Ecumenical Anthology VI: Roots of Vision, Routes of Change

Nagypál Szabolcs – Peter Šajda – Rachael Weber

Routes of Vision, Roots of Change “There is an irresistible demand to strengthen the leadership of the constructive forces of the world at the present momentous time.”

(John Raleigh Mott, at his Nobel Lecture in 1946)

Heralded as one of the all-time great theatrical releases, Twelve Angry Men by Sidney Lumet (1957), which was remade later by William Friedkin (1997), is based on the drama of Reginald Rose and focuses on a jury’s deliberations in a capital murder case.

A twelve-man jury is sent to begin deliberations in the murder trial of a young Latino, accused in the stabbing death of his father; a guilty verdict at that time means an automatic death sentence.

The criminal case appears to be open-and-shut, so eleven of the jurors immediately vote ‘guilty’; only one casts a ‘not guilty’ vote. As the deliberations unfold, the story quickly becomes a study of a difficult decision-making situation of life and death, with diverse and complex personalities, preconceptions, backgrounds and interactions.

A Viable Vision on Visible Unity

What are our visions, and how can we realise them? Our two seminars in 2007 focused on our shared historical heritage, present circumstances, and visions for the future. What roots do we hold to?

In what areas do we need to develop? What methods lead to renewal and reconciliation? How do current prejudices effect our present and our future?

Due to the division and fragmentation of Christianity, for the current historical period, all those, who rightly call themselves Christians, find it difficult to belong to the same institutional Church.

Nevertheless, young Christians should dream, imagine and make a viable vision on the visible unity of the Church. Such a vision should be based most of all on Biblical metaphors, and on the living Tradition, on the various ecumenical findings, outcomes and results, and on the commitment and creativity of youth and students.

N agypál - Š ajda - W eber : Routes of Vision, Roots of Change

Through this vision gradually arises a new model of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church; a model which originates from communication and friendship, will culminate, through dialogue, in visible communion.

We are given examples from the living Tradition based on the Bible (for example, the Council of Jerusalem, the Johannine and the Pauline communities, the role of the prophets), and shaped and inspired by the wisdom of the Church throughout the whole history.

These concern the models of inner dialogue among (members of) Christian communities: for example, the Council of Chalcedon, reformed and presbyterian church order and structure, and the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

An important question concerns the borders of a given community: our responsibility towards those fallen out, oppressed, silenced, excluded, marginalised and excommunicated, forced to leave the institution and the society (the dissenters).

We try to make clear what kind of historical heritage we have, possess and utilize when trying to find the most effective ways of leadership.

Our focus is, on the one hand, whether the political history of Central (and Eastern) Europe provide meaningful and fertile models for our social behaviour today; for example, as concerns the Visegrád cooperation (1991).

Or, on the other hand, we deal with the past forms of leadership, hierarchy and counter-selection: whether they rather constitute a burden to be carried by us in the upcoming twenty-first century.

For example, the royal or Communist Party influence on the appointment of bishops, the cooperation and collaboration of secular and ecclesiastical powers, the double measures applied on national and minority rights, or the different autocratic leaders in the midwar and cold war years and today.

An integral part of the decision-making process is the right discernment and reception, in which the community says the final word and expresses the sense of the believers on the realities enlightened by our faith.

We understand pluralistic and representative democracy as the way of harmonizing different values, ideals, interests and visions in dialogue; and as all people’s participation and shared responsibility in local, subregional, regional and global decision-making.

Thus defined, we are firmly convinced that there is much to learn from the democratic methods of leadership and decision-making developed in the course of history, culture, and Church history.

At the same time, the Church certainly has much to offer to and share with contemporary communities in this respect, too: for example, as concerns the notions of responsible authority, of collegiality and synodality, of trust-building and consensus, or of mutual accountability.

During a cultural excursion and in a place of spiritual pilgrimage, one becomes acquainted with the traditional, yet nevertheless evernew forms of communitarian reconciliation, spiritual leadership and contemplative decision-making.

We feel that the ecumenical movement is in a phase where the fruits, outcomes and results of the bilateral, multilateral and global dialogues can be harvested and applied, as far as guidance, governance and teaching are concerned.

A Decision Made

Our 2007 winter seminar focused on Leadership and Decision-making in Democratic Communities, gathering students from across Central Europe to discuss and evaluate the decision-making models of the past, present, and future both in the Church and in secular society.

N agypál - Š ajda - W eber : Routes of Vision, Roots of Change

The setting, in Sopron, Hungary, reflected well the topic, as the city of Sopron (Ödenburg in German) voted, by referendum, to remain part of Hungary after the First World War, in 1921, thus gaining the title civitas fidelissima, or the ‘most faithful city’.

We examined the historical background of Central Europe, comparing the heritage of its past with the reality of its present, placing emphasis on how this background effects the present: is it a treasure or a burden for us and for our future grandchildren?

Of course, political history contains many lessons for today. Central Europe has often been perceived as backward or belated when compared to the “West”. What effects does this backwardness or belatedness have?

Is it always detrimental or can it be also beneficial? It is important to discover that this backwardness or belatedness can be regarded as a merit, for it allows for the comparison of successful and unsuccessful models tested by other nations and communities, and it opens the opportunity to keep the positive solutions of others and adjust their successes to other contexts.

As a contextual problem, there is a general sentiment in Central (and Eastern) Europe that our region is lagging behind in terms of institutions, social development and the quality of life, compared with those of the more developed Western and Northern European countries.

If it is true, one of its disadvantages can be that we let many of the wonderfully elaborated solutions waste and go astray, which further reinforces our inclination to remain and stay where we are.

A possible advantage can be, on the other hand, that we are able to effectively synthesise, summarise and refine the solutions already tried out by other countries and communities, and at the same time we can notice and avoid the dead ends experienced there.

Beyond these, we deal with the other questions of a new inculturation of Christianity through the re-evangelization of the traditional Christian territories or through the dilemma of centralisation or decentralisation of Church institutions.

Furthermore, we tackle denominationalism as a typical phenomenon in the Central (and Eastern) European countries after their political changes, and indigenisation (for example, regarding the Roma culture) as well.

As an example we can take the constitutional jurisdiction in the West, the institution of ombudsman, of enriching institutional pluralism, or minority protection. As an advantage, if negative solutions are

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Introduction

recognised, the practices that result in them can be avoided, allowing us to learn from the mistakes of others.

In addition, topics of centralisation and the division of power are discussed as possible leadership models, including governmental and societal hierarchies and their various levels of decision-making (for instance, the European Union (EU) and subsidiary).

Does cooperation always mean collaboration? Decision-making often has a double-standard, so we study the application of this duplicity on the national level regarding majority versus minority rights.

Real independence is the ability to choose allies to cooperate with, and is not the lonely fight of the individual in society. The conference’s final inputs reflected on leadership structures of “authority or consensus�.

Addressing the socio-psychological factors behind democratic leadership and decision-making models, the game theory, for example, reveals that in the long run cooperation is always the winning strategy, when players look for dialogue instead of competition against each other.

Various demonstrative games, dealing with the dynamics of making common decisions in order to dramatise and enliven such situations, help participants to identify with the leader(s), the majority stance, the minority opinion(s) and the dissenters.

Genuine independence does not mean at all to be lonely wolves in the community and in the society, but it rather consists of having the ability to choose proper and right alliances. In that way, one finds oneself in the crossroads of a net(work), supported by various links and relations.

Our considerations also included the ability to dialogue and the social sensitivity of different communities (for example, religious, monastic orders, governmental bodies, or youth organisations). How do they communicate, and how effective are they? What are the boundaries and limits of the various communities?

As a practical outlook, we summarize the preparing elements of decisions, like internal publicity and communication, the conciliatory and collegial elements in various communitarian models, and identify the perspectives of education and formation of the future leaders.

Through studies of the past and discussions about the present, we worked to empower each other towards the choices and leadership needed within local and international communities for the future.

As important inputs and contributions, our articles are closely

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N agypál - Š ajda - W eber : Routes of Vision, Roots of Change

related to the overall topic. They are written by (young) historians, sociologists, politologists, psychologists, pedagogues, philosophers and theologians, in order to broaden and widen further the horizons of the students and young intellectuals.

Through these, the readers become able to exchange their concepts and ideas on the new and pluralistic society of Central Europe in the perspective of viable and feasible decision-making alternatives.

Modern Steps to Overcome

By the banks of the Slnecˇné Jazerá (Sunny Lakes) in Senec, Slovakia, our 2007 summer seminar commenced on the topic of Overcoming Nationalism, Xenophobia, and Populism within Modern Societies of Central Europe.

The issues of nationalism, xenophobia and populism have been attracting increasing attention, especially considering the situation in the Central European countries in recent years. The general rise of populism in politics, growing nationalistic tendencies and open xenophobic incidents have become part of the daily life throughout the region.

The reasons for this development are complex, but in reality our lives are confronted with negative societal tendencies, which might affect our neighbours and ultimately ourselves as well, not only in our homeland, but also beyond the borders.

In this situation, we are witnessing a worsening and more polemical perception of the others, revealing the urgent need to address and openly discuss these issues. Exploring topics of nationalism, inputs and discussions compared nationalism and patriotism, reflecting on these close, yet duelling concepts throughout history and today.

While nationalism regards one’s country against others, patriotism celebrates one’s state, but not in opposition to another. Nationalistic tendencies and myths divide nations and cultures, justifying the violence of the past.

Through patriotism, heritage and tradition can be celebrated and valued, but not at the expense of the others. Aware of these tendencies, we should strengthen future cooperations transcending borders.

Issues of xenophobia, manifest in our rich yet diverse cultures, are addressed both on the personal and societal level. We focus on national memory and traumas affecting the psychology of future generations, highlighting the necessity of reconciliation.

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Introduction

Reinforcing the need to combat xenophobia, and deal with past wrongs, we may focus especially on Shoa denial and its consequences and effects, examining deeper questions. We evaluated and shared stereotypes taught to us by society, and explored ways to combat ‘soft’ xenophobia.

Examining our political systems together, we explore the manifestations of populism within our societies and national politics, seeking to define populism and its effects, as well as to combat its deceptions.

Experiences with overcoming nationalism, xenophobia and populism in South Africa, Northern Ireland, the United States of America (USA), as well as in historical and present-day processes in Central (and Eastern) Europe are presented in order to acquaint ourselves with different approaches to the discussed issues.

To make effective decisions for the future, we must learn from our current setting and historical heritage, looking to overcome barriers of prejudice that separate us, in order to be able to grow in additional cooperations.

Past and Future

The idea of a Central European subregional project was born in 2001 in Praha, Czech Republic, amongst a group of young people from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, who came to know each other through the activities of WSCF Europe.

We feel that the youth in our respective countries are facing similar challenges and could benefit from addressing these issues in a multinational context, which would also further awareness of cultural diversity and help to establish a Central European identity within Europe as a whole.

The cooperation was originally conceived as a set programme of joint activities every year: at least two seminars, language and leadership trainings, and the publication of an ecumenical anthology.

The first seminar on Ecumenism and Central European Identity was held in the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI) in Pannonhalma, Hungary, in 2002. Austria joined the subregional cooperation at this event.

The second seminar that year, on the topic of Ecology and Environmental Protection, was held in Vilémov, Czech Republic.

Following it, the anthology A Pentatonic Landscape: Central Europe, Ecology, Ecumenism was compiled and published in Budapest, Hungary, by BGÖI.

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N agypĂĄl - Ĺ ajda - W eber : Routes of Vision, Roots of Change

Cooperation among these five countries has continued in the years since then. Further seminars were organised, with responsibility for hosting the seminar rotating among the different countries.

Our aim is thus to constantly create an open and a welcoming forum for students and young intellectuals, where we can discuss and contemplate together the leadership models of different communities.

We can also debate and meditate the distinct characteristics of (Central and Eastern) European decision-making, both those inherited from totalitarianism and those apparent in the present day. We aim to promote mainly Central (and Eastern) European students to be engaged in seeking consensus as future leaders and decision-makers.

The seminar programme itself normally consists of a combination of lectures, panel discussions, workshops and discussion groups, as well as first-hand experiences through cultural excursions.

Aside from these, time is also reserved for board meetings, informal socialising and cross-cultural exchange, and even common celebrations. Further ecumenical anthologies have also been published annually, reflecting the themes of the biannual seminars.

In this way the core partners have built up a long experience, both of organising events and assembling publications, and of working together in an international context. Our website (www.wscf-cesr. org) is continuously updated and maintained throughout the year.

It provides the latest information and application materials in advance of events, and incorporates interesting and thoughtprovoking reports and photographs of them after they have taken place.

These endeavours will lead not only to direct descendants of this project, but also to many other diverse projects connected by the common thread of student and youth initiatives in pursuit of a more hospitable, peaceful, ecumenical and dialogical Church and world.

Heritage before us

WSCF Europe has been involved in our cooperation from the beginning, not only as the medium through which the founding mothers and fathers of the subregion came together; but it has also provided encouragement, advice and some financial support for the Central European cooperation.

Established in 1895 as the first ecumenical movement and the first international student and youth organisation, WSCF has more than a hundred years of experience in activities very similar to ours.

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Introduction

These include organising international student conferences and seminars, publishing ecumenical journals, ecumenical reviews and ecumenical books. Equally important, WSCF has members or contacts in more than twenty countries across our continent.

This status allows for a mutually beneficial relationship between WSCF Europe and the partner organisations, with the former providing experience and international contacts, and the latter bringing increasingly more and more innovative ideas and creative working methods into the life of WSCF Europe.

We also find, develop, encourage and raise many leaders who go on to be active in WSCF Europe and global, as well as in their national organisations. And later on they can go on to become leaders in the Church and in its ecumenical movement.

WSCF Europe clearly sees her role in our fruitful cooperation as that of a facilitator, providing resources to allow the partners to realise their vision, and to renew and rejuvenate their vocation.

It is clear, then, that there is a solid foundation upon which to base our cooperation. The main emphasis of our working together is on the virtue of sustainability: we envision it as a long-term collaboration between sister and partner organisations, implemented in two or three year cycles.

All of our activities and structures are oriented to this end: the fourtiered leadership training, the board and proxy system, and especially the careful and thorough documentation of past experiences to ensure that they are handed down to next generations.

This is also the reason why we emphasise students and youth returning to their national and local contexts to employ and implement the wisdom and knowledge that they have gained in our international events.

Our strong and well-based hope is that by focusing on developing sustainable and innovative activities and firm but at the same time dynamic structures, we achieve a highly cumulative effect in our functioning.

Contemplate, Pronounce and Describe

The illustrator is chosen from a different country of the cooperation each time. Using original artwork in the book allows young artists a forum in which to develop their work, and it provides another opportunity for youth and students to become more involved in the project.

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N agypál - Š ajda - W eber : Routes of Vision, Roots of Change

Aneta Kordala studies graphic design and photography at Kunstuniversität (University of Arts) in Linz, Austria. She comes from Poland and is Roman Catholic, but she currently attends the meetings of the Evangelische Hochschulgemeinde (EHG). Her email address is Aneta.Kordala@ufg.ac.at.

She has always been keenly interested in arts, especially in painting, drawing and graphic design, because art allows her to contemplate and find answers for many difficult questions bothering her and us.

Art is also a medium to understand and deal with the world and life, to express thoughts difficult to pronounce or describe, and, finally, to have a deeper look into reality and to go behind it somehow.

She probably prefers not to give any detailed explanation to the illustrations, because she would like people to take part in the process of finding the answers to their questions by contemplating the pictures.

Another reason for that conscious reservation is that she respects fully the individual ideas and perceptions of the audience, and therefore she would not want to influence their feelings and ideas.

With Appreciation

We remain thankful to the Benedictine Archabbot of Pannonhalma, Bishop Va´rszegi Asztrik OSB, the director of the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), for his strong and unceasing support.

We are also grateful that we can publish his important article on Christian Ecumenism in Dialogue with Judaism and Islam, as a Basis for Constructive Collaboration with Society and State in Europe. We remain grateful for the support of the Dominican province of Slovakia and its provincial, Benedikt Róbert Hajas OP. We are especially grateful to our seminar donors: the Youth in Action Fund of the European Union, the International Visegrád Fund (IVF), and Council of Europe’s Solidarity Fund for Youth Mobility, and the Subregional Development Fund of WSCF-Europe.

In particular, we would like to thank our mother organisation, the World Student Christian Federation Europe Region (WSCF–E, www. wscf-europe.org), and the European Regional Committee (ERC), especially her chairperson, Alessia Passarelli, and her regional secretary, Hanna Tervanotko, for their support and valuable incentives.

Finally, we would like to thank the preparatory and the hosting committees of our two seminars, as well as our coordinator, who

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Introduction

spent valuable time and care planning and working for the realisation of our activities.

At our winter seminar, in Sopron, the preparatory committee members were Lekeny Hajnal from Hungary, Ján Blaho from Slovakia, Tobias Hecht from Austria, Alexandra Luksza from Poland, and Pavel Pokorný from the Czech Republic. The hosting committee members were Jakab Rita, Lévai Ildikó, Kristin Nickel and Orova Csaba from Hungary.

In Senec, in the summer, the preparatory committee members were Eduard Marcˇek and Peter Šajda from Slovakia, Aneta Kordala from Austria, Kristin Nickel from Hungary, Pavel Pokorný from the Czech Republic, and Grzegorz Sawicki from Poland,. The hosting committee members were Katarína Babicova´, Zuzana Babicova´, Samuel Kunzo and Juraj Macˇura from Slovakia.

The preparation of both of the mentioned seminars was overseen by our coordinator Rachael Weber, whose excellent work and experience greatly contributed to the smooth course of the events.

Together, these teams of members of our sister organisations worked to fundraise, organise, implement, and follow-up our joint activities. We are utmostly grateful for all their efforts and vision.

Are Murphy’s Laws Applicable to the Church?

A humorous and satirical look at the (mal)functioning of the multinational companies, and offices in general is presented in Office Space (1999) by the Ecuadorian American director, Mike Judge.

In the movie, the main protagonist is completely miserable with his job as a small cog in a multinational company. Then he visits a hypnotherapist, who dies just after putting him into a state of complete bliss.

He decides not to go to work, and at the same time his company is laying people off. Free of worry about making a living, he no longer feels the need to keep his job, just as the company is going through a massive downsizing.

His new attitude, however, only makes him more valuable in the company’s eyes, and two of his friends are fired instead. Therefore, together they conspire and scheme to plant a computer virus inside the company’s computer system that will pull and embezzle money into their own account.

This hilariously funny movie constitutes a satirical study and a parody of the dysfunctions of leadership, hierarchy and decision-

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making situations in bureaucratic, profit-oriented workplaces and communities.

