ArchiveEthics

Criminals and Murderers carve out a Career among God’s People

Christian forgiveness is so complete that in the Bible there are men and women with dark pasts who rise up to become premier role models and leaders. Paul writes to this effect in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Particular Role Models in the Faith and their Misdeeds, etc., prior to their Conversion to Faith in God or to their Calling

Rahab	Prostitute	Josua 2:1; 6:17.25; Hebrews 11:31
Moses	Murderer	Exodus 2:11-15; comp. 18:4
Simon (Disciple of Jesus)	Zealot = Violent Revolutionary	Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13
Zacchaeus	White Collar Criminal	Luke 19:2-10
Paul	Murderer, Violent Fanatic	Acts 9:1; 8:3; Galatians 1:13-14

Particular Role Models in the Faith and their Crimes, etc., prior to their Conversion to Faith in God or to their Calling

Noah	Naked and Drunk	Genesis 9:21-24
Jacob	Deceiver, Legacy Hunter	Genesis 27:36+12; comp. Deu-teronomy 27:18
David	Murderer and Adulterer	2 Samuel 11:2-12:5; Psalm 51, in part. verse 2
Peter	Cuts off the Ear of an Official, denies Jesus by swearing that he does not know Him	John 18:10+26; Mark 14:66-72; Matthew 26:69-75; Luke 22:56-62; John 18:15-18+25-27

Wrongdoings of other Members of God’s People, who are not necessarily to be considered Role Models

Levi	Murderer	Genesis 49:5-7
Lot	Commits Incest while drunk	Genesis 19:30-38
Rebecca	Deceiver	Genesis 27:12; comp. Deuteronomy 27:18
Judah	Prostitution, Incest	Genesis 38
Gideon	Seducer, innumerable Affairs with Women	Judges 8:22-33; comp. his Son in Judges 9
Samson	Desecrator of a Corpse, Drunk-enness, Rape, Concubinage	Judges 13-16; Hebrews 11:32
Couple in Corinth	Incest (with Stepmother)	1 Corinthians 5:1-2 (comp. Le-viticus 18:18); 2 Corinthians 2:5-11

What applies to severe sin in 1 Corinthians prior to conversion to faith in God even applies to severe sins which are committed by Christians. The best examples are the Christians in Corinth. They lived in incest (1 Corinthians 5:1-2) and prompted Paul, among other things, to write the first letter to the Corinthians so that they would be excluded and the second letter to the Corinthians so that they would be received again after repenting (2 Corinthians 2:5-11)! Paul confronts the church, which had just finally managed to draw conclusions and exclude the concerned individuals, with what had come to their mind, namely not to immediately accept those whom God has forgiven back into the church. Paul justifies the ‘forgiveness’ (verses 9-10) as follows: “I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. . . . in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes“ (verses 8, 11)!

Do people in our churches have similar backgrounds about which they can speak openly, either from before the time they became Christians or since they have been Christians? Or is something still hanging on there? Are we not often stricter than God, who has long since forgiven them?

There are a lot of women who are active in the right to life movement who in the past had an abortion. Now, after having received God’s forgiveness, they willingly help others and indeed warn others. They perform an important and ‘effective’ service. And yet many report that they do not receive support from their churches at all and rather that listeners are uncomfortably affected when they hear about their pasts.

Several theses underscore this:

1. Forgiveness is what defines the essence of Jesus‘ church. Even as forgiveness presupposes change of mind and deed, we have to forgive as Christ himself forgives. For this very reason the Lord’s Supper is a permanent mark of Jesus’ church.
2. The Church is a home for the homeless, since many people who experience fundamental changes in their lives lose their old home forever and often find a new one in Jesus‘ church. When Paul became a Christian, he lost all his old friends but unfortunately had trouble finding a new home in the church. This is due to the fact that many doubted this sudden change in Paul.
3. The special thing about the Christian faith is that an admission of guilt and forgiveness belong together. The admission of guilt does not lead to condemnation but rather to forgiveness. However, there is no forgiveness for concealing, trivializing, making excuses, blameshifting or sweeping things under the carpet, but rather for accepting responsibility and admitting one’s guilt. Forgiveness without confession is a cheap brushing aside, while confession without forgiveness is self-mutilation.
4. Self-criticism belongs to the essence of being a Christian. Christians are not better but they have it better. According to Luther, being a Christian means one beggar telling another beggar where there is something to eat. For this reason Christians do not gloss over their pasts before and after they convert to Christianity. Rather, they point out that they are only what they are through the grace of God. For instance, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:9-10: ´”For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

