der Unterdrückung der Frauen, Hexenprozessen, Kreuzzügen und zuletzt Missbrauch von Minderjährigen. Das überdeckt die kulturprägende Wirkung Jesu Christi. Seine Bedeutung ist aber auch erkennbar in der Musik etwas von Bach, in der europäischen Malerei und Baukunst, in den Domen und Kapellen, in der Literatur. Weil die Bibel lehrt, dass der Mensch nach dem Bild Gottes geschaffen ist, fand zunächst das Volk der Juden, dass die Würde des Menschen unantastbar ist. Und weil dies so ist, haben die Europäer langsam die unantastbaren Menschenrechte erkannt. Unzähliges, was in unseren Verfassungen steht, geht auf den Juden Moses und auf den Juden Jesus zurück. Der Jude Paulus brachte es nach Europa. Nur wenn wir unsere Geschichte, vor allem die der Kultur kennen, kann Europa seine gesellschaftliche Bedeutung bewahren. Sprechen wir von Gott und Jesus Christus!
Do we know Jesus Christ? Are we talking about God? Over the past recent months, there has been a lot of discussion in Germany about reform within the Catholic Church. That is good and necessary. In my opinion, however, something else is even more necessary: all Christians who care about the belief in Jesus Christ should, above all, speak of God in an appropriate manner. For countless modern Europeans, it seems, God is almost irrelevant. Of course, this is not to say that this makes one a bad person! Indeed, these very people are often committed to their families, neighbours, and even foreigners; they live correctly. The reception of refugees five years ago, for instance, has shown the Christian thinking of many citizens. But God is only increasingly rare in the mindset of most citizens. If one does not speak of God in a meaningful and wholesome way, God disappears from society. This is confirmed by the “Spiral of Silence” model, a theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. This has scientifically shown that “people who have believed that they hold a minority viewpoint on a public issue will remain in the background where their communication will be restrained; those who believe that they hold a majority viewpoint will be more encouraged to speak.”1 For instance, if one day no one in Europe were to talk
about China, then European society would one day think that there is no China; if in Europe only Brazil were to be talked about continuously, one would have the impression that Brazil was on its doorstep. With this same reasoning in mind, we should therefore speak of God in an appropriate way. Naturally, it is not that simple. God is not some “thing”. One can only speak of God modestly and unobtrusively by suggesting that one should take God seriously in one’s own life. Above all, however, the way we live ought to be a reflection of the way we speak; words become credible through our way of life. Furthermore, it is necessary to seek to know Jesus Christ as well as possible, so that we may indeed speak of Him. We often build some form of image or cliché about Jesus Christ. One may think of him as the Good Shepherd, the Universal Judge, or as the Crucified One. However, he is also troublesome, provocative, challenging, overturning, culturally radical—characteristics of which a lot of people, even many baptised, have little idea or, at least, speak little of. Jesus Christ, the man from Nazareth, has shaped the history of Europe more than any other personality. The Sermon on the Mount is a cultural asset, just as the Decalogue is a cultural asset. Religion is not simply a private matter; religions shape and transform cultures. Of course, Christians within the Church have also caused much harm, for example, when we think of the oppression of women, witch trials, crusades and, most recently, abuse of minors or vulnerable people. This masks the cultural impact of Jesus Christ. And yet, its significance is also recognisable in the creation of beauty, in the music of Bach or Vivaldi, in European art and architecture, in the cathedrals and chapels, in literature. Because the Bible teaches that man is created in the image of God, the Jews first established that the dignity of man is inviolable. Europeans, too, have slowly acknowledged human rights as inviolable. Countless articles in our constitutions go back to the Jews of the time of Moses and the Jews of the time of Jesus. Paul—the Jew and the early Christian— brought it this view into Europe. Only if we know our history, especially that of culture, can Europe retain its social significance. Let us therefore speak of God and Jesus Christ!
1
Richard West, Lynn H. Turner, Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application (New York: McGraw Holl, 2010), 411.
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