All these stories, movies, discussions, friendships, and our seminar activities intertwine together, all providing routes of discussion addressing historic, current, and future circumstances of dialogue.

This fifth ecumenical anthology of our subregion seeks to continue our deepening dialogue, focusing on the themes and topics of our activities for 2007 and looking towards future cooperations.

Each section elaborates on the themes presented, focusing on overcoming prejudices and deceptions inherited from yesterday and clung to today and continuing visionary leadership at ecumenical, societal, and personal levels.

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Karl-Reinhart Trauner

Patriotism versus Nationalism: A Historical Approach

The United States of America (USA) is a union of states—but what, then, is the United Nations (UN)? The USA is one state in the UN, beside other states. So what is the difference between a state and a nation?

Even though the UN is much younger than the USA, the term state is a much younger term than nation.

1. What is the Difference between the United States and the United Nations?

States (in the modern understanding) have been in existence since the period of Enlightenment, ie. for about two hundred and fifty years. Previously, there were lands governed by rulers (emperors, kings, or sovereigns). The ancient Latin state was an imperium (empire), whereby the term imperium is related to “law and order” and also to “authority.”

Imperium is the name for a land or community seen with the eyes of a ruler or the ruling class; seen with the eyes of those living in this imperium for whom community was a principal part of their identity, the empire was (probably) a patria.

The term patria is related to pater (father) and it is a place where your parents live—here you were born, and here is the place for your family. Patria is security, law and order, and ultimately home.

Patriotism, according to the classical definition given by Johann Moritz Gericke in 1782, is “this strong inner impulse that directs its attention to the best of the state, and attempts to promote its prosperity by all possible means.”

Just before, birth was mentioned; “birth” in Latin is natus. Natio means “birth” or the goddess of birth, but also an ethnic group—but not a state. In this sense “nation” was not used in ancient times.

Patriotism. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism.

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“State” has its origin in the Latin word status: standing, state, condition. In the seventeenth century, the English words “state”, the German word “Staat”, as well as the French “état”, emerged from the Latin term “status”.

But the system of the Estates (ständische Ordnung) is much older. Under this system, political participation in government and privileges were bound to noble landowners (sovereigns), the upper clergy, and the cities—these were the so called estates—at (imperial) diets (Reichstag). These estates strengthened their power during the XIVth and XVth centuries. The result was a dualistic federal-central (estate-state) system that functioned until the XVIIth century.

The medieval Roman Empire—from the XVth century on called the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation)—was a collection of states, united under an Emperor elected by various Germanic (and other, for example Slav) states.

Kinder Hermann – Hilgemann Werner, The Penguin Atlas of World History. London, 2003.

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Overcoming Nationalism, Populism and Xenophobia

It was not a nation state and could never have become one due to its internal structure and differing interests within. The Empire had two main functions: the first was defence, the second justice.

For the first time, the term nation appears in European history in connection with universities. Students of the same origin and birth assembled and lived together in associations, forming a “nation (birth).”

At the Charles university in Praha, for example, the Polish nation was made also of Prussians, Silesians and Germans living in Poland; the Bohemian nation comprised the Czechs, Moravians, Magyars, and Southern Slavs; the Bavarian nation included, besides the Bavarians, also the Swabians, the Franks, the Hessians, the Rhinelanders, and the Westphalians; and to the Saxon nation belonged Northern Germans, Danes, Swedes and Finns.

Each natio was associated with certain colours, and every student wore a coloured ribbon representing his nation. These ribbons were one of the predecessors of the modern flags of our states.

This brief presentation of about one thousand years shows that the different terms have undergone development. Even though “state” and “nation” have nowadays almost similar meanings, it was not so two hundred and fifty years ago.

In the year 1776, when the United States of America was constituted with the Declaration of Independence, it was not possible to found a Union of Nations, as nation was not a term for state. So the United States of America was founded in second half of the XIXth century and the United Nations only in 1945.

2. Self-confident Humankind as the Basis of Modern Society

The question of the character of nationalism or patriotism is the question of one’s identity. Nationalism and patriotism are political manifestations of an identity that exists as a personal and a group identity.

In the West, the Protestant Reformation started identity politics.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) argued that salvation could be achieved only through an inner state of faith, and attacked the Roman Catholic emphasis on deeds—that is, exterior conformity to a set of rules Buschinger Danielle, Einige Bemerkungen zum Begriffsfeld “Nation” im Mittelalter: Von der natio zur Nation (Some Remarks on the Term “Nation” in Mediæval Times: From Natio to Nation). In IABLIS: Jahrbuch für europäische Prozesse. 2005. http://www.iablis.de/iablis_t/2005/buschinger05.html.

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Karl-Reinhart T rauner : Patriotism versus Nationalism

established by the Church. The Reformation thus identified true religiousness as an individual’s subjective state, thereby dissociating inner identity from existing social practice.

About two hundred and fifty years after the Reformation, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) argued that there was a great difference between our outward selves, which were the accretion of social customs and habits acquired over historical time, and our true inner natures. Rousseau stated that one could reach happiness only by recovering one’s inner authenticity.

So the nation was a unit created by the free choice of different individuals. It pronounced the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment— universalism and rationality. It represented the common interests against particular interests.

At the festival of federation at Dijon on May 18, 1790, the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Volfius (1734–1822), the future Constitutional Bishop of the Côte d’Or, defined fatherland as being “not at all this soil on which we live, these walls which have seen our birth. The true fatherland is that political community where all citizens, protected by the same laws, united by the same interests, enjoy the natural rights of humans and participate in the common cause.”

The idea of the authenticity was further developed by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who argued that inner authenticity lies not just in individuals but also in peoples, in the recovery of what we call today folk culture.

Herder also stated an intimate dependence of thought on language.

In his research, he found out that peoples from different historical periods and cultures often vary pronouncedly in their concepts, beliefs, and so on.

The different languages could be seen as an example. For Herder, thought is dependent on and bounded by language. Thus, Herder’s way of thinking differs from that in the French and Anglo-American traditions.

The “fathers” of modern nationalism, Rousseau and Herder, were Fukuyama Francis, Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy. Journal of Democracy 2006/2. 7. Also: Taylor Charles, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, 1994.

Nübel Birgit, Zum Verhältnis von ‘Kultur’ und ‘Nation’ bei Rousseau und Herder (About the Relationship between “Culture” and “Nation” in Rousseau and Herder). http://goethezeitportal.de/db/wiss/herder/nuebel_rousseau.pdf.

Also: Nationalism. In Wiener Philip P. (ed.), The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas.

New York, 1974. III., 324–339. http://flowerdew.org/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-42. Also: Cvetkovski Nikola, Nationalism and Ethnicity: A Theoretical Overview. Aalborg, 1999. http://www.caucasus.dk/publication5.htm.

Quoted in: Nationalism. III. 326.

Barnard Frederick M., Herder’s Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism. Oxford, 1965.

Also: Beiser Frederick C., Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism. Cambridge, 1992. Also: Johann Gottfried von Herder. In Stanford Encyclopædia of Philosophy. Stanford, 2001. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/herder.

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Overcoming Nationalism, Populism and Xenophobia

also cosmopolitans and internationalists. Deeply attached to their patria, or their native language and tradition, they regarded the whole of humankind as a greater and higher fatherland at the same time.

The nationalists of that period, persons like Jules Michelet (1798–1874) in France, Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) in Italy, or Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) in Poland, and many others, saw nationalism as a ubiquitous movement.

But nevertheless, “many nations have been formed in the first place around a dominant ethnic group, which annexed or attracted other ethnic groups or ethnic fragments into the state to which it gave a name and a cultural charter.”

3. Female and Male Approach to the Topic

The precise translation of “patria” is “fatherland” (not in its misuse by the Nazis), but it is interesting that most of us speak of a “mother tongue.”

The fatherland is a matter of brain, of law and order, of politics, of duty and being conscripted, a matter of borders and passports— sometimes of defending the borders and the interests of the state.

The mother tongue, on the other hand, can be seen as a synonym of culture as such, and is a matter of heart, of feeling home where one belongs. Like religion, culture is a matter of inner identity. Culture and nation are—according to Herder—almost similar, and the Latin “nation” in translation means “birth,” which is also connected with the “female” element.

4. The Birth of Nation

When the French Revolution of 1789 changed France from the bottom up, in Central Europe the Roman-German Empire still existed. It consisted of many different principalities, eg. Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Prussia, Hesse, Austria, Hanover, Oldenburg, and Saxony. The most important principality was Austria.

The Habsburgs, the Austrian sovereigns, were normally also German Emperors, but this leading role was desired more and more

by Prussia. Bonaparte Napoleon’s invasion of Germany generated the idea of Volk und Vaterland (nation and fatherland) that drove the Wars of Liberation (Befreiungskriege) in 1813–15.

Nationalism. III. 325.

Smith Anthony, National Identity. London, 1991. 39.

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Karl-Reinhart T rauner : Patriotism versus Nationalism

The philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) proclaimed, in his Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) of 1807–1808 about the national struggle against France, that the very idea of being German was connected with the idea of both physical and mental freedom.

The Prussian society was not willing to accept French foreign rule.

Large parts of the Prussian Army changed to the Russian side—eg. the famous marshall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742–1819)— and in Sankt Petersburg an exile society was established under the leadership of Heinrich Friedrich Karl Reichsfreiherr vom und zum Stein (1757–1831).

The official Prussia fought on the French side, but the “true” Prussia fought against France. State and (cultural) nation became different characters; nation as a cultural and societal term describes similarly what is now called civil society (Zivilgesellschaft), in addition to the official policy.

Therefore nationalism often was (up until the twentieth century) not seen as political matter; but when such ideas were realized, they became policy. Nation and state can mean the same, but they can also have different, sometimes almost opposite, meanings.

5. Nationalism and Liberalism

With the Congress of Wien, a conflict situation was born: the old states still existed, but the thinking of many people had changed, generating new developments. The era of nationalism and national movement(s) had begun.

Different nations aspired to be transformed to official state structures, replacing the existing states. Nation states were to be established. The whole of Germany was to become the state of “Germany.” In Europe, from the early to mid nineteenth century, the ideas of nationalism, socialism and liberalism were closely intertwined. Nationalism went along with liberalism.

An important remark has to be made: something “national” is often not in line with something “nationalistic,” and one has to distinguish between these two phenomena very carefully. A national movement aims basically at positive goals for its nation: it tries to strengthen cultural identity based on similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds, sometimes aiming at the unification of all members of the nation.

A nationalistic movement tries to realize such ideas at the cost of other nations or by oppressing and expulsing members of other

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nations. Nationalism may have a national or nationalistic character.

The emergence of national ideologies was not characterstic for Germany alone. Movements aimed at the unification of a nation sprang up across Europe. The names of different movements began with the Greek word “pan-” which means “all, everybody.”

All members of the nation should come together. For identity, the membership of a (cultural) nation is the decisive point, not membership of a special country or state. (Cultural) nationalism had won over patriotism; even national feelings had not forcibly stood in contrast to patriotism.

It is not surprising that the name of the movements is a Greek word.

The writer Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) glorified the “free people of the Greeks.” In the War of Liberation from 1821 to 1829, the Greeks tried to attain independence and autonomy.

In the end, the Greek concept of Pan-Hellenism was successful.

Similar national liberal movements and political attempts could be found in other parts of Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Naples and Serbia).

In Central Europe, a young Slovak student, Ján Kollár (1793– 1852), became the “creator and herald of Pan-Slavism;”10 he later became a professor of theology and a famous Slovak writer.

The conception of Pan-Slavism was the political unification of all Slavs; a Pan-Slavic Empire was its ultimate political vision. From a certain perspective—but not for the same ideological reasons—the later Warsaw Pact was partly the realisation of these Pan-Slavic dreams (even though it contained other, non-Slav nations, too).

More successful than the Slavic nations were the Italians in the nineteenth century. In 1861 the all-Italian (Pan-Italian) parliament in Torino proclaimed Roma the capital, and confirmed Vittorio Emanuele II (1820–1878) as King of Italy.

The last important part of Northern Italy under Austrian government was Venezia. In 1866 Italy reached an alliance with Prussia, which defeated Austria in the Battle of Hradec Králové (Königgrätz). In the Peace of Wien, Italy was awarded Venezia, but gave up its claims for Southern Tyrolia. In 1870 the Papal State (Vatican) was occupied by Italy.

The Austro–Prussian War of 1866 was an important step on the way of setting-up Germany. The first step was the German–Danish War in 10 Schwarz Karl, Von Budapest nach Wien: Streiflichter zur Biographie Ján Kollárs (From Budapest to Wien: Passing Rays for a Biography of Ján Kollár). In Barton Peter F. (ed.), Kirche im Wandel: Studien und Texte zur Kirchengeschichte und Geschichte (Changing Church: Studies and Texts for Church History and History). Wien, 1994. II/13. 102.

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1864. Prussia, together with Austria, defeated Denmark, and Prussia gained control over Schleswig.

Despite this political success, there was a deep dissension between Wilhelm I. (1797–1888), and his famous chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) about the title of the new Emperor. William became “German Emperor” and not—as he had wished—“Emperor of Germany.”

But Bismarck followed the rules of his Realpolitik. He knew that politically it was not possible to unite all Germans, especially not those who lived in Austria.11 So the (Second) German Reich was unable to fulfil the dreams of the Pan-German movement, even though Bismarck as “founder of a German Reich” was seen as a national hero.

6. The Old Emperor and his Nationalities

The Austrian Empire—after 1867 the Austro-Hungarian monarchy— consisted of many different nations, or as they were called officially, “nationalities.” Slovakia may be a good example of the multiethnic situation.

Today the majority of the inhabitants of Slovakia are ethnic Slovaks (eighty-six percent). Magyars are the largest ethnic minority (approximately ten percent), and are concentrated in the Southern regions of the country; and only 0.1 percent of the population is German.

Due to his personal political understanding, the motto of Franz Joseph (1830–1916) was Viribus Unitis (with united forces). He embodied the old ideal of an Empire standing over all nationalities, and therefore he had problems dealing with the developments of the late nineteenth century.

Emperor Franz Joseph was the pater patriæ (father of the fatherland, in the sense of state). His majesty and his army were the clips of a state of different nationalities that were drifting apart. Many leading politicians of the different nationalities had no interest to work “with united forces” for a better multi-ethnic Austria.

They worked passionately for nation states of their own. And they found their home in their nation or nationality. This was their new “patria,” not Austria or Austria-Hungary. Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe did not fit into the existing state patterns.

The Pan-Slavic movement originally tried to establish a Slavic 11 German is used here also for German-speaking people of Austria(-Hungary) and in other countries, as it is done also in the scientific description: Wandruszka Adam – Urbanitsch Peter (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918 (The Habsburg-Monarchy 1848–1918). Wien, 1973ff.

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Empire under Russian (or Polish) leadership. Therefore the Slavic nationalism of the Austro-Hungarian Empire worked against all central tendencies of Wien.

Pan-Slavism, however, did not experience much success until the First World War. In the times of the monarchy, Slavic nationalities worked for more independence from Wien (and Budapest), and more rights, similar to the Magyars. In 1867—after the lost battle of Hradec Králové –-they received important aspects of political independency.

The Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867 between Austria and Hungary established the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (Doppelmonarchie), including joint foreign policy, finances and military, but retaining separate constitutions, administrations, legislatures, and additionally a distinct military force.

Even though the Italian unification was politically completed in 1866 with the Peace of Wien (and later on with the occupation of Roma in 1870, finally), the Pan-Italian movement did not end.

In the Peace of Wien, Italy gave up its demands for Southern Tyrolia (Trentino) and Istria, which became now the main objects of the irredenta, the national movement formed about 1878 to secure the incorporation of regions, Italian in speech and ethnic group but subject to other governments, in Italy.

The irredenta gave name to another important term of the political situation of the late nineteenth century—irredentism. An irredentist refers to any person or party that advocates the division of the state, aiming at a (re)union with another state because of national motives.

Nationalism is the reason for the active fight against the state people belong to. Nationalism and patriotism were opposing tendencies in this context.

German nationalism in Austria developed a special dynamic after the foundation of the (Second) German Reich in 1871, which could not integrate the Austrian Germans into a nation state of Germans.

Most of the German parties of Austria accepted this situation as Realpolitik, but not the (radical) Pan-German movement. The PanGerman party (with its original name the “Alldeutschen,” a correct translation of “Pan-Germans”), under its leader Georg Schönerer (1842–1921), had irredentist tendencies and plead for a unification of at least the German parts of Austria with the German Reich. This would have naturally meant the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

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7. Nation and Religion

Religion is sometimes used as a defining factor for a nation. In the middle of the nineteenth century, theology and politics were closely connected. Sometimes religion was estimated as a special part of the national culture.

“The idea of being a people chosen by God, a people to whom God had promised a specific land, whose original inhabitants lost their right to the land—though it was truly the land of their ancestors— and of God fighting on the side of “God’s” people, has been one of the most dangerous elements of nationalism inherited from Old Testament times and the history of the conquest of Canaan.”12 The cultural approach to “nation” is based upon a vague and semimystical concept of folk and folk culture. National Protestantism (Nationalprotestantismus) proceeds from a mutual dependence of Protestant denomination(s) and nationalism.

But the connection of nation and denomination (or religion) is not only a historic German problem. Most of the states—even those with a constitutional Church (Religion)–State separation (Trennung von Staat und Kirche)—have official religious holidays, such as Christmas or Easter, which are seen by some to promote cultural bias.13 The United States of America (USA), for example, has “God” (or a symbol of God) on its coinage and in its Pledge of Allegiance. And magnets on cars saying “God Bless the USA” became a popular way to display patriotism in the USA during many elections.

Irish nationalism traditionally sees Catholicism as an Irish national characteristic, in contrast to the largely Protestant British Empire that usually recognized the Protestant minority in Ireland as Irish too.

And some religions are specific to one ethnic group, notably maybe Judaism. Nevertheless the Zionist movement generally avoided a religious definition of the “Jewish people,” preferring an ethnic and cultural definition.

Religious nationalism characterized by communal adherence to Eastern Orthodoxy and national Orthodox Churches is still prevalent in many states of Eastern and South Eastern Europe and in the Russian Federation. The war in Kosovo is a national one between Albanians and Serbs, but also a religious one between Muslims and Serbian Orthodox.

12 Nationalism. III. 325.

13 Today in Austria there are only two non-religious holidays: 1st of May, the State Holiday (Staatsfeiertag), which was in former years called the day of the work (Tag der Arbeit); and the 26th of October, the National holiday (Nationalfeiertag), in remembrance of becoming independent after the Second World War.