No religion knows self-criticism like Old Testament Judaism and New Testament Christianity. It does not matter whether this has always shaped its history or not. The errors of their most important leaders have been laid bare and all too often God has called upon outsiders to bring his people back to their senses. “In contrast to the Holy Scriptures of Mohammed, the Hebrew Bible is not a book but rather a library. It is a colorful tapestry of accounts which an entire people wove together over millennia. No misdeed on the part of the children of Israel is left out of this incomparable convolution. No wrongdoing by its greatest king is concealed. Paul Badde comments that “up to the New Testament one can look at each book of the Bible as an objection, contradiction or a critical commentary of its own earlier history.’ The result of this historical frankness is that since that time self-criticism in the Judeo-Christian world has counted as a virtue: it is a sign of strength and not an admission of weakness. In Islam it is different: a critique of one’s own history? Unthinkable, a blasphemy! It would pull the foundation out from under revelation. It would be an insult to the prophet. Therefore, it is the case that up until today in countries shaped by Islam there is neither freedom of speech nor debate in freely elected parliaments“ (the Jewish author Hannes Stein). There is no religion where the adherents of their own religion come away so badly as in the Old and New Testaments. The teaching that Jews and Christians are sinners and are capable of the worst deeds is something that is shown quite plainly in the Bible. In the Old Testament it is not the pagan peoples, nor is it the Romans and Greeks in the New Testament whose atrocities and fallacious outlooks stand in the center of things. Rather, it is the alleged or actual people of God. The Bible does not dispense belief and unbelief according to races or nations. For that reason pagans and unbelieving Jews are designated with the same words in both the Old and the New Testaments. Christianity itself becomes a heinous religion if it denies the true power of God (2 Timothy 3:5: “. . . having a form of godliness but denying its power”) or places human laws and commandments in the place of divine revelation (Mark 7:1-13; Isaiah 28:13-14). The Jews are for instance criticized because in studying the Bible they overlook the essence, namely Jesus (John 5:39). They strive after God, but they do so without following him (Romans 10: 2-3) and because they call upon God and his word but actually do not live according to it (Romans 2).

My book on internetpornography in Russian

My book on internetpornography (‘Internetpornografie’, SCM Hänssler, 2008) has been published in Russian.

Thomas Schirrmacher. Prawda o pornografii. übersetzt von I. W. Proswirjakowoj, Lek-torat W. S. Rjagusowa. Copyright: Ewangelskij aljans. Moskau: Wjatka, 2009. 224 S.

It is available in Russian internet book shops, eg:
(But as I do not know Russian, I better do not provide any links.)

• http://www.books.ru/shop/
• http://www.my-shop.ru/shop/books/510051.html
• http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4835068/

I am in discussion with another publisher to provide an edition in Western Europa.

• The cover is here.
• The back cover is here.
• The impressum is here.

Fostering Culture War 2.0

Why the Manhattan Declaration is correct

A statement for the Institute for Ethics and Values, Giessen

Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. theol. Thomas Schirrmacher

• The original pdf of the institute in English is here, the original German version on the institutes webpage is here.
• You can read the Manhattan Delaration here.

The so-called ‘culture war’ was a dispute between the Roman Catholic Church, under Pope Pius IX, and the Kingdom of Prussia and Imperial Germany, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, from 1871 to 1887. The intention was to drive back the public influence of the church with the aid of legislation. What was meant by the church was the Catholic Church. However, legislation touched all churches. Indeed, it even partially affects all religions in Germany up to the present day, inasmuch as regulations from that time still apply today.

In 1871 what stood at the beginning was the famous Kanzelparagraph (“Pulpit Paragraph”) which made a pastor liable for political or alleged political statements. What followed in 1872 was civil marriage – a marriage in the presence of religious officials was from that time on strictly forbidden (except as a belated celebration afterwards). Later, in 1875 there was the Brotkorbgesetz (“Breadbasket Law”), by which indirect financial support was systematically withdrawn from churches. Finally, all church schools were placed under rigorous state school supervision. In many other questions as well the churches were forced to play according to the rules of the state.

Many of the guidelines were in place for a long time or still apply today. The Kanzelparagraph was not lifted until 1953. It has only been since 2009 that a civil marriage does not have to precede a church marriage. In contrast to practically all other western countries, a religious marriage ceremony is not recognized in Germany as a legal act. And there has been no change in this situation up to the present day.

