Christian values in Germany

Christianity is a fundamental root of societal values in Germany. Official. I just heard it from the Bundeskanzlerin herself. Speaking in Munich to 6,000 people, the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in Europe acknowledges freely and imaginatively the significance of Christianity as one of the great root of her country’s social values. She is not saying these humanistic concepts could not have been developed in other ways, but the fact is it was from and through Christianity that they have been.

Here in Bavaria there is a refreshing absence of crude secularist rant, along with scare stories got up by the right wing press to suggest that any departure from Victorian morals and dogma means the end of Christianity and ruin of society. Those fears and fantasies are expressed on the margins of society, where they belong.

Neither do I detect the lazy old English idea you “leave morality to the bishops”. Mrs Merkel calls for a dialogue between churches and society, where both engage closely and bless each other and are willing to be changed according to their values and experience — so no crude monopolies of truth, no slippery slope panic, no fear that engagement between churches and society will corrupt the Churches or Confessionalise the State. Freedom is a Christian value, but not egoistical freedom from taking responsibility. Christian freedom is the use of possibilities to follow values as a way of supporting others — another one of Mrs Merkel’s core Christian values.

All she is saying is that there needs to be respect, realism, self-awareness and truthfulness. In this context, Mrs Merkel is just announcing €60Bn of cuts between 2011 and 2015, asking around various possibilities. She isn’t claiming a godlike command of all possible answers, but owning up to a serious problem, addressing pragmatic reality, asking for hep and obviously winning some respect for her candour. How refreshing! How grown-up!

Politicians, even controversial ones with cuts to announce, seem to be held in higher respect in Germany. Wondering why I am told they have a more realistic mandate from a more fully democratic voting system, and that there is a higher value of corporate civic life here. They are not thought to behave that much better, but they are held to account more tightly over their views as well as their expenses. They have to treat people more like grown ups, partly because there is a very direct relationship between how many votes and how much power. There is often a higher degree of historical awareness and pragmatism, with less simple sloganising. By comparison, much UK debate about Church and society, such as it is, simply bears out the old maxim that Clichéd words reveal clichéd thought. There has to be a better way!

Faith in the City today

Urban Theology Day with colleagues, practitioners and experts in Manchester, learning and sharing together about urban realities. The theological input from Andrew Davey really got me thinking. Among various soundbites noted for future contemplation, I begin with a phrase from the current World Cities debate, that pretty much encapsulates what I remember working out pragmatically as a first incumbent
— The Whole Truth about the Parish System:

We need to think of placed identity not as a claim to a place, but as an acknowledgment of the responsibilities that inhere in being placed (Doreen Massey)

A soundbite for planners everywhere, from the Tower of Babel to the parish profile or deanery plan:

Every regeneration project begins with Poetry, and ends with Real Estate (L.K. Platzman)

Finally, a challenging marker to pin under those old fifties Eagle Comic pictures suggesting the Secular City of Towers was the only future:

If God died in the cities of the industrial revolution, he has risen again in the post-industrial cities of the developing world (Mike Davis)

All this, and the amazing news to me that the most cloned high street in Britain (= colonised by identikit national chains to the excusion of local traders) is Exeter. Do we thank the Luftwaffe for that?

Noted thematic points of engagement:

1. Discerning the City: What is going on in fast moving environments, symbolically and thematically? Only dialogue can tell! But where is the soul of the city?
   
2. Ethics and Ideals: What makes a “Good” City? by our context-sensitive moral experience, intuition and activity, we enact this — how consciously?
3. Cultures: Churches have a long record as being part producers of culture. Where is our Creativity? Added Value, freely offered?
4. Language: Largely Christian in origins, these days! “Regeneration” “Renewal” “Iconic” etc. etc. etc. What is the appeal of this language? What does it really mean, contextualized? How can the faith which spawned it use it creatively?

All this, and a couple of final impressions:

1. None of us know exactly what we’re in for just now, as the fallout continues from financial woes. It’s only just beginning. Government is, as ever, a huge, diverse and complex conglomerate of ideas and energies, not the simple Big Player people often speak as though it were — bit like the Church! But a general shift in emphasis away from Social development and devolution, laudable as it is in theory, could get a bit weird in a global recession...
   
2. Along with other faith organizations, but particularly as an established Church, the Church of England is strategically placed to help, because of its presence on the ground. There is paricularly strong contribution to be made to Local Area Agreements. There is an improving level of faith literacy in government at all levels compared to very recently. It’s important not to blow this availability and opportunity for service by suburbanizing the Church entirely, allowing the weak to go to the wall. It’s also important to sustain and build this capacity in spiritual and human terms; Some popular images of the city may have yuppified, but there is a vulnerability about all community groups and subgroups, especially faith ones. At every level from sub housegroups to the diocese, leadership is a key influence, for good and/or bad. One key priority has to be trying to ensure that strategically aware and pastorally gifted area deans have the time and resource to do their jobs.