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8. From Ethnic to Racial

Nationalism adopted new characteristics as a result of the rise of natural sciences in the nineteenth century. Biologism tried to describe the world and its development only by natural means. The eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was inspired by Arthur Comte de Gobineau’s (1806–1882) An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853–1855) and Georges Vacher de Lapouge’s (1854–1936) anthroposociology. It claimed that biological inferiority of certain groups is self-evident.

Gobineau proclaimed—in contrast to Herder’s philosophy—the inequality of human races. To him, the highest race was the Teutonic race, of which he claimed the French aristocracy of Frankish origin to which he belonged as the noblest specimen. Furthermore, racial identity depended upon “purity of blood.”

Both authors posited the historical existence of national races, such as German and French, branching from basal races supposed to have existed for millennia, such as the Aryan race, and advocated that political boundaries should mirror the supposed racial ones.

Also in Charles Darwin’s most controversial book, The Descent of Man (1871), he made strong suggestions of racial differences and European superiority.

In connection with Judaism, anti-Judaism and cultural anti-Semitism became racial anti-Semitism. Although in the nineteenth century, nobody thought that genocide, riots and expulsions of members of other “races” would take place.

Anti-Semitism as a specific form of racism was an important political issue of National Socialism of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), often abbreviated as Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889– 1945).

One of the major characteristics of the Hitler Reich was racism based on biologism. “One of Hitler’s favourite sayings was, ‘Politics is applied biology.’ Hitler’s ideas of racial purity led to unprecedented atrocities in Europe. Hitler and others enacted race laws used to persecute and murder millions of Jews, who were seen as a race.”14 The Great German Reich became one of the greatest catastrophes of the twentieth century, which was in fact rich in catastrophes. It was not only the death warrant for millions of Jews, but also for millions of civilians and soldiers from a long list of states.

14 Race. In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race.

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9. The Century of Refugees

After 1918, the nationalities of Austria-Hungary became independent of Wien and Budapest and formed the successor states (Nachfolgestaaten) of the Danube Monarchy. The Czechs (before part of Austria) and the Slovakes (before part of Hungary) came together in Czechoslovakia. Transcarpathia went to the Soviet Union.

The Poles of the Monarchy joined the newly established Poland, Transylvania (before part of Hungary) went to Romania, and the Southern Slavic nations, such as the Slovenes and the Croats became part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS-state).

The rest composed Austria and Hungary, now independent from each other.

The successor states, however, were not nation states in the strict sense of the word. Czechoslovakia may be taken as one of the possible examples. The new state was a politically and denominationally heterogeneous unit.

It had a population which, besides Poles and Jews, was composed of forty-six percent Czechs, twenty-eight percent Germans, thirteen percent Slovaks, eight percent Magyars and three percent Ukrainians and Ruthenians.15 National conflicts were unavoidable, but not only in Czechoslovakia.

On the other hand, some decades later, hundreds of thousands of Poles had to leave their home and settle in the so-called General Gouvernement.

In 1940–1941, about two million Eastern Poles were resettled in Northern Russia. In addition, Germans and “unreliable” peoples (Estonians, Lithuanians, Kalmuks, Caucasians, Tatars) were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities.

These are just a few examples of forced wartime resettlements, but following the end of the Second World War the deportations and migrations did not stop. The twentieth century has the unmerciful epithet of the “century of the refugees.”

About thirty million Europeans—sixty percent of them Germans— lost their homeland. Most ethnic and national borders coincide since that time, also in Central and Eastern Europe. So these population transfers ended a development that had begun about fifty years before: the establishment of nation states.

15 The numbers are taken from Kinder – Hilgemann. II. 157.

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10. Nations and Civilizations

The understanding of “nation” as a state was generally accepted, and “nationalism” was put on the same level as “patriotism.” (Cultural) “nationalism” was estimated as failed ideology, and nationalism as a philosophy of life lost its importance, even cultural nationalism could be ostracised for “political correctness.”

The Anglo-American culture became dominant, and thus the AngloAmerican sense of the term prevailed. And there was no (or only little) difference between (cultural) nation and state anyway.

This development, especially the pressure on national feelings, also had consequences for patriotism. The crisis of societal solidarity, in its structured form of a state, is a wide-spread phenomenon today. Being critical towards the state and its official representatives is en vogue.

But the post-war situation is changing, caused not only by the breakdown of the bipolar world order in the end of the eighties, but especially by new cultural nationalisms, the replacement of the political role of European states by the European Union (EU), and the replacement of the cultural role of the nations by “civilizations.”

First, in the postmodern situation, the phenomenon of national consciousness, until now presumed dead, is rising again. Since the Second World War and the post-war period, “ethnic cleansing has occurred in the Balkans and Rwanda. Ethnic cleansing might be seen as another name for the tribal warfare and mass murder that has afflicted human society for ages, but, in modern times, atrocities have regularly been associated with the attempted use of racial inferiority claims to dehumanize some groups. Claiming a scientific basis for negative evaluations can give greater credence to such an ideological agenda.”16 Second, the decreasing importance of states in Europe goes along with the establishment of the European Union (EU), which holds a state character through special treaties (or perhaps some day a constitution), even though some states (like Poland or Great Britain) emphasize the importance of full state sovereignty. But, as a matter of fact, no state of the EU is entirely autonomous.

On the other hand, the EU is a highly inhomogeneous area, not only due to the ethnic situation: within the EU there are over five hundred ethnic groups.17 In the EU, thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas (1929) have advocated a European-wide patriotism.

16 Race. In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race.

17 Eurominorities. http://eurominority.org/version/eng.

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But patriotism in Europe is usually directed at the nation state, and often coincides with euroscepticism. Still, state-bound patriotism seems to be replaced little by little by a European patriotism: Europe becomes the character of a “patria.”

Third, it seems that in the world order larger homogeneous and complex political units, like the EU are coming into being. But these larger units may also get into conflict with each other. This issue has been disputed mostly in recent years, especially since the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.

The basic theory was written by Samuel P. Huntington (1927–), first in 1993 in a Foreign Affairs article titled The Clash of Civilizations?

Huntington later expanded his theses in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.18 His research deals with the nature of global politics in the post-Cold War period that is characterized by cultural conflicts. In his theses, Huntington argues that the primary axis of future conflicts will be along cultural and religious lines. Such “civilizations” may consist of states and social groups, such as ethnic and religious minorities.

For the clash of civilizations the widespread Western belief in the universality of the Western values and political systems is—according to Huntington—naïve, and he argues that continued insistence on democratization and other “universal” norms will only further antagonize the civilizations.

A clash could happen in yet another way, because as Huntington has shown, there are no geographic blocks of civilizations in Europe anymore, but the “civilizations” are mixed and live side by side in the same area. The riots in France, lasting officially for twenty-one days during October and November 2005, have indicated what such a scenario could be like.

Regardless of how we perceive Huntington’s theory, it seems that “civilizations” replace (cultural) nations as the larger units in a globalized world. On the other side, however, the reaction of some states to the “clash of civilizations” will be an increasing patriotism.

In the USA, scholars were required to swear an oath on the state, and the so-called Patriot Act (“Uniting and Strengthening America

by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act”) is supposed to minimize national danger caused by an internationally operating terrorism.

18 Huntington Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 1993/3. Also: Huntington Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, 1996.

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The Patriot Act “encourages information sharing by breaking down the wall between law enforcement and intelligence,” President George W. Bush declared in June 2005, which helps to “bring terrorists to justice”19.

In the eyes of many Europeans, as well as some circles in the USA,20 one of the main problems of the “Patriot” Act is that in the name of patriotism the rights of civilians of the “patria” are reduced.

With such a paradigm of state in view, the paradigm prevailing since the period of Enlightenment (and the establishment of the USA and the French Revolution) that a state should guarantee a maximum of civil rights and liberties for all people and peoples in it could change substantially.

Suggested Reading Barton Peter F. (ed.), Kirche im Wandel: Studien und Texte zur Kirchengeschichte und Geschichte (Changing Church: Studies and Texts for Church History and History). Wien, 1994.

Barnard Frederick M., Herder’s Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism. Oxford, 1965.

Barton Peter F. (ed.), Kirche im Wandel: Studien und Texte zur Kirchengeschichte und Geschichte (Changing Church: Studies and Texts for Church History and History). Wien, 1994.

Beiser Frederick C., Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism. Cambridge, 1992.

Cvetkovski Nikola, Nationalism and Ethnicity: A Theoretical Overview. Aalborg, 1999.

Fukuyama Francis, Identity, Immigration, and Liberal Democracy. Journal of Democracy 2006/2.

Huntington Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 1993/3.

Huntington Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, 1996.

Kinder Hermann – Hilgemann Werner, The Penguin Atlas of World History. London, 2003.

Smith Anthony, National Identity. London, 1991.

Taylor Charles, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, 1994.

Wandruszka Adam – Urbanitsch Peter (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918 (The Habsburg-Monarchy 1848–1918). Wien, 1973ff.

Wiener Philip P. (ed.), The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. New York, 1974.

Karl-Reinhart Trauner holds doctorates in theology and history; he is the senior chaplain of the Protestant military chaplaincy of the Austrian Armed Forces. His email address is ev.ms-wien@gmx.at.

19 The White House – President George W. Bush Fact Sheet: The Patriot Act Helps Keep America Safe. http://www. whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050609.html.

20 Centre for Constitutional Rights, The State of Civil Liberties: One Year Later New York. http://www.ccr-ny.org/ whatsnew/civil_liberties.asp.

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Németh Márton

Nationalism, Xenophobia, Populism and Nation States in the Modern History of Central Europe This short introductory essay (related to the topic of the CESR–WSCF conference in Senec) examines the historical background of the different faces of nationalism and xenophobia related to the modern Central European nations and their countries.

Homogenising Nations in Multinational Europe

The development of the pre-nations—ethnic groups—was quite different in our region of Central Europe compared to the processes in Western Europe in the Modern Age. In France, from the eighteenth century on, a civil, unified and homogenized nation was formed through a long historical process.

The main tool of this social change was both the forced and natural assimilation of different national groups into the dominant French nation, with its language and culture, before modern nationalism was born in the nineteenth century.

Self-identities of the national groups were not strong enough to resist against this homogenous pressure. From the nineteenth century on, the French model became a solid base for the creation of nation-states based on the theory of the self-sovereignty of each European nation.

To implement this political practice in the traditionally multinational and multilingual environment of Central Europe was practically impossible without giving rise to conflicts and discrimination.

Within the borders of the large traditional aristocratic empires, a parallel development of different languages and cultures took place, all developing within the same geographical framework.

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In this way, by segmenting the Slovak-populated areas from the Czech and Polish territories, the borders of the Hungarian Kingdom enabled the development of the Slovak language and cultural identity.

The nobility of the then kingdoms and empires had the same legal status regardless of their mother tongue and self-identity. Traditional nations were the nations of nobles and aristocrats within a certain geographical territory: like the Polish szlachta or the nemessĂŠg of the Hungarian Kingdom.

Roots of Modern Nationalism

The problems of the Modern Age linked to nationalism had their deep roots in national motivations appearing in the early nineteenth century. Nationalism as such proved to have a double face.

On one hand, it created a democratization of cultural values, producing a new kind of identity based not on social position, but on language and culture. Thus everyone was able to become an equal democratic member of a modern nation, instead of the traditional nobility-based nation model.

On the other hand, these national identity-building motivations strictly opposed other nation-building motivations, and in many instances attempts were made to assimilate minorities of different cultural backgrounds. To reach this aim, nation-state governments

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and administrative bodies often used populist political measures based on national myths or xenophobia.

Nation-states led to successful national integration and social democratization; the majority of society was able to experience a new and significantly higher level of social life. Due to the lack of the rule of law, however, these results appeared to be favourable only for the prosperity of the dominant (titular) nation (or nationality) within the nation-state.

At the same time, minorities were harshly discriminated against in almost every field of social life: education, job market, public administration, public life, and so on. Safeguarding their dominant national identity and sovereignty, the nation-states successfully opposed the liberalization of borders. Also, they opposed decentralization within the country, resisting the establishment of strong cross-border regional social, infrastructural and economic connections.

Ideology of this kind of political establishment typically contains populist and xenophobic elements either in a direct or an indirect way.

It can be claimed that it is one of the main general socio-historical and economic problems of the present Central Europe too.

When trying to identify the roots of the mentioned problems, it can be observed that in the nineteenth century some nations were in a dominant and preferred position. They were the biggest in the region and exerted the most significant influence, creating a natural basis for a number of conflicts.

Populism and xenophobia appeared to be useful tools in this process, when dealing with different questions; questions such as “who possesses the right over a territory, and who is entitled to create a unified nation-state on the basis of one culture, one language, and one religion?”

Tools of nationalism and xenophobia facilitated finding solutions, for example, by eliminating and assimilating those who are in a minority position according to the French centralized nation model.

That was a major motivation of the nations of the region.

There were always, however, many compromises also. After the democratic revolutions, freedom fights and national clashes in 1848, some politicians realized that the dominating aspirations of a nation created opposition within other nations and could possibly provoke interference from an external dominant empire.

A federation with equal national positions appeared to be the most viable solution. But these ideas were only realized mainly after some unsuccessful domination efforts, as occurred with Kossuth Lajos’

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Danube Confederation idea after the fall of the 1848 liberation war.

There was absolutely no chance that these great ideas would be taken seriously and into political practice. Later Jászi Oszkár and Milan Hodža also remained alone with their federative ideas.

We should say, on the other hand, that after the unsuccessful imperial centralisation and suppression period in the Austrian Habsburg lands, it could be more successful to integrate the different national groups, such as the Poles in Galicia, and the Czechs in the Czech and Moravian territories, than the strong supremacy-based nationalist Magyar political elite.

That was a major reason for the elimination of the Hungarian Kingdom after the First World War. We are talking again about social life: the school system, the language usage rights and the structure of the public administration.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the Slovaks completely lost their educational system and cultural institutional system because of the Magyar political decisions, and there were no opportunities for them to take an equal part in the public administration.

At the same time, in the Austrian lands, the balance in this field among the Czechs and Germans was almost total. The failure to turn from dualism to trialism, however, was a major problem for them, and it was also a major reason why the dominant Czech intellectuals wanted national sovereignty at the end of the First World War. As for Polish people, the Austrian-ruled Polish territories enjoyed the best conditions in the former Polish Kingdom area for strengthening their culture and identity.

Mixed Identities of Central Europe

The historical remembrances of the nations of the former AustroHungarian monarchy differ greatly from each other; containing a number of nationalist and xenophobic social and historical myths in every case.

But we should see, on the other hand, that there were several mixed identities also within families, for example within the Zrínyi-Zrinski and Balassa-Balaša families in the early modern period.

In the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Monarchy period, everybody was nominally a member of the same political and social community, so it is useless to talk about the particular national identities of historical persons before the nineteenth century through the prism of different national myths.

In fact, this is a part of the tradition of national populism present in

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all Central European countries. How one defined oneself individually by one’s identity, how one wrote one’s name, another should accept.

The famous poet and soldier Zrínyi Miklós also used his Croatian name-form, Nikola Zrinski, because of his mixed identity.

Populists and nationalist often think in terms of simple intellectual schemes and forget that national identity is a dynamic social phenomenon, whose trends can change several times even within a relatively short historical period, within ten to twenty years.

For example, the re-establishing of the Slovak identity occurred just after the Magyar assimilation pressure was eliminated. We can talk about nations and national identities just in a certain historical period and context. These are not absolute categories, as the national populists suggest.

Tragedy of Fragmentation and Totalitarianism

After the First World War, the Western superpowers divided the nations in Central Europe in order to reach their own strategic goals and sometimes even imported ideological elements, which strengthened nationalism and xenophobia.

A region of less multicultural but nationally divided nation-states dominated by a nation with the problems of large minorities could be easily dominated by external powers, making a new power balance in the region, but just for around twenty years.

But of course then the real tragedies of the region were the great totalitarian empires to the East and to the West, Adolf Hitler’s German Third Reich, and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin’s Soviet Union. They easily manipulated and undermined this fragmented state-structure with their own goals, easily eliminating also the Versailles system.

The new states after Versailles were as ethnically mixed as the previous empires after the First World War. The domination efforts by nationalisation undermined any kind of efforts for a solid democratic political establishment (as was the case in Czechoslovakia), or made no opportunity for democracy (as was the case in Hungary, because of the social and economic collapse).

Similar things happened in Poland, with the need to defend the Polish social positions against Germans, Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians. Austria faced a special self-identity problem connected to the issue of defining itself in the new international environment.

Using national problems, Adolf Hitler could successfully undermine the whole Versailles system and the Third Reich became the only

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major power in the region from the late thirties till the end of the Second World War. The Western powers assisted Nazi Germany in eliminating the international political structure constructed by them. They were not able to defend either Czechoslovakia, or Poland, or Austria. The irredentist Magyar regime was the easiest target of the Nazi leaders’ political manipulations.

These nations still have a kind of historical shock and trauma by the period of 1920–1948, because the creation process and some temporary collapse of the nationalized nation states, and as a result of severe manipulation by several external powers.

Totalitarian Heritage

The common geographical, social, political and economic frameworks were tragically divided and everyone became some kind of loser in the process. The formerly dominant nations were suppressed within a very short historical period (eg. Magyars after the First World War, Czechs and Poles after Adolf Hitler’s aggression).

Relations with Adolf Hitler or Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin did not bring any long-term benefit to any of the countries. There was a kind of a collective revenge against the Germans and the Magyars after the Second World War; they were considered collective war criminals as allies of the Nazi regime.

The biggest forced migration since the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe happened just after the Second World War, in order to create clear totalitarian nation states without significant national minority groups.

The re-establishment of Central European nation-states after the Second World War took place again in a clearly antidemocratic and totalitarian way, using nationalist and xenophobic social feelings as political tools.

The national idea, however, as a new political myth became stronger in the twentieth century. It generated a kind of a myth creation process within the national states focusing on triumph and using national memory.

After the Second World War, Central Europe experienced a rise of Communist systems, in which proletarian internationalism was just an empty slogan. Any kind of pluralism could be dangerous for the authoritarian rule, so the nations formed the so-called Socialist nation-states with minimal mutual cooperation, mainly organized by

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the Soviet Union. The borders were strictly guarded by the military also within the Communist bloc.

The decades after the Second World War strengthened the authoritarian and nationalist political, social and cultural behaviours in daily life everywhere, although nationalism as a political idea was a taboo in this period. Practically strong intolerant xenophobic nationalism and the totalitarian Communist rule were in alliance in the region.