Bishops ended up in prison, and the state looked on astonishingly as a sleeping mass of nonpolitical Christians, in solidarity, suddenly became defiant. After a lot of unnecessary fuss had been caused, the State finally gave up. This State only held anyway until 1918.

Christian churches were indeed badly harmed in the culture war. At the same time, however, they in large part also experienced a revitalization – and in the end the State backed down. What happened was that the churches that were not the intended targets, especially the Evangelical churches, were affected more, while the actual goal of breaking churches’ international bonds was completely unsuccessful. The climate was poisoned for decades. Loyal citizens were forced to choose between their faith and the state, without there being anyone who actually profited from this.

There have repeatedly been similar culture wars. National Socialism was not opposed to the churches as long as they conformed to the party line in a streamlined manner and helped make soldiers good soldiers. The GDR (German Democratic Republic) wanted socialistic and controllable churches. Practically all western countries have gone through similar phases from time to time. In the USA the culture war has crept along for almost 30 years, and that has finally led to the Manhattan Declaration.
Naturally there are differences between then and now. The political power of the Catholic Church was at that time much greater. Additionally, we in the West live in established democracies.

It is therefore all the more astonishing just how many powers there are today who in peaceful societies are organizing and pursuing a new edition of the culture war, “Culture War 2.0,”over against today’s peaceful churches. Great Britain is a forerunner in this respect. Bishops in The Church of England – where ironically we are still speaking about the state religion – are paying horrendous penalties for preaching on the topic of sexuality and are being forced to attend anti-discrimination seminars. All Catholic adoption service centers have been closed, because they were being forced to also broker to same-sex couples. Furthermore, increasingly often Christians are removed from their positions of service to the state because, for instance, they wear a cross.

Abortion, bioethics, sexuality, marriage, family, gender mainstreaming – the list of topics used to try and force the church to think and act like ‘published’ opinion gets longer all the time (this is because the ‘public’ opinion of the majority of people is not always on their side, and these people are not even necessarily interested in the opinion of the majority).

Christians are called upon to no longer consider that what others do is wrong. They should put their ethics ad acta. This does not mean they are to move in favor of an absence of ethics nor in favor of a free set of ethics held at their own discretion. Rather, it is supposed to be the ethics of those who are heading up the culture war. The churches should either practice others’ ethics in the midst of those same people, or otherwise be completely pushed out of public life.

For instance, this becomes clear when looking at the subject of religious education. The city of Berlin portrays the situation as if it does not have to do with getting rid of religious education. Rather, it is a question of enforcing the compulsory attendance of all children in state worldview ‘ethics’ instruction. In school life the constitutional right of parents to have their children educated in line with their religion has not played a role for a long time. And there is an unbroken trend that expects Christians, just like everyone else, to see to it that they place their children in state or state-financed nurseries from very early age. Along these same lines, everyone who takes care of his child at home is suspected of being asocial.

Surely history does not repeat itself; however, one can learn from it. The parallels are striking: in the Western world the means of persecuting Christians and the means of religious oppression are law and legislation, which are the same means then as now. New screws are repeatedly turned, whereby the state seeks to force Christians into certain behavior without having to utilize open force. It certainly has been force, but due to the fact that it has been state force, it appears legitimate.
The dispute in Germany, in Europe, and indeed in the entire Western world is about as useful as a hole in the head. It is not the churches in Germany or Europe who are guilty of social strife or from which discrimination and violence towards others originate.

The European Union stands before enormous tasks. Still, instead of fighting unemployment and racism, legislation goes grazing where churches as religious groups have alleged special rights. Religious freedom, no thank you!? Churches’ rights to self-determination according to §140 of the German Constitution, but how? Every church should see to it that they submit to the direct grasp of the state the same way every company does. A creditor with qualms of conscience? They will not buckle until the pressure is strong enough.

The EU, or more precisely certain political powers in the EU, want to force Christian churches to their knees. Not, for instance, the clearly politically based claim to power from emergent Islam. And not the Islamistic minority, which unashamedly utilizes violence and against which one moves astonishingly meekly, leaving critics’ lives difficult through the multiple millions spent against Islamophobia. No, it is the Christian churches, who in the countries of the EU significantly back the state, who support democracy, and who enrich civil societies. The churches, who contributed to bringing about the thought of a peaceful Europe and helped bring about the founders of a peaceful Europe – one only has to think about the European originator Robert Schumann.

