Planting an apple tree in Bremen

A few stray shots do no justice to what was, overwhelmingly, the largest and most impressive learning gathering for Christians in Europe this year. Dancing around the streets to 20 samba bands with 250,000 others is, indeed, an unusual thing to be able to do. There’s a great account of the event by Martin Flower, a member of St Anne & St Agnes Lutheran Church in the City of London, who went to entrely different things from me, here.

One challenging phrase was quoted incidentally, however, at 3 events I attended. It is one description, by Martin Luther, of what it means to have real faith:

Auch wenn ich wüsste,
dass morgen die Welt zugrunde geht,
würde ich heute noch
einen Apfelbaum pflanzen.

Which being translated means

Even if I knew that the whole world
was going to smash tomorrow,
Still, I would plant an Apple Tree today.

Liturgical Terrorism or the future?

Fifty years ago, most denominations had some degree of closed communion — people were generally nice about it, but the denomination was the gatekeeper. Since the 1950’s this rather Brethren way of doing Church has largely broken down in the West.

People who are not personally excommunicated are admitted on the basis of baptism, and the whole Church, not the denomination is the medium of the Sacrament. The institutional denomination is only trustee for the Lord, to whom the Sacrament belongs.

In the good old days saying the Lord’s prayer with other Christians was a mortal sin for Roman Catholics, but that was many years ago. Conciliar theology has a structure to support Eucharistic hospitality, which is only offered in certain closely defined circunstances.

In Hanover in 2005, my eyebrows raised as the (now retired) Cardinal Archbishop of Mainz described the current restructions in his denomination as a “thorn in the flesh.”

In Bremen I stayed with a delightful Catholic host, who told me the hot ticket for Saturday morning’s Bible Study was Fullbert Steffensky, Professor Emeritus at Hamburg.

He was now a Lutheran, having started out as a monk of Maria Laach — the place Adenauer found sanctuary from the Nazis in 1934 (though that’s not quite the whole story of the monstery at that time).

The Bible Study considered Genesis 16 and Hagar the slave woman. She is not entirely outside God’s blessing, and we were led into considering the probem of religious absolutism and the inability of some Christians and others to believe God has blessed anyone but their in-group. He leapt straight from there to an incident at the Berlin Kirchentag in 2003, where large crowds had been banned from intercommunion. What right had ecclesiastical authorities to try and deprive the people of God of hope? As I mentally fell off the seat, given the style distance between the presentation and our customary stately Englsh ecumenical quadrille, the preacher continued.

The basis of Communion is the mercy, gift and call of God, not what he scathingly called “die Einheitlichkeit in einigen Sätzendes Bekentnisses. (loosely, “the oneness of a sit-down of acquaintances”) It was pointless for ecclesiastical authorities to say the Church wasn't ready for such a thing, if all they meant was that they weren’t. Now, Ecumenical diplomats, sit down somewhere comfortable and pour a stiff drink, as I quote the published text:

Wir können nicht darauf warten, bis die letzten fußkranken Mitglieder von Kirchenleitungen angekommen sind und das Mahl für erlaubt. (very loosely, “We can’t wait for the last lame duck Church leaders to catch up and join us at the table...”)

Dr Steffensky very much hoped that at future Kirchentage people would just go ahead and eat as the Lord commanded, concluding

Auf Dauer werden die Bischöfe schon fördern, was sie nicht verhindern können. ( loosely, “The Bishops will soon enough require what they can’t prevent.”)

Boooom! Right, my English Ecumenical Chums. This is certainly Provocative stuff that you wouldn't hear in a gathering of 125,000 Christians in England.
Is it “Liturgical Terrorism” or the Future?

K2:Sincere Politician Shock Horror

There I was, minding my own business with a party of eight from our diocese, being a humble Kirchentager, when who should come waltzing up to me but my friend and colleague Bishop Nick Baines, all round esteemed colleague and Meissen Commission wonk? Unlike me, Nick actually speaks proper German. I’m very much looking forward to his contribution.

I’m not underestimating any of us here when I say that Church of England participation in what is, overwhelmingly, the largest and most significant Christian gathering in Europe, if not the world (125,000 people here this year) is light, to say the least. The only frustration so far has been the failure of the organisers to connect up to the fast Wi-Fi system at the Messe, forcing humble (and penurious) souls to hang around the station typing furiously into space, to the general mystifaction of assorted travellers, drunks and evangelists... It's a great life.

People talk about Kirchentag moments, and this morning contained one or two very significant ones. I have no time to say how joyful it was to be only feet away from the head of Government of the largest nation in Western Europe, as she provided Ronettes style backing for a renidition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Anyway, that would be telling.

But I was greatly impressed with Angela Merkel’s session this morning. She talked modestly and realistically of life in the East for 35 years before the wall came down, and of the challenges involved in maintaining a free society — Freedom, Order, and Responsibility. She explored what freedom and democracy mean, and how it is possible to maintain some sense of momentum in a complex and diverse liberal democracy.

Then, right on cue, came a demonstration by local farmers. She engaged calmly, and gently reiterated the value of dissent, and the primary importance of everyone being able to express themselves in a way that had not been possible in the old DDR. However, she warned, there is a danger of creating a society where everyone has something angry to say, but nobody’s listening on anyone else. The answer is to feed the roots of civil society so that people can get together to refine and press their various points of view in ways that test them and engage with others who differ, rather than just sloganising resgardless, with everyone shouting past each other.

And for the first time in a very long time I realised I was near a politician who was enacting, only feet away, exactly principles of tolerance she had been commending in theory minutes before! Alignment! Gott sei Dank!

The Ascent of K[irchentag Day] 1

A smooth and easy journey across Europe, including a curried sausage in Köln! It's amazing how train connections in Northern Europe snap together to the minute over hundreds of miles, in a way they don't always in the UK. It’s also good to see the back of the Mrs Thatcher memorial slow patch on Eurostar.
I am deeply moved by the hospitality of ordinary people who open their homes to complete strangers for Kirchentag. My delightful and engaging host is a Roman Catholic, originally from the South, with a passionate interest in art and Thomas Merton. It’s really moving to be treated with a Benedictine warmth, hospitality and generosity. I’d like to think we’d do the same. I hope so.

I’m trying to develop my desperately bad German a bit, and this is certainly one way to do it. The main headline events are available in English, but how far my language skills are up to some of the more interesting but abstruse events here remains to be seen. This morning we meet in the International Centre to plan the campaign. The clever bit will be grabbing internet access and time to blog in a complex and fast-moving scene; so if nothing more is heard this week, that’s why.