The rule of Klement Gottwald and Gustav Husák in ČSSK are good examples, as well as the Rudolf Slánsky case, anti-Semitic campaigns in Poland by General Mieczysław Moczar, and so on.

It would seem that Edvard Beneš and other non-Communist civil politicians did not properly realize that the collectivization of war crimes (instead of the individual trials) and total minority expulsion efforts were just the first steps of the Communist way towards the total homogenisation of society.

Shortly after the ethnic minorities were expelled, the leading nonCommunist politicians found themselves in the same position: they became enemies of the state. The situation in Hungary was unfortunately no different. Most of the civil politicians advocated the expulsion of the German minority and were not able to realize the dynamics of the contemporary power struggles.

The Socialist policy towards national groups tried to eliminate the force of the political and cultural identities of these groups, forwarding their activities into politically neutral zones, like the so called musician and dancing folklore minority conception in Hungary during the era of Kádár János.

This process caused significantly unequal and weak social and economic positions for these groups within the society, and highly catalysed individual assimilation into the dominant nations everywhere in the region.

Necessary Cooperation

Now we have to see that decentralized cooperation with other nations for our mutual benefit is essential. We have to rebuild the economic, infrastructural and social connections near the borders.

More and more people face the tragic weight of the losses or total elimination of their neighbours, like the Jews in the Shoa, and the tragic psychological and economical consequences of these events. We have to re-evaluate our views on our national myths and the changing phenomena of national identity within the European Union (EU).

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Decentralizing the political and public administration structure of the Central European countries, and making a new kind of citizenbased democratic state paradigm can be quite essential tools for living together without any national fears from the parts of the dominant nations and minorities.

In the Nordic countries there are strong national identities, but national loyalty in itself is not aimed against the neighbouring nations. Simultaneously, the highly decentralized political and public administration system based on subsidiarity provides the chance for anyone in a minority position (not just ethnical) to feel at home without any major threat of discrimination.

For this very reason, the national identity of the majority people in the country does not suffer in the regions where they are in a minority position (see for example Finnish-Swedish model in this field).

As shown, it is possible to make a good regional framework for living together without the elimination and suppression of national feelings of culture and identity. It should be a good model for Central Europe also. The key points are democratization and decentralization.

Autonomous regions with strong democratic control and decentralized states without any dominant nationalisation aspirations, based on nationally and culturally equal and autonomous democratic citizens, may gradually eliminate national and xenophobic fears because of the equally individual and collective positions of the people.

When everyone is an equal citizen of a regionalized democratic state, applying subsidiarity, no one wants to talk about borders; it does not make any sense. We are, however, currently very far from these paradigms.

Each of the Central European states would like to be integrated into the European Union (EU) as a nationalized nation-state, trying to face the minority issues as a democratic problem of their mainly centralized political systems.

For example, the status of the socially disintegrated Roma community is a general problem in each of the countries in the region. Perhaps the relevant minorities in a small region within a state will also want to dominate through regional power in the same way as the general majorities do on the bigger, national level.

This might potentially lead to quite strong conflicts in the whole Central European region, and that is why we need a new state paradigm. The autonomy of political minorities also means a kind of national dominance against the assimilation pressure by the wholecountry majority.

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Are we able to overcome these strong tendencies by using our historical experience: the negative points of the nationalised nationstates, and any kind of national domination efforts creating a completely new kind of socio-political framework?

Questions for the Future

A seminar like the one held by the WSCF CESR in Senec is a very good opportunity to talk about the feelings and memories of the participants from different countries pertaining to these topics.

How can we build up dialogue with each other again? How can we accept the historical, psychological traumas and feelings of the members of other nations? How can we forgive each other and make viable compromises for living together in the future?

Is it really possible to overcome the traditional nationalised nationstate paradigm with an authoritarian dominative centralization-based social heritage? Can our countries experience a shift from national populism towards a new democratic, citizen-based, decentralized paradigm?

Or are we destined to remain in a continuous social battle between the dominative national aspirations of majorities and minorities?

These are undoubtedly relevant questions for the development of Central Europe in the near future.

Suggested Reading Bibó István, A kelet-európai kisállamok nyomorúsága (The Tragedy of the Small States of Eastern Europe).

Kolozsvár, 1997.

Brubaker Rogers, Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge, 1996.

Halecki Oskar, Borderlands of Western Civilization a History of East Central Europe. New York, 1952.

Hobsbawm Eric J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Vintage. New York, 1996.

Hodža Milan, Federation in Central Europe: Reflections and Reminiscences. London, 1942.

Jászi Oszkár, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Chicago, 1939.

Kovácˇ Dušan, Dejiny Slovenska (The History of Slovakia). Praha, 1998.

Kusý Miroslav, A magyarkérdés Szlovákiában (The Magyar Question in Slovakia). Pozsony, 2002.

Kymlicka Will, Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford, 2004.

Lipták L’ubomír, Storocˇie dlhšie ako sto rokov: O dejinách a historiografii (A Century Longer than Hundred Years: Essays about History and Historiography). Bratislava, 1999.

Romsics Ignác, Helyünk és sorsunk a Duna-medencében (Our Place and Destiny in the Danube Basin). Budapest, 2005.

Romsics Ignác, Magyarország története a huszadik században (The History of Hungary in the Twentieth Century).

Budapest, 2005.

Romsics Ignác, Nemzet, nemzetiség és állam Kelet-, Közép- és Délkelet-Európában a tizenkilencedik és a huszadik században (Nation, Nationality and State in Eastern, Central and South Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Budapest, 2004.

Szûcs Jenô, Vázlat Európa három történeti régiójáról (A Draft on the Three Historical Regions of Europe).

Budapest, 1983.

Terra Recognita: Szlovák–magyar párbeszéd interneten. Rozštepená Minulost’ (Bilingual Interactive Project for Slovak–Magyar Historical Conversation). http://www.minulost.sk. (Slovak Version), http://tra.hu/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=35. (Magyar Version) Németh Márton (1978) graduated in Library and Information Science and History with a specialization in European politics at Szeged University in Hungary. He works as a librarian in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. He is currently studying in Ålborg, Denmark in the European Studies MA programme. His thesis is about the political and historical background of the Balkan Crisis, finding parallels and differences within Central European political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His email address is nemethm@ gmail.com.

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The Guilt of Others and the Guilt of One’s own People:

How can Churches Contribute to Reconciliation through the Plea for Forgiveness?

Looking back at the role of the German protestant mainline churches and their attempts to deal with their guilt in the Second World War and the Third Reich might help one to understand the role churches can play in reconciliation efforts today.

This is especially true because the wounds made by the Second World War have not yet completely healed and the quest for an appropriate remembrance has still not reached its conclusion.

While today it seems that the integration process of the European Union (EU) overcomes the frictions of the past, it is uncertain if the endeavours to give a soul to Europe can be successful if the question of reconciled memories of the past is not taken seriously.

This is especially the case for unified Germany, in which the reference to the imperative, to never to let the Third Reich happen again, forms something of an ultimate moral foundation for Germany’s public selfunderstanding.

Thus, looking at the debates about guilt and the confession of guilt during the early years after the Second World War in Germany might serve as a case study for dealing with political and moral guilt in one’s own people from the point of view of the churches.

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I. The Long History of Dealing with the Past

During the Second World War, quite a few church-people felt the need to confess guilt about what Germany had done; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, included a confession of guilt (Schuldbekenntnis) into his Ethics.

But after the liberation of Germany, there was little willingness to do so. It became clear very soon, however, that there was a need for a statement of this kind in order to build bridges to the churches of different nations who were trying to reintegrate the German churches into the newly developing ecumenical movement.

Thus at the meeting of the newly founded Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany (Rat der Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) in Stuttgart in 1945, a declaration of guilt concerning the war towards the other churches was formulated.

The Stuttgart Confession of Guilt (Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis) was followed by the so-called Darmstadt Declaration (Darmstädter Wort) of the Confessing Church, both reflecting the political attitude of the German churches in 1947.

Later, in 1961, the EKD Synod in Berlin Weißensee dealt with guilt in regard to the Jews, and, finally, the famous Memorandum concerning the Eastern Neighbours (Ostdenkschrift) followed in 1965. This was a breakthrough for the policy of de-escalation from Western Germany towards Poland and the Eastern Block by the social-democratic government in the sixties and seventies.

It took, however, until 1989 for the churches to formulate a declaration concerning the people of the Soviet Union, which did not come to an official adoption due to the breakdown of the Iron Curtain in the same year.

The fact that it took such long time for the mainline Protestant churches to deal with the Nazi past shows evidence of the difficulties involved. If one also considers the huge public debate caused by the exhibition on the war crimes of the German Wehrmacht, one can see that there is still no common view of German past today.

1. Stuttgart, 1945 At its meeting in Stuttgart in October 1945, the Council of the EKD had eight visitors from the ecumenical movement. The church had been previously asked for a statement recognising the guilt of the German people in order to have a better basis for the ecumenical support and relief efforts, and this was the time to formulate one.

Bonhoeffer Dietrich, Ethik. München, 1992. 129–132.

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In doing so, the church leaders hoped for some kind of confidentiality in order to avoid inner German debates regarding the question of guilt. This was due to the long lasting problems the issue of guilt— and its ascription to Germany, Austria and Hungary by the peace treaty of Versailles—caused after the First World War in the twenties and thirties, contributing to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Also, moods were already shifting in Germany; the country faced heavy food shortages and growing resentment against the deNazification measures applied by the Allied Forces.

Thus somehow the Council of the EKD hoped that the ecumenical guests would take this statement directly to their churches without making it public, at least in Germany. The strong opposition the Council faced after the leak-out of the text proved their fears correct.

The key phrases of the declaration were as follows: “With great pain we declare: Through us unending sorrow has been brought over many people and countries. That, which we have often born witness to in our congregations, we now openly express in the name of the whole church: Although we have fought over long years in the name of Jesus Christ against the spirit, which found its terrible expression in the National Socialist dictatorship; but we accuse ourselves for that we have not

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confessed more bravely, not prayed more truly, not believed more happily and not loved more fervently.

Now a fresh start shall be made in our churches. Based on the Holy Scriptures, in all sincerity oriented on the sole Lord of the Church, they are going to cleanse themselves from the influences alien to faith and give themselves a new order.”

At that time, the ecumenical friends were grateful for this declaration, acknowledging the great difficulties associated with stating such truth. Their impression was also formed by the statements of Martin Niemöller—who phrased the sentence about the unending sorrow— and of Hans Asmussen, both of whom spoke about their own guilt in a personal way. In order to understand the rationale behind these words, however, three things have to be born in mind: A. Somehow the statement differentiates between the actions of the church and the spirit of the world, which found its expression in the Nazi dictatorship. Statements of prominent church leaders, such as Hans Asmussen, made it clear that this spirit was the so-called spirit of secularisation. Thus the church itself is not guilty of what was happening; its only guilt lies in its inability to oppose the ways of the world.

B. Furthermore, the church is not guilty as such, it was only weak. The church had opposed the spirit that was behind the Nazi dictatorship, but it did not do it strongly enough. This statement reveals only a limited extent of guilt in this case.

C. After these statements, a new start was made by the German churches. Thus it seems that the question of the misgivings of the past shall no longer burden the present situation.

The strong line regarding the great pain brought over other people and nations was introduced very late in this text, so that there was at least one statement of real sorrow.

If one bears in mind that the majority of the church members—even in the Confessing Church—did not object to National Socialism as such, but only to its interference in church affairs, the differentiation between the church on the one hand and the world on the other shows that this declaration did not intend to deal with the crimes or the war, but rather somehow tried to limit it all to a failure by the world. In these circumstances, a line referring to an unending sorrow gives the whole text a different tone, but is not really integrated into the whole.

The main question remains: Who is the “we” confessing here, Die Stuttgarter Schulderklärung. In Greschat Martin (ed.), Im Zeichen der Schuld: Vierzig Jahre Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis: Eine Dokumentation. Neukirchen-Vlyun, 1985. 45. [Translation mine – S.A.]

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and to what extent does the church—or at least the church leaders speaking—identify with this “we?” And secondly, the main theological problem behind this statement is the following: is it possible to confess collective guilt or should the individuals speak for themselves? Can the Church as a whole confess guilt?

2. The Darmstadt Declaration In August 1947 the Council of the Confessing Church, which still existed and was striving for a completely new structure in the German churches, issued a statement regarding the “political path of our people.”

Here the statement of wrongdoings is formulated in a much more detailed and specific way, mentioning the national conservative attitude of the churches, the dream of a special vocation of Germany, the dualistic worldview and ignorance regarding the necessary political changes in Germany.

Here the tone is quite different; in several points it states: “We went astray…”

“1. We have been taught the word of reconciliation of the world with God in Christ. This word we are supposed to hear, to accept, to do and to pass on. This word is not heard, not accepted, not done and not passed on if we are not absolved from our complete guilt, from the guilt of our Fathers as well as our own and if we do not allow Jesus Christ, the good Shepard, to call us home from all of our wrong and evil ways in which we as Germans in our political wishes and deeds went astray.”

“4. We went astray as we thought we would build the frontline of Good against Evil, Light against Darkness, Just against Unjust in political life and with political means. Thereby we have falsified the free offer of God’s Grace to all by political, social and worldview frontlines and left the world to its self-justification.”

This is just one example of the way this statement of confessing guilt is phrased. Also its theological reflection on the need for forgiveness is much deeper than in the Stuttgart Declaration. In order to see the difference between the two statements, it is important to draw attention to the following points: Interestingly enough, it took the EKD well into the eighties to publish a statement accepting democracy as a political order in line with the Gospel. I am not sure, however, which other European Churches have done so officially.

Ein Wort des Bruderrates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland zum politischen Weg unseres Volkes. In Greschat 85.

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A. In the whole text, it is quite clear who is speaking.

Representatives of the Church speak about the German people (so it states in the headline), but this statement speaks of the church leaders and the Church as a whole. “We went astray,” meaning the Church is part of the political situation; the political path of the German people is also the political path of the Church.

B. In its different points, specific problems are named. Thus the statement is not only referring to suffering or wrongdoing, but it explicitly states the wrongs the Church has to face. In naming the wrongs of the Church—and not just its insufficient attempts to prevent evil—it has a clear picture of what it criticises.

C. The final part of the Darmstadt Declaration speaks about the need for a new beginning in Germany, but it also speaks about the responsibility of the Church to contribute to the new political and social order in the country, and not just to the new structure of the Church. Here the outcome is perceived as open.

Therefore the questions, which have been raised in connection with the Stuttgart confession of guilt, are largely answered in this case.

Still it remains open to debate if the collective of church leaders can confess guilt.

This has been done at least in the tone of an identifying “we,” meaning those who speak, they speak about themselves. The open question here remains: to whom is this confession directed? And does it lead to a deeper understanding of the role which the Church and its members played?

In order to understand the difference between Stuttgart and Darmstadt fully, it might be helpful to turn to another level of dealing with the question of guilt, to the Thielecke–Diem controversy which also took place in 1947.

3. Preaching about Guilt

In 1947 a book was published entitled The Guilt of the Others. It contained a controversy between the theologians Helmut Thielecke and Hermann Diem, which was triggered by a Good Friday sermon given by Helmut Thielecke.

In this sermon, he claimed that due to the sufferings of the German people caused by the expulsion of Germans from the countries in the

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East where they had been a minority with poor living conditions (for which he held the Allied Forces responsible), there was no way of speaking about the guilt of Germany without naming the guilt of the others, that of the victorious nations.

Hermann Diem challenged this approach and suggested that a part of this discourse was not a topic for a sermon but for political actions, and that the Allied Forces were suffering from bad conditions in 1947 also.

He asked if the listeners to Helmut Thielecke’s sermon were led to the denial of their own guilt if the preacher speaks of the guilt of the others. Helmut Thielecke did not intend this, but claimed it would easier for the German people to face their guilt if they saw that there were others too who were guilty.

Hermann Diem, however, was afraid that the way Helmut Thielecke spoke about guilt would lead to a relativist approach to one’s own guilt. An important issue came to light through this debate, revealing how the majority of the Germans viewed their situation.

While not yet being ready to acknowledge themselves as perpetrators of the past, they felt that they were victims of the present. How should they deal with the denial of involvement in the Nazi system while facing the experience of being a victim of the post-war developments?

II. Learning from the Past: Theological Implications

We should now address some of the underlying questions from a theological perspective. One has to be clear about the problems involved in a confession of guilt, which were posed to the participants of the post-war churches. These give hints to how the questions of confessing guilt, reconciliation and the role of the churches in the history of conflict and wrong-doings can be tackled today.

1. Whose Guilt, and which Confession?

In the traditional theological terms of the Evangelical-Lutheran tradition, it was unusual to speak about collective errors and claim that political mistakes were a question of theological concern. While those of the Reformed tradition had fewer problems including the issues of social action and structure into theological considerations, this was not common for the Evangelical-Lutheran approach.

The main reason was the double insight of Evangelical-Lutheran

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theology, that on the one hand humans cannot avoid the tendency to err and become sinners, and, therefore, on the other hand, they should refrain from attempts at self-justification through any suggestion that a given or aspired social or political order is “blessed” by God. Also, there was the important question of to whom any confession of guilt by the churches should be directed. Theologically it only made sense if the confession was directed to God. In this sense, Hans Asmussen explained in Stuttgart to the ecumenical guest: “We say this to you, because we have said it God.” The central point of understanding was that because we are with others facing a third party—God—we are able to confess our guilt.

Theologically there is no use for confessing sins or guilt to others in the first place—as this would be nothing other than an attempt at self-justification.

It is only theologically relevant if we address God and speak of guilt against God, instead of trying to appease others. The question remains, however, if there is a correspondence between the confession to God and the confession to others.

If the confession is directed only to those against whom we have transgressed, we become hostages to their reaction. This, however, would contradict the Gospel’s promise of freedom. Therefore, a theologically correct approach is to ask for forgiveness from God, which ultimately frees us to face the reaction of the others.

In an Evangelical-Lutheran understanding, I, as a sinner, am not reduced by God to being a sinner, but am freed from my guilt in relation to God only through God’s mercy. I, then, should be able to stand the positive or negative reaction of those against whom I have made myself guilty, because it is not necessary that those I have hurt or violated will be able to forgive. I will have to stand their reaction whatever it is, but I am not dependent on their reaction in a theological sense.

Still it is an open question whether a collective can confess guilt. It is even more open if the Church as such can do so. We do find solutions to this question in the statements of Stuttgart and Darmstadt.

Stuttgart does not make a direct connection between the guilt of the German people and the Church. Rather the Church—as an entity vis-à-vis the society—is talking about the failure of the world, governed by the spirit of secularisation, which ultimately led to the Nazi dictatorship.