It does not matter which particular topic we are dealing with. Many a Christian and many a church would rather prefer to dodge various topics. Many topics are too much of a bother to them. Additionally, they do not understand why many topics are so important to other Christians. However, all of them will not be able to avoid the basic question in the long run. The one or the other church, the one or the other theologian may not look so narrow-minded in the public for a longer period of time  – but in the end it will affect everyone.

I am not writing all of this in an agitated and dramatic state of mind. The Christian churches survived Rome’s hostility and downfall, as it did National Socialism, Stalinism, Maoism, and many less brutal challenges. Most Christians in the world wish that they had the freedoms Christians have in the West. The world changes continually, and due to that there are always new, unexpected challenges. Taken on the whole, pressure from outside has not harmed the global expansion of the message of freedom with God through Jesus Christ – on the contrary, the churches growing most strongly around the world are those under pressure.

However, that changes nothing about the fact that this new test of strength is real. Societal forces in the West abuse the state in order to force churches to their knees and to ethically streamline them into conformity with their worldview. The state becomes the prey of a worldview which then oppresses its supposed opponents.

This will bestow many triumphs upon the state, especially if the churches react completely peacefully. However, it will significantly damage society to place citizens in unnecessary dilemmas and throw democracy out of kilter by gagging people. In the end it will only strengthen the Christian faith and reduce compliance with ‘the powers that be.’

In this same connection one finds the family, all too often declared dead and presented as obsolete. It will be shown that the family is not just a random event that has existed for thousands of years, and also not just a random event that has existed much longer than the countries in which we live.

The state increasingly exacts resistance from Christians against a state which they actually endorse and indeed often love. Still, if they are completely and unnecessarily placed before the choice, they will increasingly, and more decidedly, say what Peter and John said: “We must obey God rather than men.” As a Christian, one often has to and wants to obey people. The state is desired by God for the purposes of peaceful coexistence. However, an individual has to obey God more if the state places that individual before a choice. Imprisonment should have restrained Peter and John from speaking publicly about Jesus. Those in power who decided to follow this course of action have long since been forgotten, while the message of Jesus is being proclaimed more than ever. This often occurs under the pleasant protection of religious freedom, but more often in spite of governmental bans or societal threats.

All of this could end bitterly. I do not mean thereby that a fear that Christians will become violent is validated. Churches have a lot of practice in non-violent resistance – against the abandonment of children in Roman times, against slavery in the 18th century, against apartheid in South Africa, against the breakup of the family, and against the suppression of religious education in the Soviet Union. However, a climate is being produced in which, on the one hand, there is an increasing amount of badgering from the sides of the media and the law in which significant attention is taken away from the true problems of our society. Bismarck’s state lasted until 1918. The chances our states and democracies have for survival are surely much greater with the churches than against them.

My call goes out to politicians: Do not participate in the emerging culture war 2.0! Turn your attention to the true problems we have!

My call goes out to judges: Stop the sprawling culture war 2.0 by doing what you can within your legal bounds, through sound judgment and peaceful solutions.

My call goes out to the media: Do not participate in the badgering that evokes social strife, but rather report on religious issues and about minorities of all kinds in a conciliatory manner, democratically and fairly. And let those involved have their say instead of ostracizing them.

My call goes out to the churches, free churches and various Christian communities: Grapple soberly with upcoming developments and lift up your voice. Do not let yourselves be divided because you place different accents on one or the other ethical question, but look rather at the entire picture. Whoever is silent today will himself tomorrow be a target. In the words of Ulrich Parzany, I also say: “Stand up if you are Christians!”

My call goes out to everyone: In the name of a peaceful and democratic society, I ask you to end the emerging culture war 2.0 and not to continually turn the legal screws which inhibit churches’ leeway.

Western Christianity has in large part assimilated to Western culture to the point of almost abandoning itself. A point has been reached where no more is possible without at the same time giving up the Christian faith. Whoever in spite of this wants to force such a situation, may even do Christianity a service, because followers will have to ask themselves anew just what their faith in God actually means in everyday life and how much their faith is worth to them.

The Manhattan Declaration ends poignantly: “We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

That is not a threat – that is not what we as Christians are lining up for. It is simply a declaration. And that we mean it seriously has been sufficiently demonstrated in history.

