This is what Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanist Association of Germany, has to say about the demand by specialist politicians in the German Bundestag that non-denominational and non-Christian members of faiths should organize themselves like churches in order to be able to exercise the same rights and the same forms of public inclusion and participation as members of the major Christian religious communities.
Previously, political scientist Ulrich Willems from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the Westphalian Wilhelms University had once again emphasized in a statement that there is a massive need for religious policy reform in the Federal Republic of Germany. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, he said that a reform of the religious-political order had been on the agenda since 1990 at the latest. Specialist politicians from the CDU, SPD and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
had largely unanimously replied to Willem’s statement that no reforms were necessary
so that non-denominational people and members of religious minorities can achieve the same level of public recognition, equal treatment and inclusion as members of Christian churches. In other words, people with a non-religious view of life or who profess a different religion would only need to organize themselves like the Christian churches. Do you find the objections of the party representatives understandable and plausible?
Frieder Otto Wolf: No, not at all. The historical form of the “church” is specifically Christian – I even think it is only characteristic of certain traditional lines of Christianity, while others have remained in the form of congregational Christianity. To want to impose it on Jewish communities or the Muslim Sunnah, for example, demands something from them that is actually alien to them. I am not referring here to the demand for a binding organization or for clear responsibilities – both of which are certainly necessary to a certain extent if religious or ideological communities want to take on a public role and responsibility in state-constituted political spaces. Instead, I am referring to the almost monopolistic role of the “church” as an “authority of salvation”, which is very strong in the Catholic tradition – nulla salus extra ecclesiam – and which has not completely disappeared in the Protestant tradition either, and that this concept is apparently also supposed to be the ultimate standard in terms of religious policy. The adoption of such a concept can no more be demanded of Jewish, Muslim, Alevi, Buddhist or other religious communities than of the looser contexts that we non-religious humanists perceive as natural. The views currently expressed in the parties, however, amount to having to adopt a specifically Christian form of religious and ideological constitution. I consider this demand for adoption to be just as misguided as I would consider it misguided if Christian religious communities were prohibited from forming their own typical structures and associations. In my understanding, freedom of religion and belief means that people of every faith and outlook on life should be allowed to practise the forms of commitment appropriate to their respective ideological self-image – and that this should also be respected legally and politically.
The Basic Law constitutes the Federal Republic of Germany as an ideologically neutral state. Should a state committed to such neutrality be allowed to dictate how people with non-Christian views of life should organize themselves?
I think I have already made my opinion on this quite clear: it is a clear violation of the neutrality requirement if all religions and worldviews that, according to their self-image and ideological principles, do not see themselves as being organized in the same way as the major Christian churches, are discriminated against and excluded because the state incorporation system – as laid out by the Basic Law in the sense of cooperative secularism – is interpreted in terms of this specific church form. This means that today – now that discrimination against Catholic or Protestant minorities is a thing of the past – there is still a de facto two-class society in terms of religious policy, with only the Christian churches in the “first class”. The equal treatment of religious and ideological communities required by the Basic Law is completely forgotten. What other standards and criteria should be applied when organizations of people with a view of life other than Christianity demand recognition and equal treatment – be it the Humanist Association, the Alevi community in Germany or a Buddhist community? On the one hand, this would have to result in a correspondingly modernized status of public corporations, naturally while retaining proven elements: i.e. the guarantee of permanence, affirmation of the liberal-democratic basic order described by the Basic Law and its values – such as gender equality, self-determination and freedom of opinion. In my opinion, the demoscopically ascertainable spread of views on life in society and the social relevance and scope of the practical services offered that are influenced by religion or ideology are also important – the latter, however, can only be an indication of relevance insofar as, for example, the church associations are strongly positioned in the area of welfare and social care in an over-representative manner, while smaller ideological groups sometimes have no access at all to this “market” of social services.
Some of the ways and means you mentioned require considerable effort. So the demand for equal treatment cannot be successful without organization?
That is how it is. In almost all areas of civil society, there are no rights without corresponding efforts to enforce them. For individuals, fundamental rights play a central role in state action, as they prohibit such discrimination in themselves – but unfortunately this has to be fought for in order to be realized. For this reason alone, even individualists have to organize themselves – at least to the extent that they can effectively assert their interests. In the labor market, for example, the trade unions have already largely taken on the task of combating discrimination of all kinds – as far as the privileged status of church welfare associations is concerned, of course, primarily at the level of collective labor law. It is not much different when it comes to cultivating a humanistic world view, its social representation and transmission, as well as the realization of equal treatment of those who share this view of life – this is not at all easy at the individual level: this requires an organized community life and an association structure that is also capable of political action. In between, there is equal treatment by state institutions and the equal promotion of the public presence of religious and ideological communities – here, too, there is still a great deal to be done to achieve genuine equal treatment, but also without any institutional appropriation of those who think differently. An exemplary model of how this can work is the Berlin model of voluntary, value-forming lessons based on the different denominations and designed by the respective communities, which is a task of state schools alongside ethics lessons, which are compulsory for all from the 7th grade onwards.
Do you see any other arguments why the call for non-Christian religions or worldviews to adopt a church form is misguided in the debate on reforms in religious policy?
Yes, because in my opinion such a demand is not in line with the reality of functionally highly differentiated societies, such as those that have emerged in many countries in recent centuries – and in which individuals derive their respective identities from more than just one factor, even more so than in previous centuries. As individuals, we determine our identity not only through our outlook on life, be it religious or non-religious, but also through facets such as sexual identity or gender, our status as a professional or as a citizen of a democratically constituted state – to name just a few very basic factors. The complex identity that we possess as individuals, which is thus characterized by many characteristics, always corresponds to certain interests and rights. And while the realization of interests and rights in the vast majority of areas should rightly not depend on whether someone is a trade union member, a member of a women’s rights organization or a democratic party, what matters instead is whether someone is an employee, a woman or a German, when it comes to ideological-religious issues, formal memberships are – I would almost say strangely – elevated to the central yardstick in many areas, while the actual identity-forming factors such as inner conviction and affirmation of a view of life, on which the specific interest or claim to something actually depends, are simply pushed aside when it comes to the question of equal rights and equal treatment. The relevance of a democratic party is determined not only by the number of its members but also by the support it receives from voters, and in the case of trade unions by the number of members and the number of employees it mobilizes. But in the case of interest groups, cultural organizations and service providers of religious and ideological work that are not Christian – whether the mosque association, the Cem community or the Humanist State Association – only the number of memberships is taken into account. The number of participants in the practical activities of an ideological nature – such as our youth celebrations – or other forms of approval are almost always ignored in political discussions, apart from a few exceptional cases. I hope it can therefore be made clear here that this model of formal communitization encompassing all individuals, as is the basis of the demand for a church form, not only does not fit with other religions and world views, but that such a concept is also only applied in very few of the diverse areas of our society in which we as individuals share interests and rights and wish to exercise them. And this model cannot even be described as a normal or standard model, but rather appears in a broader view to be a special form that cannot be a generally applicable template – not even in terms of religious policy.
Were you surprised that even representatives of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens took a position on the need for reform emphasized by Ulrich Willems that showed so little sensitivity to the characteristics of non-religious world views as well as other religions?
Let’s put it this way: it is clear that this debate has not yet been conducted with the necessary thoroughness in most parties. But I am quite sure that it will not be suppressed.
The questions were asked by Arik Platzek.
