This week’s edition of Die Zeit is fronted by a picture of a large twin-towered German church sinking under the waves of modernity. The huge banner headline reads: ‘Ist die Kirche noch zu retten (Can the church still be saved)?’ The sub-text asks: ‘How Christianity is struggling for survival in modern society’ and promises an interview with the elderly Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng.
The church in central (Germanic) Europe is undoubtedly going through interesting times. This has (in my humble opinion) much to do with the rapid changes in receipts from Church Tax and a wrestling with the cultural and missional implications of such changes. If ‘membership’ of your church is denominational and your tax payments buy you your baptism, wedding and funeral, to what extent are evangelism or other elements of mission perceived as necessary or urgent?
Of course, this isn’t the whole story. The Church Tax in Germany has enabled the church to provide amazing (and amazingly high-quality) social provision for children, young people, elderly and sick people. It’s reach has gone beyond the limits of ‘what is good for the interests of the church itself’ and seen care of society as it’s remit. Few would talk this down.
But the world has changed, fewer people attend the churches and the taxes a reducing. rather than simply ignore this, the EKD under Bishop Wolfgang Huber bravely launched a decade of reform leading to the 500th anniversary of the launch of the Reformation in 1517. But even this wasn’t a desperate measure. It was a measured response to change – something churches have to do in every generation.
And I am writing this in Basel where we are staying with friends and looking forward to an ecumenical festival across the city tomorrow. Here the situation is similar to that in Germany. Church buildings have been converted for other (mainly cultural) uses. And therein lies my problem with the Zeit assumption that the church is preoccupied with it’s own survival. Die Zeit is asking the wrong question.
Of course, the church’s role in society has changed, is changing and always will keep changing. Yes, the Christendom model is dead and there is a need for reform in many respects; but this is not primarily for the sake of the survival of an institution. Dietrich Bonhoeffer got it right when he wrote:
“Jesus ruft nicht zu einer neuen Religion auf, sondern zum Leben. (Jesus doesn’t call us to a new religion, but to life itself)” (Gedicht an Eberhard Bethge, Tegel, 18 Juli 1944 – Das Ausserordentliche wird Erreignis: Kreuz und Auferstehung, S.63)
The survival of the church is not the end to which the church aspires. But elements of all churches – in England as well as Europe – need to recover the vision for which they exist in the first place: to be a reflection of the Jesus we read about in the gospels for the sake of the world we live in now.
Now, there are those in England who like to think (in a rather uncommitted liberal way) that if we could only shake off the institution of the church, we could create a new way of being church without all the stuff we find embarrassing or shaming. I recognise that what I am about to say goes wholly against the grain of the self-fulfilment, instant-gratification culture we now inhabit, but such attitudes are naive. They ignore the massive achievements of the church in our cultures – intellectually, socially, educationally, politically, morally, etc. – and collude in the selective memory that encourages costless fantasy.
The Christian Church, in the UK as well as here in Switzerland and Germany, needs to recover confidence in the church itself and the vocation of the church to serve its society. Show me what difference the National Secular Society or the British Humanist Association makes to local communities in every corner of the country. Show me how those Christians who want to re-invent church in terms of like-minded people joining together to re-write theology in their own convenient image change one iota of their local community for the better. If you want to do that, you need buildings, people and organisation, vision, commitment and enormous patience. All things the organised church has and uses for the sake of the society around them. The organised church has a unique vocation and needs its people to start having confidence in it again – not for its own sake, but for the sake of those it serves.
So, survival of the church is not our task. Shaping the church to better be able to serve our communities in the name (that is, according to the character of) Jesus Christ is the challenge. It isn’t an easy one, but it is more interesting and exciting than simply trying to keep an institution afloat. Or, as Stephan Schaede, Director of Evangelische Akademie in Loccum puts it (in the Zeit article):
Church is interesting for society if it says what sort of a society it expects – rather than asks how it can fit into society.</
Ps. I just discovered that the headline in Die Zeit is actually the title of Hans Küng's new book!