Evangelicals and Ethics

The following article was published by the German magazine ‘idea’ as part of a series of essay “Evangelicals – who they really are”and has been translated by Dr. Richard McClary (Nuremberg)

(idea) Evangelicals represent the largest movement within Christianity after the Roman Catholic Church. Worldwide counts are that around 460 million Christians are included in the total of theological conservatives, the majority of which are members of Protestant national churches or free churches. In recent months the German press has for the most part published critical reports about Evangelicals. idea has asked well-known personalities in Germany to describe Evangelical theology and devoutness from their point of view. Prof. Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher, Rector of the Martin Bucer Seminary and one of the best-known Evangelical ethicists in Germany, reacts against a one-sided view of Evangelical ethics in the public sphere.

A Caricature

When the Green Party politician Volker Beck started a socalled ‘small inquiry’ in the German federal parlament into the ‘Christival’, a large evangelical youth convention, because of supposed workshops against abortion and homosexuality, one could have gotten the impression that Evangelicals are above all against abortion and practicing homosexuality. As a matter of fact, it had been a few years earlier that the then president of the Gnadauer Association, Kurt Heimbucher, in making reference to the large number of state assisted abortions, refused receipt of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Aside from that, Evangelicals have at all times been against practicing homosexuality. But does being pro-family and pro-child, and being against any sort of premarital sex actually capture the ethics of the almost 500 million Evangelicals around the world?

The reality looks different. Such a one-sided picture of Evangelicals overlooks that it was the Evangelicals who brought about the first movement against slavery in England and in the USA. It was in this connection that the term ‘Evangelical‘ was even first used in England. Such caricatures overlook that Evangelicals were at the forefront in the fight against racism, for example in India, and that at a time when most churches still celebrated the Lord’s Supper separated according to caste. It overlooks that a conservative Evangelical theologian such as Peter Beyerhaus and a youth movement such as the ‘Young Christians’ Offensive’ (Offensive Junger Christen, or OJC) were massively engaged against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s even though they rejected all violent forms of overthrowing the practice. A one-sided picture completely overlooks that in the 19^th century the Evangelical Alliance was the first large religious movement worldwide that called for the right to freedom of religion, long before the large churches did this. In this connection they sent delegations to the Turkish Sultan and to the Russian Czar as well as to the rulers of their home countries.

Do the caricatures arouse the idea that the founder of the West German Evangelical Alliance (Westdeutsche Evangelische Allianz), Theodor Christlieb, took steps around the world against the devastating and so-called Indo-British opium trade between India and China, which included action all the way up to the British Parliament? Does one know that in a spectacular manner Christlieb had German and French Christians hug during the Franco-Prussian War and pleaded for peace, something that was decried as treason back at home? Does anyone have a clue that Evangelicals have always and up until today respectfully but critically opposed the state – and not just since abortion, pornography and homosexuality have been liberalized? Does the caricature explain why the UN General Secretary recently praised the ‘Micah Initiative’ of the global alliance in New York, because it belongs to the largest supporters of the UN program to halve poverty and mobilize enormous efforts against poverty around the world – aside from gigantic and respected aid organizations such as World Vision?

Ethics as Sanctification

For starters, ethics for Evangelicals is – in the good tradition of pietism and the movements of awakening, but also in the tradition of reformed and charismatic awakenings – ‘sanctification.’ Ethics means first of all that God in Christ forgives every sinner und that every individual can start a new life. For Evangelicals, ethics also means that every Christian sins and for that reason has to struggle for sanctification. Sanctification cannot be lived out of oneself; rather, every individual Christian lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. On account of this, every Evangelical ethic begins with self-critique, with the awareness that every Christian can think and act wrongly, and that only God can change something about that.

The connection between ethics and sanctification is demonstrated in the German Evangelical Alliance’s 1972 confession of faith. It confesses “the divine inspiration of the Holy Scripture, their complete reliability, and highest authority in all questions of faith. . .” It continues this sentence, however, by supplementing: “. . . and in the way life is conducted.” The relationship to the Bible, which bears the testimony of Christ to us, comes to a head in life as it is lived out, as is stated in the central verses II Timothy 3:16-17. Furthermore, the confession refers “to the work of the Holy Spirit, which effects conversion and new birth in an individual, lives in the believer, and enables the believer to experience sanctification.”

Therefore, for Evangelicals ethical action is an expression of their existence as Christians. It has to do with a ‘life of sanctification” by the Holy Spirit through the gracious action of God and his Spirit.