In this context, the Church failed as well, but it is not responsible for the guilt. Does it theologically make sense to confess this guilt

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to God? Not in the connection of the unending sorrow which was “brought about by us over the nations.”

In the final text, it seems as if the Church confesses someone else’s guilt, and only later determines its own failure. Here the Darmstadt attitude is more appropriate, as it solely speaks about the collective guilt of the Church, not talking about guilt associated with others.

In this case, it is less important if the Church is perceived as a part of the society or something outside. Darmstadt was right, however, in understanding that the Protestant churches are part of the world, thus needing forgiveness like the rest of human structures. This is a main difference in the ecclesiological understanding between the Protestant churches on the one hand and the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches on the other.

Thus in regards to the question of who confesses the guilt (first to God and only in a second step to the others), the answer lies in the identifying “we”—only if I or we speak for ourselves, we can confess.

Only in this case does one get liberated to change and become open to metanoia, to the reversal of one’s own actions and attitudes, because the promise of not being reduced to one’s past opens one up to face the reaction of the others without making one’s own confession dependent on their reaction.

2. Reconciling Memories: What is Involved?

The reaction of others is important for our existence in this world.

Even if thorough theological thinking leads to insight of the need for forgiveness from God in the first place, the ambiguity of one’s own experiences leads to an urge for inner-worldly “justice.”

This was especially obvious in the Thielecke–Diem controversy.

How is it possible to name one’s own guilt, while feeling mistreated in the present situations? In looking at Stuttgart and the Thielecke– Diem controversy two things become obvious: In the reaction to the Stuttgart Statement, after its leak-out to the German press, the main focus was on the perspective that the statement appeared to say it was only the German people who inflicted pain and sorrow upon other nations.

Besides the historical memory of having been made responsible for the First World War, what angered the political actors was the reality that, in this declaration, nothing was said explicitly about the suffering of the German people.

Many cities were completely destroyed; there were millions of German refugees from the former Eastern territories of the German

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Reich; food and homes were short; many people felt unfairly accused of being responsible for the Nazi crimes—in this situation it felt wrong not to name the victim experience of the occupied country.

Furthermore, the confessed guilt was too general to relate to.

While it was true that German military, German politics and German people had brought unending sorrow and pain to other people and nations, there were also experiences of war crimes from the other side, of suffering and sorrow on the German side. How could this be tackled?

The aim of Helmut Thielecke was to do justice to this experience, freeing his listeners to the insight that there was guilt on both sides in order to help them accept their own involvement in the suffering of others.

Thus his approach was pastoral rather than theological. Hermann Diem criticised this approach, as it did not lead to any admittance of one’s own guilt, but “just” served the need for recognition of the present feelings.

What is theologically at stake here is again the question of the addressee—should it be God or the political powers?—and the appropriate way of speaking. It would seem that Helmut Thielecke blurred the mode of confessing guilt and of lamenting at one’s own fate to God. While it is theological nonsense to combine the confession of personal guilt with calls for the confession of others at the same time, it is quite appropriate from a biblical perspective to lament about one’s own pain to God, as many of the Psalms show.

Both ways of speaking to God help in regard to the promise of the Gospel: I am free to cry out and ask for deliverance from pain and suffering. This might lead to a new openness for the situation I find myself in as I realise that there is an appropriate place for my sorrow.

The political question of responsibility for the present situation, however, is not something I can handle with God—here political action is needed. On the other hand, the confession of guilt is not something aimed theologically at one’s own destruction or burdening, but the aim of confessing guilt to God is for liberation and forgiveness.

The impression the Stuttgart text raised was that of an unspecific general responsibility for all that happened. Maybe in a way this was true—had the German people not followed their government into the war, their cities would not have been bombed. This was not the subject of the confession, however; the Church named an abstract sort of responsibility belonging to someone else.

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One of the consequences of such an abstract approach can be seen in the current situation of memories concerning the responsibility for the Third Reich and its crimes in Germany. In the nineties a sociological study found that some sort of double memory exists in the minds of the Germans.

While it is generally accepted that the German Reich was responsible for the crimes against the Jews, the Socialists and many other people within the country and against other nations due to the war, family memory is completely different.

Although the generations involved maintain a certain ambiguity about their role and involvement in their private memory, the memory of their grandchildren is cleansed from any personal guilt ascribed to their grandparents.

So while there is general acceptance of the German guilt, personal guilt is denied. Here the question of specific guilt comes into play.

As Darmstadt did, there are specific mistakes which one can relate to and decide whether or not one is guilty. Here the individual memory is involved and challenged directly.

Two aspects need to be considered. On one hand, it is necessary for social reconciliation that all experiences are involved: my wrongdoings as well as my suffering. Thus, the project of Reconciling Memories in Northern Ireland aims at an exchange of different stories of suffering. Memory is needed for liberation.

True mundane reconciliation is only achievable if it is possible to integrate all memories into a new, shared and reconciled memory which does not exclude any suffering but does justice to the ambiguity of human life—including the reality that, in most cases, one is both the perpetrator and victim at the same time.

This includes a substantial theological dimension at the same time.

As Dietrich Ritschl has shown, it is the stories we tell that structure our thinking; the stories available to us form the way we are able to tell our own story.

Thereby the underlying logic of the stories is relevant: Am I able to tell stories of guilt? Am I able to tell stories of suffering which do not exclude my own responsibility? Are the stories I am telling realistic in their view of the world?

The Darmstadt declaration tries to tell such stories of errors and of Jensen Olaf, Was bleibt vom “Dritten Reich”? In Junge Kirche 2000/61. 463–469. Also: Welzer Harald, Kumulatives Heroisieren: Nationalsozialismus und Krieg im Gespräch zwischen den Generationen. In Mittelweg 36 2001/2. 57–73.

Falconer Alan D. – Liechty Joseph (eds.), Reconciling Memories. Dublin, 1998.

McCaughey Terence P., Memory and Redemption: Church, Politics and Prophetic Theology in Ireland. Dublin, 1993.

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going astray. In taking them up and linking them to the need and experience of forgiveness through God, it becomes possible to find the biblical stories of redemption and liberation echoing in one’s own life. Thus I am able to speak in an appropriate way to God about my life and to other people about my faith.

The journey for reconciled memories involves not only a peaceful co-existence of different groups with diverse histories or stories in a secular sense, but includes a theological dimension which may be able to transcend the purely historic dimension of guilt in the past.

Since one’s own history of guilt and suffering is related to the biblical stories of redemption and forgiveness, to the stories of metanoia and new social inclusion, faith may serve as an empowering mechanism for facing those aspects of guilt that otherwise would be denied.

3. What Role Can the Churches Play?

Looking back at the long way the Protestant churches in Germany had to go in order to face their involvement in the historic guilt of Germany’s past, it seems to me that three lessons are helpful from this history.

A. The Right Mode of Speaking In statements and approaches to histories of pain, guilt and suffering, it is necessary for the churches to focus on a theologically adequate mode of speaking. When is it appropriate to use the mode of confession? Here the addressee is God, so it is only adequate to use this mode in order to ask for the freedom to face one’s own past and wrongdoings.

The opportunity to get rid of the limitation of our identification with the errors of the past, which were against God’s proclamation and in contradiction to God’s orders, is at stake. This might ultimately free us to speak of our guilt also to those against whom we have become guilty, not needing their forgiveness beforehand in order to be able to speak about it.

When is it right to use the mode of lamentation? This way of speaking also is directed towards God and allows accounting of our feelings, our suffering and our need for justice, for change and help. Again, this requires the clear distinction between lamentation—which is theologically appropriate—and political accusation, which should find its place in the political realm.

There might also be a need, however, for the prophetic voice of the Ritschl Dietrich, Zur Logik der Theologie: Kurze Darstellung der Zusammenhänge theologischer Grundgedanken.

München, 1988. 300.

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Church regarding wrongs in our world. This prophetic voice only remains biblically grounded if it is directed to the faithful of one’s own community, and not as a mere blame of the others for pain and suffering.

Also the modes of prayer and proclamation are open to the Church.

In prayer, however, the direction is again to God, thereby implying a focus on what we ask from God, not what we want others to ask from God. The proclamation of the Church finally offers people the opportunity to find their life and personal stories in the overarching story of God with God’s people and with the world. Proclamation is not the place of denial, in which the present state shall be ignored and a future in ignorance of the current situation described, but rather a place of relating the present situation to the promises of the Gospel, thus making it understandable in a new liberating way.

B. Honesty and Specific Speaking In order to integrate our own stories into the overarching story of God’s promise and redemption, it is necessary to speak of specific issues and situations. Only in this case we are able to join in the confession of guilt, as we discover that we have the same need of forgiveness.

And only in this case we are able to realise that our lives are in need of a different reconciliation. In the case of post-war Germany the statements of Stuttgart and Darmstadt did not apply to the whole Church, as it was not true for those few Christians, who were pacifists, who opposed the Nazi dictatorship from its beginning on—people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others.

It was also not true for those religious Socialists, who from early on had left the path of a nationalistic view of the Church and the state.

On the other hand, only a specific mode of talking allows for new understanding of our own past and a true call for forgiveness and reconciliation.

C. Creating a Community of Alternative Experience Later in the history of the German Protestant churches, movements like Aktion Sühnezeichen were created. Young German people went to the victims of Germany’s past and tried to bear witness to the reconciliation the Church was asking for and witnessing to.

Thus a space for shared experience was created, an open space for

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meeting, for developing a common future, and for sharing memories.

This needs to be a space which does justice to the ambiguous past and liberates the actors to a reconciled future.

This cannot be guaranteed by the Church, but the Church can try to search for a community which is not based upon the past or the limitations of political understanding, national identity or group identities that are created in confrontation with others. The space created by the Church should rather be oriented towards a community which transcends these limitations and looks for God’s promise and the hope derived from it.

Suggested Reading Bonhoeffer Dietrich, Ethik. München, 1992.

Die Stuttgarter Schulderklärung. In Greschat Martin (ed.), Im Zeichen der Schuld: Vierzig Jahre Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis: Eine Dokumentation. Neukirchen-Vlyun, 1985. 45–47.

Ein Wort des Bruderrates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland zum politischen Weg unseres Volkes. In Greschat Martin (ed.), Im Zeichen der Schuld: Vierzig Jahre Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis: Eine Dokumentation.

Neukirchen-Vlyun, 1985. 85–86.

Falconer Alan D. – Liechty Joseph (eds.), Reconciling Memories. Dublin, 1998.

Greschat Martin (ed.), Im Zeichen der Schuld: Vierzig Jahre Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis: Eine Dokumentation.

Neukirchen-Vlyun, 1985.

International Theological Commission, Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past.

Vatican, 1999. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html Jensen Olaf, Was bleibt vom “Dritten Reich”? In Junge Kirche 2000/9. 463–469.

McCaughey Terence P., Memory and Redemption: Church, Politics and Prophetic Theology in Ireland. Dublin, 1993.

Ritschl Dietrich, Zur Logik der Theologie: Kurze Darstellung der Zusammenhänge theologischer Grundgedanken.

München, 1988.

Welzer Harald, Kumulatives Heroisieren: Nationalsozialismus und Krieg im Gespräch zwischen den Generationen.

In Mittelweg 36 2001/2. 57–73.

Sören Asmus is a United Protestant from Germany. He graduated from the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) in Dublin and is minister in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Rhineland, working for the United Evangelical Mission (UEM), Wuppertal. He was on the WSCF European Regional Committee (ERC) and was a member of the Programmatic Working Group (PWG). His email address is: soae@gmx.de.

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Peter Foulds

Xenophobia and the Need for Vigilance “Holding anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned.”

Buddha

I recently spent some time in Barking, in East London, a place which has been associated with immigrants since Huguenots escaping Roman Catholic intolerance arrived in the seventeenth century and brought with them the fried fish and chips the English mistakenly think is a native dish.

Nowadays in Barking you can buy your newspaper from a Bangladeshi newsagent, phone a cab from the Greek Cypriot taxi office, choose between an Indian or Chinese takeaway, get your daily bread at the Jewish baker’s, or pick up some shopping at the Russian grocer, a place also popular with the Lithuanians and Poles who are more recent arrivals.

Tolerance at Work

East London is one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan places on Earth and, for the most part, it works. Despite the concerted efforts of racist groups, people interact, work together, shop at each others’ shops, live side-by-side, catch the same buses, pay the same taxes, drink the same water and breathe the same air.

This is, of course, no mystery. Almost every person in every part of every country in the world wants essentially the same things: peace and security under the rule of law, a warm, dry place in which to live, bread on the table and the work needed to pay for it. The freedom to worship and the right to participate in the political process are important but secondary issues.

The problems of racism, intolerance and xenophobia have always come from a small minority. This minority is usually loosely-based,

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underprivileged and inarticulate, but there are times when likeminded bigots form organized groups and seek to recruit others.

The groups may be as shambolic and primitive as a pack of football hooligans, or as disciplined and deadly as the Schutzstaffel (SS). What they have in common is an intoxicating mix of focused aggression and genuine camaraderie. Two personal anecdotes may serve to illustrate this and its more positive counterpart.

When I was growing up in the London borough of Greenwich in the sixties, a small number of Hindu families moved into the area.

They were dignified, respectable people who wanted only to live in peace. By and large their wish was granted, but they did suffer minor incidents of what I call soft racism.

One day I was out walking with my elder brother and his friends.

As we approached a Hindu woman one of our group said, “Hold your breath.� To my eternal shame I did as instructed. I sometimes wonder how that woman must have felt, a woman whose culture was producing great art when my ancestors were hunter-gatherers painted blue.

I suspect that she accepted our ignorant disrespect with the dignity for which her people are justly renowned. The pang of conscience I felt at the time was overpowered by the comfort of feeling part of a group, the strength in numbers, the congratulation of peer approval.

Moving forward to the late seventies, I found myself part of another group, and I am happy to say that this one was considerably more honourable than the last. At that time, an openly racist political party, the National Front (NF), was gaining in strength.

By using tactics such as claiming that immigrants were causing unemployment among the indigenous (ie. white) people, the NF played on the fears of some of the working class and scapegoated those who had come, as was their right, from former British colonies to seek a better life in the UK. The party not only gained a significant number of votes in local elections, but succeeded in fomenting fear and hatred within many communities. An organisation called the Anti-Nazi League (ANL), with its affiliate Rock against Racism (RAR), organised marches and concerts to counter the wholly negative message of the racists.

During one of these marches I found myself walking amongst a group of elderly men whom I later identified as surviving members of the opposition to Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) from the thirties.

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As we walked through Brick Lane in East London, the sky suddenly filled with glass. A group of racists who had gathered at a pub and waited for the march were throwing beer glasses into the demonstrating crowd.

As the glasses hit us or smashed to the ground, I instinctively raised my arms to protect my head, but I noticed that the elderly men continued marching, their heads held high and their backs straight.

They would not show fear in the face of evil. That was, for me, a fine and inspirational example of passive resistance, and I instantly recognised those men as exemplary role models for the cause against hatred and intolerance.

The racists themselves presumably congratulated each other on well-aimed throws, and no doubt felt secure in the knowledge that they were safe from harm, since the demonstrators were peaceful and the sympathy of the police was with them.

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Blind Hatred or Primitive Instinct?

Why is it that some people feel the need not only to hate those who are different from them, but also to manifest this antagonism in violent physical action? We may find the answer to this in its opposite phenomenon, altruism.

The biologist Richard Dawkins has suggested that the reason why we help total strangers when there is nothing to be gained for ourselves lies not only in our upbringing, our religious or moral education, but also in a sound biological function.

In ancient communities, which consisted of up to two thousand people, it simply made good sense for everyone to help everyone else because each person was, or might become, related to every other person in the community.

When the community became unmanageably large, it split to form two distinct communities. In our complex and fragmented world today, we have largely lost that simple group identity. We have formed groups within groups; mutually exclusive factions for which antagonism of the other acts as a cohesive force within the group to which we belong.

The problem of racial intolerance and suspicion of the other may be simply a result of the fact that the other is clearly recognisable as different. The skin is a different colour, the language is incomprehensible, the food smells strange, the customs are odd. Let us remember the etymology of the word barbarian: it was originally imitative, suggesting “bar bar�, the gibberish of uncivilised nonGreeks.

When we perceive two things which are essentially similar but have some differences (two pens, for example), the first thing we do is compare them. In our comparison we find difference, and, in finding differences, we find disparity, inequality and thus superiority and inferiority.

It is inevitable that when two things are compared one of them will be conceived as inferior to the other, and because we all want to be on the winning side, I am likely to conclude that my pen is better than yours, my fish and chips are better than your goulash and knedliki, and that the Greenwich meridian is more authentic than the Bratislava meridian.

If we are to combat xenophobic behaviour, we need to understand that the root cause may be natural animal instinct. When we have recognized that perceiving that which is different from us as inferior

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is innate and perhaps even useful in self-protection, then we can rise above our instincts and see that what had an evolutionary function may not be appropriate in civilized society.

The way we see the different behaviour of others can lead to dangerous misinterpretation. A case in point concerns young West Indian men who stood before judges in criminal courts in Great Britain in the sixties and seventies.

The English judges, who had been brought up hearing from angry fathers and teachers the words: “Look at me when I am talking to you!” took the lowered heads and averted eyes of those they were punishing as a sign of recalcitrance. The young men, however, obeying the posture appropriate to the situation as taught by their Jamaican or Barbadian parents, were showing respect to the mistakenly insulted magistrate.

Sociologists suggest that this misinterpretation of cultural mores, as well as simple systemic racism, was responsible for the fact that black offenders received harsher sentences for the same crimes as those committed by their white counterparts. Differences in customs, dress, religion, cuisine and a dozen other things are often perceived as suspect, inferior or threatening.

When one group sees itself as distinct from (and usually superior to) another group, several things may happen. One or both groups usually construct stereotypes about the other. These can be relatively harmless or even flattering, but they may also be vicious and hateful.

In times of political tension and war, this phenomenon is usually more pronounced. As I am half Irish, I personally experienced a great deal of stupid Irish stereotyping from schoolmates and teachers during the seventies, when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was planting bombs in English pubs and mainland Britain was fearful.

This fear also found an outlet in jokes, which are a typical part of stereotyping. The Irish were of low intelligence and savage and so were not to be taken seriously or considered fully civilized. This is an old story from British imperialism in Ireland, and cartoonists and joke-tellers have been mining the stereotype for two hundred years.

The mention of Jonathan Swift, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, Sean O’Casey, Brendan Behan or Seamus Heaney (and that is just literature) matters not at all to those who find comfort and superiority in stereotyping. Logic does not come into it.

