2 - 1997
Editorial
This issue of ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE focuses on the joint statement of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the German Bishops´ Conference on the Economic and Social Situation in Germany, which was published in late February this year with the title "For a Future Founded on Solidarity and Justice".
The statement has met with an unusually large response among the German public: the Presiding Bishop of the EKD, Bishop Klaus Engelhardt, and the Chairman of the German Bishops´ Conference, Bishop Karl Lehmann, encountered an unprecedented crush of press, radio and television journalists at the press conference they held to present the statement. Almost 400,000 copies of the "church statement" have been requested since then.
There is good reason for this keen interest. For, 50 years on from the end of World War II, the German "economic model" has entered a time of crisis. The high level of unemployment is a particularly threatening symptom. In the last few months this has taken on what for Germany are dramatic proportions, with 4.6 million (some 11% of the working population) unemployed. State welfare spending has grown rapidly with the social decline of broad sectors of the population and is overstretching the public purse. While older people fear for the security of their pensions in a system that has done good service in the past, employers and industry associations urge drastic cuts in the high welfare benefits and wage costs in order to stem the threat to Germany´s competitiveness as an industrial location.
Germany is still a rich country. Nonetheless, a depressive and resigned underlying mood is spreading through German society, particularly among those most affected by the worsening of the economic and social situation. People - especially young people - increasingly fear for their livelihood and future. This mood is exacerbated by stagnation not only in the economy, but also in politics, and by a lack of change and progress.
Against this background, Germans have taken the joint statement of the two big churches in Germany as a clear signal that Germany´s social welfare systems must be made "weatherproof" - and to resist the concentration of wealth among the rich.
The churches did not make it easy for themselves with their statement. They began in November 1994, by publishing a joint "Impetus Statement" on the economic and social situation in Germany as a basis for discussion in a planned one-year consultation process. "All interested, concerned and active Christians and non-Christians, groups, associations and institutions" were asked to comment on this basis for discussion and help the two churches prepare a joint statement. This call met with an enormous response: More than 3000 opinions were received, and the consultation process had to be considerably extended. It was on the basis and in the light of these many and various reactions that the two churches finally produced their joint statement.
But the church statement is neither meant as the last word on the topic, nor as an end to debate on the problems it presents: it is meant as a call to further discussion. This discussion will be essential, too, when it comes to translating the directional impetus given by the churches into political practice. Yet it should not be confined to German soil. In early April, the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland (CCBI) presented "An Enquiry for the Churches´ entitled "Unemployment and the Future of Work", which likewise calls for debate.
This issue of ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE is intended to spur such discussion across national borders.
The church statement is now also available in English and French, and can be obtained free of charge from the EKD Church Office (Postfach 210220, D-30402 Hannover, Fax: 0049511 2796-707).
In this issue of ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE we have recorded general reactions that the church statement has enlisted from various perspectives, in each case reflecting the opinions of their authors. In the next issue we will publish contributions to the discussion that examine specific aspects of the church statement - for example, global responsibility and the "Third World," human rights, women´s issues, and the environment.
The Editors