Evangelicals‘ Social Ethics

In addition to personal ethics, Evangelicals’ social ethics are above all demonstrated in the topics of marriage and family as well as in work with children and youth. Starting from that point, the other fields of social ethics are defined. For this reason, Evangelicals always view the fight against poverty to mean a fight against family poverty and the neglect of women and children. The Bible calls for this all too clearly.

The free church element attracts attention to itself by emphasizing the right of children to freely choose when to be baptized and become members, a precondition of religious freedom. It also shapes the equal rights of lay people, which led early on to a situation among Evangelicals where women were active as missionaries and social reformers, and where locals were able to advance to positions as church leaders earlier than in other Western missionary organizations. The Evangelical movement feeds on pacifist and Baptist churches as well as on the rather state-supporting theology of Reformed churches.

A load-bearing element of the Evangelical social ethic is readily overlooked: the belief that conversion and awakening sets free enormous powers for change. Work around the world among alcoholics (e.g., the Blue Cross [das Blaue Kreuz]), drug addicts (e.g., Teen Challenge), and among inmates (e.g., the Black Cross [das Schwarze Kreuz], or Prison Fellowship International, the latter having been started by the Nixon advisor Charles Colson after his release from prison – Colson had been convicted for his ‘Watergate’ involvement) makes it clear that every Saul – a murderer – can become a Paul.

Evangelicals on the Right and Left

The Evangelical movement feeds on many roots, and today it has enormous bandwidth. The reason for this lies in the fact that the priesthood of all believers and the reticence against centralized church structures are central elements found among Evangelicals. US Presidents Jimmy Carter und George W. Bush were personally shaped by experiences of Evangelical awakenings, and yet their politics could not have been more different.

Recently in Welt Till Stoldt alluded to the fact that there are not only Evangelicals who are right-leaning, but rather that there are ‘left-leaning’ Evangelicals who are, for instance, against the military and big business. This mirrors the worldwide situation, where one has important state-supporting Evangelical ethicists such as Wayne Grudem, Ken Gnanakan, P. Netha, and Mario Aviles. On the other side there are important ‘Evangelical liberation theologians’ such as Ron Sider, René Padilla, and Samuel Escobar.

This also applies similarly to Germany. The leading Evangelical Evangelist Ulrich Parzany was known as the leader of ‘left-leaning Evangelical’ Weigel House in Essen, Germany through the ‘spiritual double-track’ resolution. This was a step taken against NATO’s double-track resolution regarding the stationing medium range ballistic missiles in Germany. On the other hand, other Evangelicals were completely in line with the government’s actions and called for an arms build-up.

Another example also demonstrates the diversity of the movement: for many Evangelicals Evangelical private schools or even homeschooling is indispensible, while others become strongly involved with the idea of a Christian presence in state schools. On this issue no consensus is in sight.

In addition to the many Evangelical ethicists coming out of the tradition of Reformed churches – today, for example, coming out of Korea and South Africa – there are also ‘dispensational ethicists’ – nowadays coming out of Canada and India, for instance. However, if one compares my writings on ethics, which are based on Reformed and early church approaches, with those of Horst Afflerbach, who teaches at the leading Brethren church training center in Wiedenest, one will find in many areas a large amount of agreement.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The ethical strength of the worldwide Evangelical movement is solidarity exercised upon a common basis. It has a strong ability to mobilize, which originates with personal relationships. It is unmistakably active, and so much so, that intellectual reflection regarding it occasionally tends to take a back seat.

There are also weaknesses. Participants in the Evangelical movement conduct too little discourse among themselves – it has only been for only about two years that ethicists, for instance, who teach at Evangelical training centers in German-speaking Europe, have been meeting to conduct annual exchanges at the Institute for Ethics and Values in Gießen, Germany. Specifically in light of the large denominational spectrum among Evangelicals, what is called for is that everyone not behave as though they alone read the Bible correctly, but rather that an open and honest conversation occurs.

With the exception of the USA, there is practically nothing invested in true research. Think tanks such as the International Institute for Religious Freedom or the Institute for Life and Family Sciences both date from recent times. There are still too many Evangelicals who oppose any kind of societal involvement whatsoever. The teaching of the ‘prosperity gospel’ has disastrous repercussions on ethical questions such as the fight against poverty or how to address crises.

Only in recent times has there been any success in what shaped the Evangelical Alliance in the 19^th century: to participate in the creation of an international Christian ethic, for instance, through the ‘Micah Initiative’ of the World Evangelical Alliance or through the common formulation of an ethical codex for missions and human rights together with the World Council of Churches and the Vatican.

