on Sunday

Editorial

"But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates." This stands in Exodus chapter 20. The Sabbath, the day of rest, of prayer, of conversation, belongs to the great achievements that have emerged from Judaism and Christianity. The shared day for refreshment and for time to be together in family and with friends is also valued by many people of other faiths.

But is the biblical commandment of Sunday rest still up-to-date? People in Germany have long since worked around the clock and seven days a week in hospitals, police stations, power plants, in the media and in public transportation. Now pressure is growing for stores and shopping centers to open. Shopping has increasingly become an "experience", mixed with fun and entertainment by the large chain stores. Many customers want to enjoy this shopping pleasure on Sunday, too, and companies want to open their expensive centers on Sunday, when people have lots of time, without judicial restrictions.

However, if we give in to this pressure then this day will very quickly become a day like any other. In the tough competitive struggle more and more shops, shopping centers and other service branches will open - and as a result more and more people will work on this day. Then soon industrial firms will exert pressure to produce on Sunday to better use their expensive machines to full capacity. Therefore it is not surprising that the current debate about Sunday began in Germany, a country with a high standard of living but also particularly tough economic competition, where the danger exists that all areas of life are subsumed under the goal of economic efficiency and international economic success.

The Sabbath developed in a society which even then belonged to the poorer ones and which was bitterly poor by today’s standards. It nonetheless allowed itself to pass one day a week without work altogether. Is the argument that today for economic reasons protection of Sunday rest must be loosened really persuasive?

The question of how to spend Sundays presents the individual, too, with basic issues, especially that of whether a life that is more and more strongly geared to consumption and experiences that are bought can truly be a life worth striving for. Sociologists fear that in the era of globalization, growing competition and commercialization more and more people "drift through life". Sunday is one of the last ramparts against this trend. For this reason the churches do German society an important service if they prevent Sunday from becoming a working day.