2 - 2000
Morality and Politics
God Reigns
Christianity knows about the relativity of power
by Eberhard Martin Pausch
Germany is not a Christian nation, but it is a nation that Christians have a part in organising. Now they are facing the question of how to help bring forth new confidence out of the disillusionment over the misconduct of politicians.
Suitcases full of money, lies, secret accounts - for many people in the Federal Republic of Germany, the last few months have seen the opening of an abyss which threatens to swallow up their confidence in any sort of politics. We must even reckon with the fact that only a small percentage of all such cases are discovered. What we are seeing is probably only the tip of an iceberg.
The hope that other parties are different appears illusory. The history of our republic teaches us that a CDU affair can very quickly turn into an SPD affair - and vice versa. What attitude should Christians take towards all this? If, having been through the fire of medieval European history, they cannot set their hopes on a Christian state, should they perhaps adopt a pathos of distancing themselves from the state, and even if possible parading themselves as apostles of morality?
They would be ill-advised to look spitefully down upon politics and politicians. Much more recommendable is to cultivate a consistent Christian realism. At its core, this says that all human beings are "sinners", thus capable of evil in every way; Christians know from the biblical tradition that human beings are made in the image of God, but in practical daily life cannot avoid sin.
However, this does lead to the conclusion that a basic democratic structure corresponds better to the self-understanding and understanding of reality of the Christian faith than any form of society we have yet known, because it begins with, and consistently takes into account, the Christian vision of humanity. For it (alone) assumes the unassailable worth of human beings, at the same time as it reckons with their fallibility.
From a Christian perspective, three factors must come together: the democratic principles and procedures of an open society; the Platonic idea of the competence of those in power; and finally - if possible - the Christian faith as a view of reality which is as loving as it is realistic. Thus the Christian hope is neither fixed on a Christian state nor negative towards the state as such, but rather says that a democratic state should be governed by competent and if possible believing persons. These would at least be good prerequisites for successful policies.
And yet, even if all three conditions are fulfilled, success is not guaranteed. For wherever human beings, even Christians, are active, they can still fail and fall down. And wherever human beings, even Christians, exercise power, they are vulnerable to temptation. Thus there are no Christian patent remedies or guarantees of success with regard to power. There are only Christian perspectives on how to deal with power. One of these views is the insight, decisive as it is comforting, that the last word about the direction, goal and outcome of history will not be spoken by humankind, but rather by the loving, judging and saving God.
Because God offers us forgiveness, the future is always open for humanity. With just this sense of optimism, the theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) concluded the last telephone conversation of his life with these words: "Let us not lose hope, hope for all people, for the whole world of nations! God will not let us fall, not a single one of us, nor all of us together. - God reigns!"
Eberhard Martin Pausch is a member of the consistory of the Evangelical Church in Germany and is executive secretary of its Advisory Commission for Social Responsibility. We have taken this article in a shortened form from the monthly journal Evangelische Kommentare, 4/2000.