In terms of publishing there also remains much to do in Germany. At Hänssler Publishing a ‘short and sweet’ series has been released that covers societal topics such as the new lower class, climate change, the Sharia, the multi-cultural society, and eating disorders. At Brunnen Publishing the first volumes in an ‘Ethics and Values’ series have been released. Ethical handbooks authored by Georg Huntemann, Klaus Bockmühl, Horst Afflerbach, and Helmut Burkhardt can be mentioned, yet still too little has been done. In addition, there are a number of topics where there is a need to catch up, for instance in the areas of medical ethics, terminal care, or the abuse of religious power.

In summary, Evangelical ethics cannot be considered exhausted by the topics of abortion and homosexuality. On the contrary, Evangelicals, in their diversity and dissimilarity, have demonstrated a high level of societal involvement at all times. For them, faith in Christ is inseparably connected with ‘right action.’ What is missing is critical reflection and intellectual penetration with respect to ethics. However, the first steps have been taken. Therefore, one can hope that Evangelicals‘ ethical concerns will be presented by the press in a more differentiated manner in the future.

Evangelicals against Racism

This is a translation of a German news article by A. Wirth written for ProKompakt on the publication of my book „Rassismus“, see here, see the German original here: proKOMPAKT 28/2009 pp. 17–18. An English translation of the book is underway.

With his new book „Racism“, the Evangelical scholar and author Thomas Schirrmacher wants to do away with prejudices – this is something which is still important nowadays. Furthermore, Schirrmacher is convinced: Evangelicals have always vehemently fought against racism.

The core of racism, writes Schirrmacher, is “what is different in the other person” and the belief that this otherness makes people superior or inferior. Nevertheless, in reading his work it quickly becomes clear: Racism is, from a biological point of view, nonsense. The results of modern genetics have unobjectionably demonstrated that there are no different human races, and rather that there is only one species of mankind.” Schirrmacher also justifies this position biblically with the aid of the Epistle of James in the New Testament, saying that even proven differences between human races express nothing about the equal dignity everyone has.

In this passage we find the following “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.” In the United Nations charter the following is stated and holds to Christian tradition: “All human beings belong to a single species and are descended from a common stock. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form an integral part of humanity.”

Evangelicals called for the Abolition of Slavery

In conversation with the Christian media magazine pro, the author empahsized the positive connection between the fight against racism and the Evangelical movement: “Evangelical revivalism was significantly involved in bringing an end to slavery. It was at this point that the designation Evangelicals came about in the first place. This applies to the legal abolishment of slavery in Great Britain as well as to the anti-slavery movement in the USA. Among Evangelicals in general, free church Quakers and Methodists, for instance, played a central role in the anti-slavery movement in the USA. Best known in this connection is the Evangelical classic, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In my book I quote a historian who shows that racism had much better chances in France and Germany, because there are hardly any Evangelicals there. In India William Carey, a British missionary and language researcher whom many view as the father of Evangelicals, fought racism found in Christian churches in India under the caste system in the 18^th century.”

Nowadays the internationalization of the Evangelical movement means that racism does not have a chance, says Schirrmacher. “In my Evangelical environment, from the time I was small, there were Indonesians, Kenyans and Latin Americans whom I got to know as role models, so racism was obsolete before I got to know about it on the school playground. Additionally, the World Evangelical Alliance has repeatedly and clearly taken a position against all forms of racism,” says Schirrmacher. “As far as the present is concerned, I really would not know where racism could be expected to find a home in Evangelical churches. For a long time now we have been used to reading books from all over the world, taking the foremost spiritual leaders from all cultures as role models and welcoming people of all cultures and ethnic groups. Since the majority of the Evangelical movement stems from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, they set the tone in many committees.”

And what about North America, we ask the German professor of the sociology of religion? “The Evangelical movement in the USA”, he say, “is often criticized for having right-wing leanings. But at the same time a lot of people forget that there are not only ‘white’ Evangelicals. Rather, a lot of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians are Evangelicals. Unfortunately, in the USA there is a broad right-wing spectrum that says America is white, English-speaking, and Christian. That has little to do with Christian churches.”

Schirrmacher primarily wrote his book in order to provide enlightenment about racism. This is something that is still important to do today. “First of all, racism is such a seriously mistaken position that there simply cannot be enough written against it. However, you would really be astonished at how few books in the German book market there are on racism. And most of them are very technical, very specialized, and hardly understandable for the man on the street.”

