Category Archives: Miserable Rotten Communist Overlords

Looking for a 21st century Luther

The Guardian headline calls East Germany the “most godless place on earth.” Really? Worse than North Korea? OK, so even the Christians don’t want God mentioned. In church. So even the tiny Muslim population considers a trip to Weimar a Hajj. But that just makes it ripe for a great revival!

[A]fter initial hostilities in the first years of the GDR, the SED [East Germans] came to a relatively comfortable accommodation with what was called the Church in Socialism. The churches in the GDR were given a high degree of autonomy by SED standards and indeed became the organisational focus of the dissident movement of the 1990s, which was to some extent led by Protestant pastors.

In addition to an accommodation with religion, the party also deliberately created alternative poles of integration for the population. Young people were brought up in a highly ideological atmosphere and were required to undergo a so-called Jugendweihe — a sort of atheist confirmation. Interestingly, this ceremony has survived the end of communism and many young people still voluntarily enter into it. Equally, especially under Eric Honecker in the 1970s and 80s, an attempt was made to create a sort of “GDR patriotism”, in which figures from Prussian history such as Frederick the Great were put back on their plinths in East Berlin and integrated into the Communist narrative of the forward march of history. Martin Luther, Thomas Münzer and other figures from the Reformation were also recruited into the party.

Luther and Münzer in one party? By what contortions of history and philosophy? Has no one tried to liberate the Great Reformer from his Marxist captivity?

Another factor is that religion in eastern Germany is also overwhelmingly Protestant, both historically and in contemporary terms. Of the 25% who do identify themselves as religious, 21% of them are Protestants. The other 4% is made up of a small number of Catholics as well as Muslims and adherents of other new evangelical groups, new-age sects or alternative religions. The Protestant church is in steep decline with twice as many people leaving it every year as joining.

And that is because … there is no such thing as a “Protestant” church. Never was. Never will be. There is the Lutheran Church. There is the Methodist Church. The Reformed Church. Et cetera. I’m sure they mean the state church, which is and has been for a very long time a doctrinal salad.

Oh, one more thing—an atheist confirmation? How does that go?

Do you as members of an accidental by-product of the Big Bang intend to continue steadfast in your pained expressions and quizzical demeanor, and avoid suffering, even tension headaches, rather than derive meaning from existence?”

“We do so intend, with the help of bad television.”

“Do you intend faithlessly to conform all your life to nonconformity, to remain open to new ideas so long as they exclude those who reject diversity, embrace life unless it is unwanted, dependent, or loud?

We do so intend, with the help of a morphine drip.

West Germany tells a different story, and that seems to be due to the fact that

there Catholics are in a majority and indeed, political power in West Germany has traditionally been built on western-orientated Catholic support for the Christian Democratic Union in the south and west.

Oh bruder. Well, there’s always Africa:

Christians now comprise 46.5% of the African population, with Muslims accounting for 40.5% and the remainder divided among traditional African faiths. Africans now represent 20% of the world’s Christian population, and current trends suggest that within a decade Africa will outstrip Europe and the Americas to become the continent with the world’s largest Christian population.

God’s purpose never fails. Socialism always does.

So a New York City Appeals Court ruling banning churches from renting space in NYC public schools for Sunday worship has been upheld by virtue of the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusing to hear the case.

“The Department was quite properly concerned about having any school in this diverse city identified with one particular religious belief or practice,” said Jane Gordon, senior counsel for the New York City Law Dept. “”The Court of Appeals correctly upheld the Department of Education’s policy not to allow the City’s public schools to be used as houses of worship.  This case has been litigated for 16 years, and we’re gratified that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear it.  We view this as a victory for the City’s school children and their families.”

The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case leaves in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the city’s policy.

The court case involved the Bronx Household of Faith – a church that paid weekly rent to hold worship services at a public school since 2002. The church, along with five dozen other congregations, was allowed to continue worshipping at public schools pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

It’s a sad day for religious liberty,” said Jordan Lorence, the church’s attorney and senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “Churches and religious other groups should be allowed to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups and they’re being denied that in New York City.”

You have to love this reasoning:

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that allowing churches to use schools resulted in an “unintended bias in favor of Christian religions” – since most Christian churches worship on Sunday.

“Jews and Muslims generally cannot use school facilities for their services because the facilities are often unavailable on the days that their religions principally prescribe for services,” Judge Pierre Leval declared.

Who knew Christians worshiped on Sunday, as opposed to Jews and Muslims? Amazing what you learn after 2,000 years.

Do you have any idea how many congregations use public school facilities on Sunday in New York City? For about ten years I sat in more public schools for Sunday worship than I did in traditional church buildings. Mainline churches are dying, many of them supporting paltry weekly attendance, yet vibrant evangelical congregations, which also provide aid to the homeless and needy regardless of religion, are now left homeless because they worship on Sunday. Redeemer Presbyterian rents Hunter College for two of its five services every Sunday. Will it have to move now? Does this ruling apply to public colleges as well as elementary and high schools?

And what about the income those schools get from the churches? Here was found money when the buildings were otherwise empty and dark. How stupid is this?

I think the real fear at work here has nothing to do with the “establishment” of a religious bias in favor of Christianity (puh-leeze) but that the continued and growing presence of Christianity in the halls of academia was depressing to those who keep waiting for the death of religion in favor of what a public school education has to offer. (crickets)

UPDATE: “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) won on Friday a permanent injunction in the 17-year legal battle involving the Bronx Household of Faith and the NYC Board of Education. Religious groups will now be allowed to meet freely for worship services in public school facilities.” For more, read here. Seventeen years in court facing down dimwits and bigots. Your tax money at work, New York . . .

Via @seancurnyn.