When we consider that a person or a distinct group of people is

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essentially different from us, we allow ourselves to see them as less than us. When we perceive people as inferior to us, it makes it easier to lose sympathy for them and their human right to freedom, equality under the law, dignity and respect.

And when we take that quantum leap and believe that our sisters and brothers are sub-human, it leads to the belief that we may humiliate them, subjugate them, persecute them, murder them. This was, as all honest people know, the consequence of Nazi ideology in the last century.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

When the world learned of the horrors of the death camps, the remaining Nazis and their admirers soon realized that the intentions and methods, which had seemed so reasonable to them, were totally unacceptable to the vast majority of civilized people.

Some of them, therefore, began denying that the Shoa (Holocaust) had ever happened. There is neither need nor space here to give detailed rebuttal to the claims put forward by Nazi sympathizers.

The body of evidence, both eye-witness and documentary, is widely available, overwhelming, corroborative and accepted by a vast number of professional historians working in universities and governments around the world. So what can these deniers hope to achieve by bluntly stating, in the face of the truth, that the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich did not take place?

They hope that with the passage of time, and with the help of growing public cynicism concerning official information, each successive generation will come to question the value of the generally accepted truth, and that they, the deniers, will gradually be able to revive the programmes of the Nazis with all that entails.

There are many groups that wish to undermine the truth of the Holocaust, but one stands out. The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) and its publication the Journal for Historical Review (JHR) both strive to present themselves as academically respectable. They organize meetings at which history is discussed in conference centres with all the appearance of normality and credibility.

The journal includes ‘revisionist’ articles on historical incidents other than the Holocaust in order to give the impression that it is concerned with a wider exploration of historical truth. One look at its website, however, should be enough to convince anyone that the principle aim of the IHR is to propagate misinformation about the Holocaust and hatred of world Jewry.

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The IHR’s associates have conducted campaigns on university campuses, in which they have placed, or tried to place, advertisements in campus newspapers questioning the ‘claims’ of mainstream historians. Some universities have accepted the advertisements, citing the first amendment of the American constitution and academic freedom as their reasons.

Other universities have refused the pieces, pointing out that though the first amendment prohibits the government from interfering in free expression, the amendment does not oblige every private publication to print whatever an advertiser demands. Those publications also point out that the advertisements simply contain falsehoods and so should not be accepted.

Many academics, for example Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, Georgia, United States of America (USA), refuse to engage the deniers in open debate. These academics state that appearing on a debating platform with deniers would both give them a legitimacy they do not deserve, and would give the impression that there were two sides to the Holocaust truth.

The deniers consistently state that they merely wish to put forward their side of the story. This is like the Flat Earth Society demanding a platform at the highest possible academic level to debate with worldrenowned geologists whether or not the world is flat.

To do so would be to insult the intelligence of their peers, their students and the general public. Nobel Prize-winning scientists do not sit down with Creationists and discuss whether the world began on a Tuesday or a Wednesday six thousand years ago.

It is the same with Holocaust deniers. If they are provided with the oxygen of publicity, they will achieve credibility. By accepting deniers’ advertisements, universities gave the impression that these people actually had something to add to academic debate, and the result was that television and radio stations then invited deniers to air their views to a much wider audience.

The Holocaust deniers also engage in wider publishing, as well as encouraging people to read the work of other deniers. By quoting each other in their publications, deniers build up an impressivelooking bibliography by a kind of cross-pollination, which adds to the illusion of academic respectability.

One author takes one piece of “evidence,” for example that Anne Frank’s diary was written in green ballpoint pen, and extrapolates from that “fact” that the diary is a fake. Another author quotes the first as a published authority and is, in turn, quoted by a third author

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who then suggests that there is a weight of evidence to support the truth of the green ink story.

A person new to the activities of Holocaust deniers, a first year university student for instance, might be given a copy of one of these texts and be impressed by the meticulous footnotes and bibliography.

“It looks just like the other journals in the library,” the unwary may think. “There must be something in it.”

These organized Holocaust deniers try to distance themselves from the neo-Nazi thugs that can be observed in the USA and Europe; skinheads waving Nazi flags and committing acts of violence against those who oppose them, displease them or disgust them.

There are, however, links between those who purport to be part of the democratic process and those who openly preach discrimination on the grounds of race and skin colour, and even mass murder.

One such group is the British National Party (BNP). The BNP is the successor to the aforementioned National Front, and is an extreme right-wing political party, which advocates the forced repatriation of non-white immigrants, even those who were born in the UK. BNP leader, Nick Griffin, in 1998, during a trial in which he was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred said: “I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale [the Holocaust] is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch hysteria.”

In 1992 the BNP allowed a group called Combat 18 (C18) to act as security guards at its events. The group’s name comes from the first and eighth letters of the Roman alphabet, AH, the initials of Adolf Hitler.

One prominent member, now in prison for murder, was Paul ‘Charlie’ Sargent, who said in a 1995 interview: “I believe in Adolf Hitler and his solutions. We in Great Britain are the front-runners when it comes to fanatical Fascism. There has never been more support for Fascism in Great Britain than now. Ours is the natural politics of the British working man. My view is that all blacks should be killed.”

The BNP and C18 later severed official links, but there is little doubt that although the BNP leadership has distanced itself from these murderous thugs, ordinary members of both groups keep in close contact. The BNP now denies that it is racist and denies that its leader is a Holocaust denier. The weight of evidence suggesting otherwise is, however, formidable.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of C18’s activities is its Redwatch internet sites. On these sites can be found the photographs,

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names and often addresses of people who have opposed far-right organizations.

To avoid being closed down, the Redwatch sites use multiple servers and usually operate from the USA, where they can hide behind the First Amendment. The sites are careful to avoid legal action and always include a disclaimer: “This website contains no threat nor is it intended that the material should be used for any unlawful activity.” The Redwatch Poland site adds that the site is “strictly an informational database to help the public keep informed about the criminal and destructive tendencies of persons engaged in anti-fascist, anti-racist and left-wing activities.”

On this site can be seen a picture of a group of students who are engaged in tidying a Jewish cemetery. Below the group picture are enlarged images of individuals from the group, together with their names and other personal details including their addresses and even instructions on which buses to take to get there. The message to C18 members and sympathisers is crystal clear: find these people and attack them.

It is, unfortunately, unlikely that a hardened racist will change his or her behaviour. The confirmed bigot has invested too much energy in formulating views and cultivating friendships with like-minded people.

Whether we are talking about a skinhead standing on a street corner and abusing passers-by or a false priest with a radio station and a fat bank account, these people are probably lost to us. Instead we should look to the young.

We must continue to educate each generation about the truth of the Holocaust, we should enlighten people who are unaware of the activities of racists, and we must never forget that the human rights of the minorities in our own countries are sacrosanct.

We can measure ourselves by how we treat those who are powerless, vilified and downtrodden. Let us then lobby our politicians, write to our newspapers and tell our friends when we encounter xenophobic behaviour, and let us not forget to hold to account those of our leaders, our teachers and our ministers who are tempted to court popularity at the expense of the weak.

Peter Foulds is an English language teacher who lives and works in Poland. He has taught people of over thirty nationalities in Great Britain, Turkey, Russia, Czech Republic and Poland. This experience has taught him that people are essentially the same under the skin, and that xenophobia is the result of ignorance and insecurity.

This article is an edited adaptation of a lecture on xenophobic behaviour given at the WSCF-CESR seminar on Overcoming Nationalism, Xenophobia and Populism in Modern Societies of Central Europe, held in Senec, Slovakia in July 2007. He suggests the following websites: www.nizkor.org, www.lipstadt.blogspot.com. His email address is teflcat@wp.pl.

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Henrik Lindberg Hansen

Satirical Cartoons and Strategies of Intercultural Struggle 1. As a Danish pastor working with and doing research on dialogue in Cairo, Egypt, the issue of the satirical cartoons in a Danish newspaper of the prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) has been hard to avoid.

This research focuses on some of the structures behind dialogue in the society of Cairo and on how to differentiate between different kinds of dialogue on this basis.

This has inspired me to look at some of the structures behind the Cartoon Crisis, giving clues to how to address similar issues and avoid adding to the problem in the attempts to diffuse the situation.

Methodology

2. Pierre Bourdieu (2005) suggests investigating practices not by looking on the surface structure of how people consciously rationalize their actions, but on a deeper level to how a specific field (context) and a specific habitus reciprocally construct each other, building a matrix of understanding the world from which people rationalize their actions.

This underlying habitus is the basis for different economical strategies which rationalize one choice over another, depending on how present different economies are. These economies are not only monetary, but can also be social or cultural, and are in play with each other.

The present analysis will not look at the habitus of persons in a specific context and their unconscious strategies, as the issue covers vast areas involving many different habitus which then can not be constituted by a single field.

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The analysis, however, inspired by the thoughts of Pierre Bourdieu, looks at the strategies underlying the “who-misunderstood-whom” and “who-is-right” of the analysed issue. So, this analysis is inspired

by Pierre Bourdieu’s focus on practices and the relations between practices (strategies).

3. To analyse the strategies underlying the Cartoon Crisis, it is necessary to differentiate between a curious and a closed approach to another person or culture. The hypothesis is that the relation to the other is shaped by the attitude towards and proximity to the other culture and its people (Mikhail M. Bakhtin 1989. 607−608).

The attitude is connected to how the other culture is evaluated: if it is considered to have positive authority or value. If it holds These strategies are not seen as part of the essence of the world, but rather as a road map in trying to find our way around the issue (Bourdieu 2005. 34.).

This legitimizes the inspiration from Bourdieu as it is the analysis of the strategies that leads to an understanding of the habitus and not the other way around. It does not, however, remove the problem of operating with a notion of an intercultural field of dialogue in a reciprocal relation to people with different habitus. The problem is then that I am assuming the existence of an interfield in describing common strategies of interaction between fields, which is not accounted for in Bourdieu’s thoughts. As there does seem to be meaningful interaction, intercultural interaction constitutes a field and habitus as part of the interaction.

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positive authority, the attitude can be curious (there will be a drive to understand how the other person understands herself or himself as part of a different culture). If not, the attitude is likely to be closed (the system of thinking on the other as, for example, threatening).

Proximity can be defined as the difference in cultural bodies between the relational “we” and the non-relational “them,” where the unity of the cultural body does not necessarily lie in conformity of thought, but rather in a notion of unity against what is perceived as another unity. Depending on the attitude and proximity, an understanding of the other is constructed: incidents are interpreted and used according to positive or negative strategies.

The Case 4. A brief survey of the incident until February 2006: A. September 2005: The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons. Some of the cartoons are on the prophet, while others are directed against the newspaper publishing the cartoons.

For example, one depicts a boy in sixth grade by the name Muhammad, who writes on a black board in Farsi that the newspaper is reactionary; in another the prophet is calming down some angry people showing himself as a preacher of peace.

B. October 2005: A debate in Denmark over the cartoons begins.

Death threats from a few Danish Muslims are issued against the cartoonists. A Danish imam discusses the cartoons on the satellite TV station Al Jazeera. Three and a half thousand Danish people demonstrate peacefully against the cartoons.

Eleven ambassadors from Muslim countries ask for a meeting with the Danish Prime minister but are denied. The reason stated for denying the meeting was that a Danish Prime minister has no influence over the newspapers of the country.

The ambassadors are referred to the Danish courts, which are the authorities on the matter. Foreign Western newspapers address the issue. The Egyptian newspaper al-Fagr prints six of the cartoons.

Eleven Danish Muslim organisations take the issue to the Danish court.

C. December 2005: A reward is issued on the internet for killing the cartoonists. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) brings the issue to the high commissioner of Human Rights of the United Nations (UN). There are strikes in India against the cartoons.

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Twenty-two Danish top-diplomats and politicians argue the case with the Danish Prime minister. They believe he should have a meeting with the ambassadors. Demonstrations take place in Pakistan, where some threaten to take the lives of the cartoonists. The Arab League criticises the Danish government for its handling of the case.

D. January 2006: It becomes public that a group of Danish Muslims have been travelling to Muslim countries to gain sympathy for their case. Some of the information brought to the Muslim countries is shown to be obviously wrong.

The Danish foreign minister seems to settle the case with the Arab League. A Norwegian newspaper prints the cartoons. Burning of Danish and Norwegian flags occur in several Muslim countries and are combined with death threats against Danish citizens in general.

A boycott of Danish products spreads in several Muslim countries, beginning in Saudi Arabia. An anti-boycott spreads in the West, starting in the USA. The grand imam of the Egyptian al-Azhar university and the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia demand that the Danish newspaper be punished.

The Danish ambassador of Saudi Arabia criticises Jyllands-Posten publicly. Saudi Arabia and Libya pull out their ambassadors from Denmark. Danish people are forced to leave Gaza and the West Bank, including aid organisations because of death threats and demonstrations. Some of these are violent.

Widespread peaceful demonstrations take place in Iraq. The foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) are expressing sympathy for the Danish defence of the freedom of speech. The editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten expresses a limited apology on an Arab network.

The Danish Prime minister distances himself personally from the cartoons, but stresses that he does not have the authority to apologize on behalf of the newspaper. The cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten regrets the cartoons on the network al-Jezeera, but it is not translated because the translator was late in starting.

The Danish foreign minister meets with the American foreign minister, several Arab foreign ministers and later with the General Secretary of the UN. Threats of terrorist actions against Denmark are issued on the internet. The Egyptian parliament criticises Denmark because of the cartoons. The Danish foreign ministry sets up a webpage to state the facts.

E. February 2006: A French newspaper publishes the cartoons. The editor-in-chief is fired. Newspapers from Germany, Italy, Holland,

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Spain and Iceland print the cartoons, primarily to stand behind the freedom of speech.

Three newspapers from Yemen print some of the cartoons (in a censored edition) with an appeal to accept the apologies and move on through dialogue; the newspapers are closed down for three months.

Newspapers in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Malaysia and Indonesia publish the cartoons to criticize them with varying results. There is an attempt to establish an anti-boycott and burning of Arab flags in Denmark, but very few are willing to do so and more demonstrate against it. Several politicians talk publicly against doing it. It never happens.

Others start a campaign in Denmark to smile and be friendly to Arabs and Muslims in Denmark and support Muslim shops in Denmark. This campaign has some momentum. The Danish Prime minister explains without excusing the cartoons on the network al-Arabia.

The Danish and Norwegian embassies are burned in Syria. A right wing group in Denmark demonstrates against Muslims. Twenty-thirty people show up. A much larger counterdemonstration is gathered.

There are rumours that al-Qur’an al-karim will be burned, but it never happens.

The Danish consulate is burned in Lebanon. Rumours spread in some Muslim countries that editions of al-Qur’an al-karim are burned frequently and publicly in Denmark and that the cartoons are printed on posters and displayed publicly all over Denmark by the Danish government (these rumours are obviously not true).

The Western media is starting to follow the case more intensely.

A demonstration for peace is held in Denmark. The first people are killed during demonstrations in Afghanistan. Protestors attempt to set fire to the Danish embassy in Iran.

Norwegian UN peacekeeping forces are attacked in Afghanistan.

Five people are killed during demonstrations in Pakistan. The Italian minister of reform is wearing a t-shirt with one of the cartoons publicly. He steps down the next day.

The Italian embassy is burned in Libya, ten people are killed.

Fifteen are killed in unrest in Nigeria. Eleven churches are burned.

Ten thousand people demonstrate in New York and one thousand in London against the cartoons. www.yobserver.com/cgi-bin/yobserver/exec/view.cgi/22/9861 tells the story of the trial of their editor after publishing the cartoons. The page shows a dynamic debate on the issue of the cartoons in an Arab country which is not prominent in the Danish press.

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Two and a half thousand people demonstrate peacefully in Copenhagen for reconciliation on the issue and for understanding between Muslims and Christians. The Danish are depicted as a naive and disrespectful people in Sixty Minutes in American television.

An Egyptian singer publishes a song calling Denmark a “son of a bitch.”

Dynamic Connections

5. Instead, the negative incidents can be seen as part of the ongoing dialogue between cultures. This gives a different understanding of dialogue as general connections between cultures. In this understanding, the negative incidents are not just something that happens to us but rather something we create between us in the negative connections sustained by a negative matrix of thought.

Then the strategies of dialogue can be either negative (closed) or positive (curious), distinguished by producing either closed or curious dialogue (connections), in this case between the cultural bodies of the Middle East and Denmark (or in the wider body, the “West”).

Fear

6. The closed approach to the other is sustained by a variety of factors. Fear is a basic instinct closing the understanding of a too complex world: fear of the unfamiliar, fear as a minority, fear that leads to scapegoating a minority.

Feelings of inferiority or superiority may prevent understanding the other. The one who feels inferior may feel repulsed by the superior; the superior may feel self-sufficient to a degree that the one seen as inferior is deemed as unnecessary or even threatening because of what is seen as, for example, brutal ignorance. Fear has many reasons and takes all shapes and sizes. When fear is potent, it can show itself as hate, disgust, anxiety, bitterness—all things negative and aggressive.

These basic feelings distance the other to a degree because understanding of the other is done by one’s own way of thinking and The survey is taken primarily from www.wikipedia.org and www.dr.dk in a shortened form and in my translation. It does not hold enough information on a Danish right wing party of parliament. They criticised Danish people, who were publicly against the handling of the case by the Danish government, calling them traitors.

This is also why the issues building up before the incident are not mentioned. The incident is part of a process influenced both positively and negatively. We have to start at one point, and it seems obvious that this point is the printing of the cartoons. This is to say that all relations between the West and the Middle East before this particular incident have influenced this incident, and analyzing the relations between this incident and earlier incidents such as 9/11 or national Danish incidents are relevant, but not necessary for the point made here.

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the thoughts of the other are seen as wrong or dangerous. The way of thinking of the other becomes something we have to resist and somehow remove from our own life world.

During the Cartoon Crisis, many expressed the fear that the freedom of expression was under attack in Denmark, as they felt that it was no longer safe to express opinions freely about Islam without risking personal safety. In Egypt, many people expressed the fear that the Western countries would impose their culture and religion by attacking Islam.

The Threat

7. Closed dialogue spawns actions to eliminate what is seen as a threat. This can only be done if there is a threat, so closed dialogue looks for threats among the others. The threats can easily be found if closed dialogue is spawning among the others also.

These threats produce negative examples of the other, which can then be interpreted in closed dialogue as threats to our or their world and life. This means that closed and curious dialogue both connect to the other in the same degree, the curious in finding positive examples and the closed in finding negative examples. While curious dialogue connects positively, closed dialogue connects on the basis of negativity.