Against ‘Blacks,’ Jews and ‘Gypsies’

In his book the theologian writes about three “types of racism that are the most internationally widespread and can be tracked over the course of many centuries.” They are directed against the co-called ‘blacks’ or people with darker skin color, against Jews, and against so-called ‘gypsies,’ which is to say against Sintis and Romanies. Schirrmacher has determined that it is simply nonsense to speak of ‘racist differences.’ If anyone in Central Europe wants to speak of some sort of race that is in any way stable after all the ‘racial mixing’ that took place in the Roman Empire, subsequent migrations, campaigns of conquest from every direction, the invasion of Asian troops on horseback, and immigration from all over the world, then the only explanation is that the wish is father to the thought and the modern nation state would like to have a biological, religious, or other type of fixed anchoring for its citizens. Studies of Y-chromosomes suggest that the people of Europe have no identifiable origin, but that they all go back to repeatedly new waves of immigration from all different directions.

Thomas Schirrmacher is the head of the Martin Bucer Seminary, a Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the State University of Oradea in Romania, and the Director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s International Institute for Religious Freedom. He received his doctorate in 1985 in Ecumenical Theology in the Netherlands, in 1989 in Cultural Anthropology in Los Angeles and in 2007 in Comparative Religious Studies at the University of Bonn. He has released other works relating to the topic at hand, most recently The Multicultural Society and Hitler’s Religion of War.

Hope founded on Salvation – A Bible Study by the Pope

In his third year as Pope, Benedict XVI set forth his second encyclical “Spe Salvi.”, published 30^th of November, 2007 (www.vatican.va) Traditionally, the first two Latin words of an encyclical provide the topic of the encyclical, and in this case it means “in this hope we are saved,” which is a quote from Paul’s Letter to the Romans (8:24). In 50 numbered sections the Pope unfolds a Biblical teaching on hope.

From numerous New Testament texts the Pope demonstrates that hope is a central component of faith and that people without God are people without a sustainable hope. He expends considerable time on New Testament texts which say that hope does not rest upon an internal subjective attitude, but rather on objective facts. He just as soundly highlights that hope and salvation in the New Testament are not to be understood purely individualistically. It is rather the case that Christians in community with Christ and as God’s people have hope.

Subsequently, the Pope delineated between the Christian understanding of hope and the subjective conception of hope of the French Revolution, of industrial optimism, of Marxism, and of Humanism and calls for a long overdue ‘self-criticism of modern times.’ “It is not science that saves mankind. Mankind will be saved by love.” (12) Prayer and undergoing suffering belong to the practice of a belief in hope, to which the moralism of atheism and of progress ideologies has no answers.

The encyclical will supposedly not be counted as one of the great encyclicals that will still be quoted one hundred years from now. This is due to the fact that the encyclical neither announces a surprising change within the Catholic Church, nor does it take a stance with respect to a highly controversial topic. Calmly and matter-of-factly it refers to the large difference between Christian hope and the missing or illusory and worldly hope of Western ideas of progress. It highlights that Christian hope is only thinkable because there is salvation in Christ and because there are transcendent linchpins beyond earthly time, such as the final judgment, salvation, and eternal life.

However, in another aspect the encyclical contrasts to earlier encyclicals, namely through its strong concentration on the interpretation of New Testament texts and the practical absence of typical Catholic points of view. The encyclical has this in common with the book the Pope wrote about Jesus, although the book was published expressly as private remarks. This time, however, the encyclical is a doctrinal document.

In the first 47 paragraphs of the encyclical there is no statement that would be conspicuous were it to be heard coming from an Evangelical pulpit. In Pope Johannes Paul II’s encyclicals it was exactly the opposite. One could find almost no sentence where Mary, the salvific role of the church, or another Catholic feature was not mentioned. In paragraph 48 prayers for the dead are briefly mentioned. Maria is not appealed to until the final paragraphs 49-50. And whoever reads this long address to Maria will astonishingly determine that it consists practically of a compilation of New Testament statements about Maria and Jesus. A teaching about Maria that is particularly Catholic is not mentioned. The final paragraphs also seem to indicate that the curia required their inclusion so that the encyclical would not sound completely un-Catholic.

(The systematic theologian and religious sociologist Prof. Thomas Schirrmacher has authored numerous books regarding Catholic teaching as well as the book Hope for Europe.)