Nick Baines's Blog 
May 29, 2011 at 8:26 am
There’s another side to this story, please see here: http://www.concordatwatch.eu/showtopic.php?org_id=858&kb_header_id=2901
May 29, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Well a good start would be if the Church was as committed to human rights and equality as society and ended its opt-out on these aspects of law (the only public body to have this opt-out, shamefully). A church which is less just than the society around it hasn’t a chance, and deserves to decline. The church needs to get its act together before it can lecture anyone else on what society should be like.
May 29, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Jerry, this is hardly ‘in depth’ – more anecdotal. It says nothing about what provision would have been made without the involvement and commitment of the churches. Where I do agree is that the reduction in church tax payments is forcing many changes in how the churches operate; but I still look in vain for the organised commitment of any of the ‘groups’ who point the finger of accusation but never lift a finger to do what the churches do. It will be interesting to see in the future which motivations lead to effective service – particularly of those poorer or more vulnerable members of our societies.
May 29, 2011 at 4:01 pm
sjh, please spell out which ‘aspects of law’ you refer to. I suspect this is about sexuality again. Do you think the church is bound simply to conform to whatever society happens to ‘think’ at any one time? (I am asking that in terms of principle, not the specifics.)
May 29, 2011 at 4:06 pm
You say: “If you want to do that [help society], you need buildings, people and organisation, vision, commitment and enormous patience. ”
I don’t agree. What building did Christ of the first church have? What organisation? If you look at the history of revival and mass social agenda change in the last 100 years, it seems that most of these have come as a result of people who had passion, vision and single-mindedness – but not buildings, organisations etc.
In my limited experience, the moment that the church begins to gather to itself the trappings of the society in which it lives it begins to have to divert energy away from mission and social action towards the upkeep of buildings and institutions. Would the world be a worse place if the buildings and organisations of the church vanished? I don’t think so. Would the world be a worse place if people stopped trying to be more like Jesus? Yes, most definitely. Perhaps we should look to place out time, resources and commitment there?
May 29, 2011 at 4:10 pm
The NSS and the BHA are campaigning organisations, not welfare groups. They never suggested that they would carry out welfare work, any more than Amnesty or Liberty do. But many of their members are volunteers in welfare organisations and those that serve the community. Christians aren’t the only people with a conscience, even if they’re the ones who most like to keep boasting about their good works.
May 29, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Bryan, every church that tries to do away with stuff like buildings eventually ends up realising that stuff is needed to do what you ask for in the name of Jesus. Of course, buildings without people achieve nothing, but, to get anything done on any scale usually involves visionaries (who then move on to their next vision) and the others who make the vision a reality… by doing the ‘plumbing’ with stuff. Visionaries show where to go – others make it happen (usually).
May 29, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Jerry, I didn’t say that Christians are the only ones with a conscience. But the motivation to organise welfare in the first place is different from the motivation to join in. As for boasting, I hear little boasting and not nearly enough confident telling of good stories by Christians. The bad stories dominate.
May 29, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Nick, I suppose it depends on what we are trying to do? In the great commission Christ set forth our mandate as the church, to: make disciples, baptise and preach. Do we need buildings for any of that? Also, it seems that Jesus went to where people were and ministered to them right there rather than asking them to come to him in his newly constructed ‘ministry centre’. I am not at all against buildings, but don’t you find that they and the institutions that surround them can be and frequently are a distraction from the essential message of the gospel? I suppose some of this hinges on the fact that the church in general seems to see its mission as that of social action – whereas it seems to me from scripture that the mission of the church is to introduce people to Jesus (which involves being like Him which involves the Matt 25 stuff). I will think about what you have said though. Thanks.
May 29, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Bryan, The Commission has to be worked out in more than a private spirituality sense. Discipleship has to be earthed (which is inevitable, given that Jesus opted into the stuff of the world and didn’t exempt himself from it). And working this out needs what I am calling ‘stuff’. The stuff has to be used – and can become an end rather than a means to the end – but we can’t not pay attention to it or avoid the cost of it.
May 29, 2011 at 4:44 pm
As far as I understand it, Nick, e churh opted out of human rights and equality laws specifically in order to be able to discriminate on the basis of gender and sexuality. The church chose this fight not the other way round. It leaves it looking unjust and therefore for many people who may want to help society the church is not the place to do it. But it also reveals a mentality which says, we are above the law and will join in in society only on our own terms.