Closed dialogue cannot spawn on its own; it must connect with other closed dialogue from which it can dichotomize itself. Closed dialogue strives for dichotomization and finds an enemy within another context. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who spawn closed dialogue, replenishing closed dialogue on both sides of a dichotomization with threats.

Threats are important elements in the strategies of closed dialogue.

The threats produced by the others become examples of the evil or barbarity of the other, while the threats produced against the other are seen as justified as they are reactions to the evil or barbarity of the other. Closed dialogue is dependent on non-relationality with or distance from the other; this does not have to be a physical distance, as distance in the way of thinking is enough.

The cartoon issue was one of these threats. The cartoons were drawn and published to stand the ground against aggressive Muslim censorship. It was seen as a justified act against an oppressor of opinion.

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Many Muslims saw the cartoons as yet another example of the West attacking Islam and acted to demonstrate against this threat in what they saw as justified actions—some of which in turn were interpreted as threats in Denmark.

Dichotomization

8. Antagonism (and the absence of relations and dialogue) is sustained through the dichotomisation of cultures, when produced threats are interpreted as the essence composing the opposing culture. In this way, the origin of the threats is placed within the persons, societies, religions, and/or cultures of the other.

Being different from the other becomes part of self-identity, again sustaining closed dialogue in readings and interpretations of history which culminate in dichotomized connections where a clash is inevitable because of the essence of the other.

Science, religion, literature, media, art and politics are part of the spawning of closed dialogue in the description and action upon this inscribed essence of the other. This negative stereotyping, based not on the colour of the skin but on religion and/or culture, can adequately be termed religious or cultural racism.

The dichotomizations arise when the threats are placed in a table to form a coherent picture of the other. This picture not only actively attempts to understand the other, but forms the picture of one’s own culture, as the self is defined in contradiction to the other.

In this way, the threats become arguments for “how we are right and the other is wrong.” Once this table is established, it sustains the interpretation that the actions of the other are unjustified or evil and the actions against this other are justified.

This table can then be the basis of science, religion, literature, media, art and politics. In Denmark, the reactions to the cartoons provided illustrations of Islam as a violent and intolerant religion, sustaining the reasons for publishing the cartoons in the first place.

In Egypt, the cartoons were often interpreted as an example of the decadence and the incompatibility of the West with religious values.

The issue then sustained the often used dichotomization between the secular West and the religious Middle East, which was the basis for the issue in the first place.

This is in the first place a false dichotomization as secularism is a product of modernism and not necessarily opposed to religion as such.

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The Interpretation of Intentions

9. Let us consider this on the level of friendship. If you have a friend, whom you trust and appreciate, and this person does something you find inappropriate or wrong, as long as you are able to forgive these incidents, you will still view the friend as a good person.

But forgiveness is not always easy. When it is difficult, the negative incidents will often be ascribed to a personality or essence of the person in order to distance oneself from this very person.

All actions are interpreted as the actions of a person. The attitude towards this person is fundamental in the interpretation of the person as a carrier of the action. All actions can be understood both positively and negatively; the deciding matter is how we view the intention of the person.

This is where the interpretation lies. Not even extraordinary good behaviour will regain the favour of a person in ill favour, as it is not the actions that are decisive, but the interpretation of the intentions behind the actions.

The negative interpretation sets up a distance between the persons, which can only be bridged if it is done from both sides. This can only be overcome if the person placing another in ill favour is open to interpret positively.

And this is extraordinarily difficult if the understanding of the other person is placed in what is believed to be the personality or essence of this person. This is where forgiving becomes difficult. This goes for the others in dialogue also.

The Solution of Closed Dialogue

10. The solution of the produced threats in closed dialogue is to change the others in order to reduce the asymmetry between them and oneself. The others must change their threatening ways (produced by closed dialogue) in order to become part of our own way of thinking.

This is not likely to happen as the differences in ways of thinking are different and make sense only within themselves. In a very developed and potent closed dialogue, the resolution will be the final solution: the elimination of the other.

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The Basis of Curious Dialogue

11. Curious dialogue functions on the basis of similar strategies, but instead of producing threats, it produces good examples of the other through engagement in order to understand the other’s way of thinking. The distance in the curious dialogue is lessened though being relational, as the differences are appreciated in efforts to understand the life of the other.

The Self-sustainability of Closed Dialogue

12. Closed dialogue does not demand much nurturing; once begun, one threat will produce the next. Once the other is seen as a threat, fear is produced, and the obvious reaction is to protect oneself against this threat, often by producing other threats.

This is sustained by a barrier in asymmetry of thought. It takes a positive effort to get beyond this barrier in curious dialogue and produce good examples, but the barrier can be used to produce threats without effort by closed dialogue as the ways of thinking are different and unfamiliar. Closed dialogue only has to start a process of fear, spawned by pointing toward the threats produced by closed dialogue.

Allies

13. Closed dialogue has at least three “neutral” allies with their own agendas. Closed dialogue is reliable as it produces reliable results, and it can very easily be used in politics to promote a political career.

On the other hand, potent closed dialogue can easily destroy any political career, if the given politician is not choosing the right side (or sides, which are produced by closed dialogue).

Often the media sees negative news as good news and positive news as bad news, as the negative news seems to secure high ratings.

Media is, more often than not, business, and as the threats produced by closed dialogue make money, they get disproportionately more attention.

The media can also be taken over by closed dialogue, for example in calling criticism of closed dialogue unpatriotic—by placing curious dialogue on the other side of the conflict produced by closed dialogue.

The actors from each of these groups of allies can be less neutral and participate actively in either closed or curious dialogue.

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Closed dialogue is big business in general. When closed dialogue is pushed into warfare, it makes a lot of people a lot of money. The resources of the world are not unlimited and the powers of the world need access to them. Access to these limited resources is power.

Closed dialogue can legitimize the use of power to gain access to these resources. The international focus on business is also the reason why boycotts can be effective, but they do hold the danger of furthering closed dialogue, especially when they are a reaction to threats produced by closed dialogue.

But neutral allies are not restricted to these three. Religion can easily become an ally of closed dialogue if it defines itself negatively as being different from other religions and, in turn, defines these other religions as threats.

Believing then becomes a battle of truth against everyone not believing in the same way. The negative use of power can then become the foundation of faith, as believing entails a struggle against what is different.

In this way any institution or individual who operates with a notion of an absolute truth in a negative self definition can potentially find enemies in those who do not live by this very same truth.

False Questions

14. Even though curious dialogue has its own strategies, it is often forced into the strategies of closed dialogue. Closed dialogue dichotomizes different ways of thinking in examples found in the produced threats, and if curious dialogue is not aware of this, it will be sucked into the strategies of negative dialogue.

The rhetoric of closed dialogue demands taking sides in the dichotomized examples or threats produced. When curious dialogue reacts to the threats produced by closed dialogue, it often believes it has to do so on the premises of closed dialogue. Curious dialogue then has to “take sides,” calling the threats of one side justified and the other wrong or evil.

A former major Christian leader was speaking at a conference in Alexandria during the Cartoon Crisis, and during his speech (which was on a more general level) he kept mentioning the issue of the A Danish researcher, Jørgen Thulstrup, believes according to www.dr.dk (13 June, 2006) that the issue of the cartoons has strengthened the Danish economy. Even though the Arabic market has been slowed down, it is not significant as a market for Denmark, and stronger markets have opened up to Denmark to a larger degree because of the anti-boycott. This could point in the direction that the markets are affected or not by being neutral to dialogue, closed or curious. And it points in the direction that the boycott has had few of the positive effects wanted only digging the ditches deeper and helping closed dialogue.

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cartoons as something done by the Danish people as a whole and as a clear example of what should be avoided and fought against.

Instead of pointing out that the cartoonists drew attention to the fear of Islam and that the newspaper printed the cartoons as a contribution to public debate in Denmark, he sustained the strategies of closed dialogue by building a dichotomy.

At another conference in Cairo, an Egyptian journalist told me that the entire problem of the cartoons stemmed from the dominating religious thought of the Middle East, which he clearly felt suffocated by.

According to this journalist of Muslim roots, Islam was intolerant and incapable of decent dialogue, and this could clearly be seen in how Muslims in general reacted violently to the cartoons. When the Danish embassies were burned, it was yet another example of the aggressive and medieval ways of his religion as a whole.

Both of these men seemed genuinely open-minded and forthcoming to different ways of thinking, but both renounced the way of thinking of their own background to accommodate the different way of thinking.

While this might seem munificent, it does not take the differences in the ways of thinking seriously, as the one way of thinking is perceived as right and justified and the other as wrong and threatening.

In a perfect world we certainly would have only curious dialogue, but this is not a perfect world, and curious dialogue is often left with the primary task of cleaning up the mess made by closed dialogue.

But what is needed for curious dialogue is to disclose or unmask the strategies of closed dialogue instead of buying into these strategies and taking sides which have been created by closed dialogue.

It is more productive to refuse to answer the dichotomized question of “Does the world need to be secular or religious?� One should instead point it out as a dichotomy produced by closed dialogue which should be avoided.

Too often, curious dialogue reacts to the threats created by closed dialogue or uses the threats as examples of negative entities building closed dialogue. Too often, curious dialogue functions by the strategies of closed dialogue, which results in curious dialogue feeding closed dialogue by legitimizing the dichotomization of closed dialogue.

Denmark has conducted public debates through satirical cartoons

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for decades, depicting everything satirically; Sunni Muslims have been prohibited to depict their major prophet for centuries. A key reason it has become an issue now is that it was opportune for closed dialogue.

Criticism is still possible within curious dialogue. Constructive criticism is only possible within curious dialogue, as it can be done acknowledging the asymmetrical ways of thinking of the other.

This positive situation involving criticism by curious dialogue is how we ourselves grow: by engaging with what is genuinely different from us. Differences can be understood by curious dialogue as a chance for growth, while negative dialogue sees them as something threatening.

The Approach to Closed Dialogue

15. Curious dialogue cannot begin with closed dialogue, as tolerance meets its boundary in intolerance. Curious dialogue has to use the strategies of closed dialogue against itself to push the persons involved into curious dialogue.

This is not to say that “fire should be fought with fire,� but it is to say that there is a struggle, which we have to take seriously and engage in. It is necessary to challenge closed dialogue and its strategies.

Curious dialogue does not do this by attacking with negative examples, but by showing positive examples of the other which are ignored in closed dialogue and by revealing that threats are constructed in the dynamic process that constitutes negative dialogue. Curious dialogue is then using the strategies of closed dialogue against itself, since positive examples from curious dialogue are threats to closed dialogue.

Curious dialogue needs to unmask these threats (as something constructed by closed dialogue) and state continuously that none of the threats are legitimate. Our own threats are not more justified than the threats of the other; the threats of the other are no more evil than our own threats.

These threats are constructions and should be dismissed as such.

This will help in the never-ending process of collapsing closed dialogue, as the threats are the pillars of the whole structure of closed dialogue.

In as far as a person is defined by her or his thoughts and actions, the persons engaged in closed dialogue are defined by negativity.

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The persons involved in curious dialogue need to ask very publicly if the persons involved in closed dialogue really want to be defined by negativity. This is also an ethical and religious issue and should be addressed as such.

What Curious Dialogue Needs to Do

16. Reading Ludwig Wittgenstein, we realize that our access to reality is dependent on the life form (way of thinking) we partake in, but he also states that these life forms are dynamic. The dynamics of the life forms inspired by Michel Foucault can be seen as power struggles.

Different “factions” are struggling to gain power and, in doing so, they are building science (or knowledge in general) around their specific claims of truth. The (broadly defined) institutions of society are used to implement a specific life form, legitimizing it as truth.

Curious dialogue should take this seriously and engage in the power struggle for dominance against closed dialogue. Curious dialogue should work to shift the negative focus of closed dialogue to the other, to focus on a positive approach to the other. In this way we are positioning ourselves critically outside a negative power struggle between life forms as suggested by J. Rouse (Gutting 2005.

108−120).10 Curious dialogue needs to distance itself from closed dialogue and must push to make itself more reliable for the politicians and more profitable for the media and market than closed dialogue.

It must take over dialogue. To do this a strong alliance is needed between the different cultures, building an arsenal of positive examples of the other. A history of curious dialogue and de-masked closed dialogue needs to be written, building on common historical roots in life, belief and thought.11 Science, religion, literature, media, art, politics, etc. have to be pushed into the service of curious dialogue. If we only respond to the particular threats produced by closed dialogue, then we are fighting a losing battle. We need to address the strategies of closed dialogue behind the particular threats.

This is done by investing it in the habitus of its people.

10 It should, however, be realized that this positioning is still a power struggle.

11 For an agenda of a common history of common roots, read: Bulliet Richard. W., The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. New York, 2006.

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Suggested Reading Bakhtin Mikhail M., Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art: Concerning Sociological Poetics. In Davis Robert − Finke Laurie (eds.), Literary Criticism and Theory: The Greeks to the Present. London, 1989.

Bakhtin Mikhail M., The Dialogical Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, 2004.

Bourdieu Pierre, The Logic of Practice. Cambridge, 2005.

Bulliet Richard. W., The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. New York, 2006.

Clack Brian. R., Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion. London, 1999.

Duranti Alessandro − Goodwin Charles, Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon.

Cambridge, 1992.

Foucault Michel, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York, 1972.

Foucault Michel, Power / Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings 1972−1977. New York, 1980.

Foucault Michel, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York, 1994.

Foucault Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York, 1995.

Gutting Gary (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault. Cambridge, 2005.

Lyotard Jean-François, Viden og det Postmoderne Samfund (La Condition Postmoderne). Copenhagen, 2001.

Monk Ray, How to Read Wittgenstein. London, 2005.

Rescher Nicholas, Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus. Oxford, 1993.

Schrag Calvin. O., The Resources of Rationality: A Response to the Postmodern Challenge. Indianapolis, 1992.

Schrag Calvin. O., The Self after Postmodernity. Yale, 1997.

Searle John. R., The Construction of Social Reality. London, 1996.

Wittgenstein Ludwig, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Oxford, 1970.

Wittgenstein Ludwig, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough. Retford, 1979.

Wittgenstein Ludwig, Culture and Value. Oxford, 1980.

Wittgenstein Ludwig, Om Vished (On Certainty). Århus, 1989.

Wittgenstein Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations. Oxford, 2001.

Henrik Lindberg Hansen was born in Denmark in 1974, and ordained a pastor in the Danish EvangelicalLutheran Church to function as a liaison officer in Cairo from 2004–2010. Here, he develops knowledge on Islam and enters into dialogue at the Muslim al-Azhar University. The dialogue carries its own meaning, but is also directing him to be able to function as a resource in this field in Denmark. See more details at www. faithtofaith.dk. His email address is henrik@faithtofaith.dk.

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Die Christliche Ökumene im Dialog mit Judentum und Islam als Grundlage konstruktiver Zusammenarbeit mit Gesellschaft und Staat in Europa

Der neuzeitliche Weg der Christenheit von einer Reichskirche zu Landeskirchen und schließlich zu christlichen Glaubensgemeinschaften gegenüber partnerlich anerkannten Religionsgemeinschaften unter bzw. innerhalb einer pluralistisch-säkularen, parlamentarischdemokratischen Staatsverfassung ist ein langer und schwieriger Weg gewesen. Allerdings ist er auch für die gegenseitigen Beziehungen zwischen Konfessionen und Religionen in der gegenwärtigen Staatengemeinschaft Europas ungemein lehrreich.

Die bleibende Bedeutung des christlichen Abendlandes und seiner Wurzeln

Bei allen Versuchen, die Spuren eines christlichen Abendlandes als Vorlage bzw. Vorbild einer versuchten Verfassung der europäischen Gemeinschaft festzuschreiben, muß die christliche Ökumene zur Kenntnis nehmen, daß eine derartige Berücksichtigung unter den herrschenden Vorzeichen eines eher jakobinischen Laizismus – statt dem durchaus vorzuziehenden Modell einer pragmatischen Verträglichkeit angelsächsischen Ursprungs (Magna

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Charta 1215) – (noch?) nicht zu erwarten ist. In Anbetracht der künftigen demokratischen Entwicklung Europas wären dazu einige Voraussetzungen fällig, die hier überlegt werden sollen.

Die christliche Ökumene hat sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten bereits so weit in der Öffentlichkeit zusammengefunden, daß es kaum mehr Katholikentage bzw. Christentage ohne ökumenische Beteiligung gibt. Darüber hinaus ist beachtenswert, daß es auch Großparteien gibt, die sich „christlich“ nennen und dies auch zu sein versuchen.

Sie haben sich – um anfängliche Voreingenommenheiten aus der Zwischenkriegszeit zu überwinden bzw. zu vermeiden, (vgl.

Zentrumspartei u. Ä.) – nunmehr mit demokratischen Spielregeln parlamentarischer Argumentation und fairem Umgang mit Minoritäten bzw. Majoritäten in den politischen Diskurs eingebracht.

Man hat, um Europas Identität aus seiner Herkunft besser verstehen und darstellen – manchmal sogar ableiten – zu können, darauf hingewiesen, daß das christliche Abendland, auch jüdische Wurzeln habe.

Wie immer man diese Wurzeln nun einschätzen will – als selbstständige Religionsgemeinschaft oder als Grundlage des Christentums, vielleicht sogar früher als monotheistischer Partner hellenistischen Denkens – dürfte man eines in diesem Zusammenhang nicht unterschlagen, daß sich nämlich Europa maßgeblich auch aus der islamischen Kultur bezieht.

Vielfach wird dieser Einfluß zu undifferenziert gedeutet. Westeuropa, im karolingischen Kaisertum zusammengefaßt, hätte sich demnach aus dem davidischen Königtum legitimiert und konkurrenzierend von den kulturellen Reichtümern Ostroms bezogen. Seine eigene weströmische Tradition wäre durch die Völkerwanderung unterbrochen worden.

Wenn dem Islam unterstellt wird, das Erbe des Hellenismus und der persischen Hochkultur ungebrochen übernommen und es später über Andalusien bzw. Sizilien wieder nach Europa rückimportiert zu haben, so übersieht man vielfach, daß wenigstens die Klöstertradition des Westens sowohl die politische Kultur wie auch das wissenschaftliche Erbe des „Imperiums circa Mare Nostrum“ übernommen hat und – bei aller mittelalterlichen Eigenart – auch unvermischt bewahrt hat.

Nicht nur die antiken Schriftsteller, sondern auch die griechische Philosophie wurde auf diesem Wege ohne arabische Rezeption und Vermittlung ins Abendland überbracht und hatte dort ihre zwar fragmentarische, aber doch genuine Identität bewahrt und verwertet.