May 29, 2011 at 4:48 pm
I totally agree that it has to be more than ‘private spirituality’ – but I can preach, teach, baptise and make disciples in community without a church building.
It seems that what you are saying is that in order to carry out our mission to the world we need ‘tools’ – and that these tools can be buildings, institutions etc. Further, you are saying that in order to really ‘count the cost’ and be effective, that we need to be aware of the tools we need and make provision for this. Have I understood you correctly?
May 29, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Nick
You say “Of course, the church’s role in society has changed, is changing and always will keep changing” and yet you seem to be suggesting that this cannot include changing church structures or doing away with church buildings. While I agree that these have their uses & benefits, I don’t see why they are mandatory as you seem to be suggesting.
May 30, 2011 at 9:01 am
[…] Bishop Nick Baines – The Wrong Question […]
May 30, 2011 at 10:23 am
Thanks, Nick, for a very sharp analysis of the real world impact of the Church, and the reminder of Bonhoeffer’s perspective. The bhs and nss make great play of only being campaigning organisations, with no core mission to do anything else — but thereby hangs the tale in itself. So their mission is to throw bricks through stained glass windows, but with no interest or capacity in building or glazing. The only serious attempts last century to build a secularist (rather than secular) society ended in terrible places.
I do, however, agree with sjh. The Incarnation is core to the Christian vision, and makes it simply inadequate for Christians to set Christianity against its surrounding culture tout simple. If the Church is called to a lower standard of justice than everyone else (a rather surprising notion) there needs to be some explanation as to why, that stacks up in Christian terms, not just inertia and a vague feeling it’s alternative to be like that.
May 30, 2011 at 10:25 am
As well as worshipping in a 1000 year old church, I am a trustee of a totally building free Fresh Expression, which is growing at a phenomenal rate. No we do not “need” buildings but I would suggest a simple comparison between the still, reflective and beautiful worship space always free for private use where we will give thanks for a friend who died last night and the souless secular sausage machine which is our town’s crematorium. The church building is a place of healing and renewal, the crem is part of the waste disposal site it adjoins.
No, buildings are not strictly necessary, but they are a wonderful place to introduce man to God, as well as neighbour to neighbour.
May 30, 2011 at 3:56 pm
We must all remember that the earthly works of the Church are, and shall always be, guided by the Spirit of Christ. These works are a result of prayer and patience. No other human enterprise shall ever have the same power or purpose.
May 31, 2011 at 5:49 am
I tried to find the article you referred to, but all I got was a church with one tower, floating on a boat: ZEIT-Umfrage: Wissen, woran Sachsen glauben | Gesellschaft | ZEIT ONLINE.
I find what sjh says interesting in the light of the mention of Bonhoeffer — should the church in Germany have joined Nazi society on the Nazi society’s terms?
If the church simply reflects society, with its current fashions and current values, the church has already sunk. In some ways the church is countercultural.
I once heard a sociology professor speaking at a conference on “The church and youth”. He said that the church could help youth adjust to the values and needs of society. I asked him what would happen if the values and needs of society were wrong. He nearly frothed at the mouth, and said emphatically “Youth MUST adjust!”
The next speaker, a priest (later a bishop in England), opened his presentation by saying, “Professor Engelbrecht has told us that youth is revolting; I am going to say that youth is not revolting enough.”
May 31, 2011 at 10:10 am
Steve’s comparison with Nazi Germany is not comparing like with like. Was Nazi Germany just? I hardly think so.
When the church says all are equal in the sight of God, all are loved by God, but does not live by its own values, and society does, that is when the church looks unjust, in my view. God is revealed in the world as well as the church, and therefore we have to learn from the best of the world around us whilst challenging injustice etc as well – and challenging it in the church where it exists. Not everything the church does is good and not everything society does is bad.
May 31, 2011 at 11:59 pm
sjh the church says all are equal in the sight of God? The Bible definitely says that all have sinned and gone astray and therefore need saving. I’m amused how a pressure group forces the change of law through political machinations and then strives to make such changes normative through compulsory indoctrination, because it sure isn’t an education and this small faction acting quite evidently with no mandate but its own insists its standards are then just standards, and this being the case I would say the comparison with Nazi Germany seems rather apt.