Doch besteht kein Zweifel, daß durch die arabisch-osmanische

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Kultur ein wesentlicher Einfluss auf die äußere und innere Geschichte Europas ausgeübt wurde. Dies zu unterschlagen wäre ein folgenreicher Irrtum bzw. unverzeihlicher Fehler.

Man denke dabei an den Anstoß zur Gründung und Gestalt der europäischen Universitäten (über das Vorbild der Medresen), aber auch an die spätmittelalterliche Erneuerung der Volksfrömmigkeit aus der Begegnung mit dem Islam. Vielleicht denke man in diesem Kontext auch an die Übernahme des Kampfesmönchtums Nordafrikas (Ribat) in frühmittelalterliche christliche Ordensgründungen (Zisterzienser).

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Europas Weg in die Gegenwart

Aus dem jüdisch-christlichen Erbe stammt sicherlich das Bewußtsein kontinuierlicher geschichtlicher Entwicklung in Europa. „Das Gewissen ist eine jüdische Erfindung“ (Adolf Hitler), das die Christen in radikaler Weise übernommen haben, und das Europa rechts (Faschismus, Nationalsozialismus) und links (Kommunismus) nach Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel tragisch mißachtet, ja zertreten hat.

Nun sucht das säkular geeinte Europa wiederum „seine Seele“ (Jacques Delors). Klar muß uns heute sein, daß die säkulare Instanz des Staates und der Staatengemeinschaft(en) ein spezifisch „europäischer Weg“ (Danièle Hervieu-Léger) ist, der vom Urchristentum mit seiner Haltung dem antiken Staat gegenüber bis in das westliche Mittelalter mit seiner „kirchlichen Kirche“ und „weltlichen Welt“ (Johann Baptist Metz) und ihren spannungsreichen, gelegentlich auch konfliktgeladenen gegenseitigen Beziehungen geprägt war.

Die Neuzeit schafft diesbezüglich eine gewisse Zäsur. Durch die Konfessionskriege und Religionsverfolgungen bedingt, konnte das Allgemeinwohl der Bürger Europas nur mehr durch einen emanzipierten Staat gewährleistet werden.

Dieser aufgeklärte Säkularismus war zunächst den Konfessionen und Religionen gegenüber distant, dann tolerant, später zunehmend arrogant bis schließlich totalitär. Er maßte sich selbst quasi religiöse Strukturen und Funktionen an, geriet aber in fatale Gegensätze, so daß eine Konfrontation der ideologischen Blöcke unvermeidlich wurde.

Durch christliche „Restgemeinden“ kam der Koloß friedlich zu Fall – was überblieb, ist allerdings ein Trümmerfeld, aus dem mühsam ein „Bauplatz für Europa“ (Johannes Paul II.) werden soll.

Die zutiefst christlichen Architekten eines neuen Europas (Robert Schumann, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi) wiesen nachdrücklich auf die Notwendigkeit hin, der überspannenden Dachkonstruktion seiner Völker ein tragendes Fundament und stützende Mauern zu besorgen. Sie sahen einmütig die religiöse Kultur als Grundlage Europas an.

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Zukünftige Perspektiven

Die demographische Entwicklung Europas läßt statistisch erwarten, daß seine Bevölkerung im laufenden Jahrhundert sich mindestens um die Hälfte verringern wird. Zuwanderungen aus den Nachbarländern Europas in Nordafrika, im Nahen und Mittleren Osten sowie aus dem Fernen Osten lassen erwarten, daß das Christentum in eine deutliche Minorität rückt, der Islam und fernöstliche Religionen zunehmend an Einfluß gewinnen und sowohl die jakobinischen Laizismen wie auch die Erben des Kommunismus sich deutlicher als „Humanismen“ formieren.

Nun kann weder die wissenschaftliche Methodik noch die globale Technik aus den Prozessen der unvermeidlichen Urbanisation und Säkularisierung (Sozialisierung) der heutigen Welt weggedacht oder ausgeschaltet werden.

Der europäische Kern der Postmoderne – auch einer „postchristlichen“ – muß also bewahrt werden und kann dies nur unter der Voraussetzung eines ökumenischen Dialoges mit den „traditionellen“ Monotheismen, um ein konstruktives Verhältnis zu den säkularen Strukturen Europas zuwege zu bringen.

Andererseits sollte ein positives Angebot seitens der Religionen nicht übersehen, daß der Staat sich zunehmend der Bedürftigkeit bewußt wird, daß seine ethischen Grundlagen und Beweggründe aus den Religionen stammen und auch hinkünftig zu beziehen sind. Dieses gegenseitige Bezugsverhältnis sollte von uns mit Verantwortung aufgegriffen werden.

Die Monotheismen als Basis Europas

Für den Dialog zwischen Judentum, Christentum und Islam im Dienste der säkularen Öffentlichkeit scheint sowohl die laikale Grundverfassung dieser Religionen wie auch ihre eschatische Vollendung eine maßgebliche Gemeinsamkeit darzustellen.

Daß das Judentum durch Gott als königliches Priestertum von Propheten ausgerufen wurde (Ex 19,6), ist bekannt. Diese Funktionen haben sich zwar institutionell ausgeformt, wurden aber immer wieder auf ihre gemeinsamen Grundlagen in Gott relativiert.

Das Christentum als laikal darzustellen, ist schwieriger, weil sowohl die Hierarchie wie auch die Charismen sich den Laien gegenüber eigenständig formiert haben. Das ändert aber nichts daran, daß Jesus Christus selbst weder Priester sein noch König werden oder als Lehrer bzw. Prophet gelten wollte.

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Sein Leben und Wirken war ganz „aus den Menschen und für die Menschen“ (Hebr 5,1ff), in diesem Sinne aber war er Priester, König und Prophet, von Gott alleine gesalbt und gesandt. „Über meinem Leben steht geschrieben: ‚Einen Leib hast du mir bereitet. Siehe, ich komme, deinen Willen zu erfüllen.‘“ (Psalm 40,1–9; Hebr 10,5ff) Die kirchliche Verfassung, die sich bald monarchisch zeigte (Ignatius von Antiochien), muß jedoch synodal wirken und kann nur personal repräsentieren. „Cum vobis Christianus, pro vobis episcopus.“ (Augustinus) Dies darf für priesterliche Instanzen gremial im Bischofsamt und für letztere synodal im Papsttum gelten. Die alles verbindende Grundlage der Christenheit bleibt die Taufe – wie das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil wieder klarstellt. (LG 2,9ff) Auch der Islam legt Wert auf die egalitäre Struktur seiner Umma.

Er kennt weder Priestertum noch Opfer, weder Ordensstand noch evangelische Räte. Die Gemeindefunktionen sind gewählt – Mufti für die Rechtsordnungen, Ulama für die Gelehrsamkeit, Imam für die Gebetsleitung, Amma, d. h. Laien, sind und bleiben sie alle.

Eine Ochlokratie bleibt diese monotheistische Demokratie allzumal.

Wir sollten uns nicht vor einer pluralen Rezeption und Tradition der Offenbarung des einen Gottes fürchten. Sowohl das Judentum wie auch der Islam haben eine auf keine Formel und kaum ein Maß zu bringende Vielfalt, die zu leugnen sinnlos ist.

Sie ist unterfangen vom Geist des offenbarenden Gottes, der sie in einer Ihm allein bewußten Einheit schützt und bewahrt. Beide Religionen kennen keine andere einheitsstiftende und -bewahrende Instanz.

Anders verwirklicht sich die Einheit innerhalb der christlichen Ökumene. Die Vielfalt kirchlicher Traditionen ist zwar kaum überschaubar und institutionell zusammenzufassen. Andererseits ist die Einheit der Ortskirchen ja eine Koinonia, die der Geist Gottes selbst primär personal zustande bringt.

Die Perichorese der Ortskirchen als Universalkirche ist durch die gremiale und synodale Amtsstruktur personal verfaßt. Der sensus fidelium findet sich als consensus im Kanon des hierarchischen Amtes wieder und läßt sich in seiner Gegenseitigkeit nur als dynamischer Dialog geistgewirkter Endgültigkeit geschichtlich fortschreitend verstehen.

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Die staatliche Architektur einer soziopolitischen Völkergemeinschaft

Es fragt sich, inwieweit die demokratische Gesellschaft in ihrer geschichtlichen Zufälligkeit in Partnerschaft mit Glaubensgemeinden göttlicher Verfassung, wie wir sie in den drei Monotheismen beschrieben haben, in Beziehung treten kann.

Die staatlichen Behörden können mit Judentum und Islam nur über eine von diesen nominierte, für sie legitimierte Instanz verhandeln.

Eine solche ist von der Definition jener beiden Offenbarungsreligionen nicht ohne Weiteres gegeben bzw. ist deren Anerkennung für die Glaubensgemeinde selbst nur bedingt, d. h. vorläufig und begrenzt gültig.

Sie kann immer wieder angefochten und verändert werden. Die christliche Ökumene hingegen bekennt sich einerseits als faktische Vielfalt, die aber in göttlich gestifteten, autoritativen Ämtern zusammengefaßt ist.

Somit kann eine gottgestiftete Einzigartigkeit auch zu einer gottgefügten Einheit werden, die in analoger Perichorese personal in der Öffentlichkeit zur Sprache kommen und angesprochen werden kann.

Sie wird aufgrund ihrer gottgefügten Struktur legitim sein, laikal und hierarchisch zugleich bleiben und auch dem Staat gegenüber als jeweiliger Ansprechpartner dienen können. Die kontingente Staatsverfassung als anerkennende und anzuerkennende Institution ist für die Kirche keineswegs identitätsstiftend – im Gegenteil müßte man sagen, daß sich die Autorität des Staates im Letzten aus der gottgegründeten Autorität der Kirche mitabzuleiten hat (Joh 19,10f).

Vielleicht ist die Analogie vom christlichen Monotheismus auf das Judentum und den Islam eine genügend tragende und umfassende Basis, die den notwendigen gesellschaftlich religiösen Diskurs mit der Gesellschaft zustande bringen kann.

Die neue Rolle der (monotheistischen) Religionen in einem neuen Europa

Die lange Geschichte des Verhältnisses Kirchen – Staat in Europa ist im Übrigen auch für die beiden „Partnermonotheismen“ lehrreich. Es soll hier nicht die spannungsreiche, aber konstruktive Gegenseitigkeit von mittelalterlicher Christenheit und frühmoderner Emanzipation des Staates behandelt werden (vgl. Nr. IV).

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Vielmehr geht es um die entscheidende Phase dieser Entwicklung in der letzten Neuzeit. Das Erstehen eines säkularen Absolutismus mit seinen sozialistischen oder liberalen Keimen und kommunistischen oder faschistischen Auswüchsen brachte die römische Kirche in eine ausweglose Defensive.

Wohl gab es in den ersten Sozialenzykliken (Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno) in konstitutionellen Staaten konstruktive Lösungsvorschläge – doch den totalitären Staatsformen gegenüber nur hilflose Bannsprüche.

Erst durch das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil kam es zu einem offenen Bekenntnis zu jener säkularen und pluralistischen Autonomie des Staates und seiner individuellen Bürger, der die Gewissens- und Religionsfreiheit zur Folge haben konnte (Dignitatis Humanæ).

Diese kirchliche Freisetzung des Profanums ermöglichte staatlicherseits einen unverfänglichen Rückbezug auf die Religionen als letzten Grund aller ethischen Normen und Motivationen.

Mit diesem grundsätzlichen Zugeständnis an die staatlichen Autonomien – samt der kirchlichen Anerkennung der Menschenrechte (freilich zuvorderst in der pragmatischen Version englischamerikanischer Traditionen und nicht in der revolutionären jakobinischen Edition Kontinentaleuropas) konnten auch der Völkerbund und die Vereinten Nationen, sowie die europäische Gemeinschaft begrüßt werden, ja mit christlicher Unterstützung rechnen.

Doch bleibt deren Grundlage nicht eine dialektische Ideologie, sondern der Dialog mit unterschiedlichen nationalen Kulturen und religiösen Traditionen. Diese Kultur der Differenzen scheint wiederum ein europäisches Spezifikum, das heute – und hier bekennen wir uns zur Postmoderne – aus tragischer Geschichte gelernt werden darf.

Es ist die Grundlage des christlichen Ökumene, des ökumenischen Dialoges mit den Religionen und mit den kulturspezifischen, soziopolitischen Idiomen personaler menschlicher Existenz und nationaler Identität.

Das abstrakte „entweder–oder“ und „nichts anderes als“ hat dem konkreten „sowohl als auch“ und „einerseits–andererseits“ zu weichen und neue Spielregeln der Gemeinsamkeit in Verschiedenheit sind zu entwickeln.

In diesem Bereich sollte Europa weltweit führend sein, nachdem es mit so vielen Irrtümern globale Mißgeschicke verursachte. Die verfolgte Judenheit Europas könnte andere Formen des (Über-)lebens

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als die eines quasireligiösen Staatsgebildes finden, nachdem geradeaus seinen europäischen Wurzeln die neue Dialogkultur erwachsen ist.

Auch der Islam könnte nach seinem langen Zug durch die Kolonialverwaltungen eine neue Gemeinschaftsform in der pluralen europäischen Gesellschaft suchen, die seine Glaubens- und Lebenskultur neu zum Tragen brächte.

Alle drei abrahamitischen Monotheismen sind primär prophetisch, d. h. auf ein Eschaton ausgerichtet. Der göttliche Vorbehalt der Parusie schließt den göttlichen Auftrag mit ein, die Erdenzeit als Frist zu gestalten.

Die vorgegebene Pluralität von Religionen und weltlichen Instanzen ist uns als Lernprozeß aufgegeben, den wir auch vermitteln sollen.

Die Rangordnung dieser Aufgaben ist freilich für deren Gelingen wesentlich.

Várszegi Asztrik OSB is the Archabbot of the Benedictine Pannonhalma Monastery (www.bences.hu) and (Roman Catholic) Bishop of Pannonhalma in Hungary. He is also the founder and director of the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), the first ecumenical institute in Hungary, established in 2001.

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Restating the Ecumenical Emphases: A Grassroots Proposal from Princeton

The Princeton Proposal (2003) seeks to answer the question: do Christians worship in the same Church? It does so while providing an important and interesting synthesis of grassroots ecumenical thinking, with an emphasis on faith and order issues.

The Proposal contains a very strong statement on the way to oneness, which we will call the essay on unity. This is such a great piece; it is worth publishing it as a separate and lyrical essay, a meditation on why and how to be ecumenical.

Probably the weakest part of the Proposal is mainly its lack of appropriate structure; so in this paper, we shall humbly try to reshape it in such a way that it offers a unified stream of thoughts, based upon which an evaluation can be drawn later.

Our main question concerns the specificity of the Proposal in comparison with other former declarations on ecumenism, and which of its thoughts we can consider more to the point than others.

Our aim was not only the hermeneutical close reading and ecumenical theological analysis of the Proposal, but at the same time a critical underlining of its crucial and important insights, drawing out their implications, as well as the substitution of some one-sided statements which may appear with better and deeper ones.

Our paper thus aims to be a distinct and autonomous statement on ecumenism in its own right; and this reconstructed stream of thoughts It was published in a separate booklet: Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. Grand Rapids, 2003.

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Restating the Ecumenical Emphases: A Grassroots Proposal from Princeton

The Princeton Proposal (2003) seeks to answer the question: do Christians worship in the same Church? It does so while providing an important and interesting synthesis of grassroots ecumenical thinking, with an emphasis on faith and order issues.

The Proposal contains a very strong statement on the way to oneness, which we will call the essay on unity. This is such a great piece; it is worth publishing it as a separate and lyrical essay, a meditation on why and how to be ecumenical.

Probably the weakest part of the Proposal is mainly its lack of appropriate structure; so in this paper, we shall humbly try to reshape it in such a way that it offers a unified stream of thoughts, based upon which an evaluation can be drawn later.

Our main question concerns the specificity of the Proposal in comparison with other former declarations on ecumenism, and which of its thoughts we can consider more to the point than others.

Our aim was not only the hermeneutical close reading and ecumenical theological analysis of the Proposal, but at the same time a critical underlining of its crucial and important insights, drawing out their implications, as well as the substitution of some one-sided statements which may appear with better and deeper ones.

Our paper thus aims to be a distinct and autonomous statement on ecumenism in its own right; and this reconstructed stream of thoughts It was published in a separate booklet: Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. Grand Rapids, 2003.

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can serve as a basis for overviewing the tasks of ecumenism in European and Central European circumstances, taking into consideration the most current descriptions of the ecumenical condition and dialogue .

I. History of the Ecumenical Movement 1. The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and other Milestones The historical part of the Proposal (II./11–18.) is rather sketchy and sometimes incomplete; therefore, it would have been better to write it in a more profound way (which does not necessarily mean a longer text) or to leave it out completely. The milestones can be summarised in the following three paragraphs.

According to the most widely accepted notion, the beginning of the ecumenical movement can be counted from the establishment of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) in 1895, since all the organisers of the 1910 Edinburgh missionary conference came from that organisation, as did all the officers of the International Missionary Council (IMC), established in 1921.

There have been important surveys and analyses of the ecumenical condition globally, in Europe and in Central Europe; for example: Kolonits Veronika (ed.), Survey on the Current State of Ecumenism. Budapest, 2004.

Another evaluation of the same survey, conducted by the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), Pannonhalma: Nagypál Szabolcs, “Your Faith Has Made You Well: Go in Peace, and be Healed of your Trouble”: The Ecumenical Condition and Dialogue in Europe. In DeGiglio-Bellemare Mario – García Gabriela Miranda, Talitha Cum! The Grace of Solidarity in a Globalized World. Genève, 2004. 108–120.

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From this organisation originated both the Life and Work (Stockholm, 1925) and the Faith and Order (Lausanne, 1927) movements. These two movements established the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Amsterdam in 1948.

Finally, IMC joined WCC in New Delhi in 1961, creating the full organisational unity of the ecumenical movement (while fortunately WSCF remained as a separate organisation, continuing its pioneering and prophetic service).

2. Lesslie Newbigin and the New Delhi Assembly (1961) The point of reference for the Proposal is the WCC New Delhi Assembly in 1961, and the key figure is Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. He was the main drafter of the New Delhi statement, and the organiser of the WCC–IMC merger. His biographer, Geoffrey Wainwright, is a member of the Princeton sixteen, creating yet another connection between the two texts.

The Presbyterian Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998) was raised in WSCF, and later played a key role in establishing the Church of South India (CSI), one of the miracles of the ecumenical movement, as the broadest and most representative example of organic unity, and as such a living example of the New Delhi model.

Newbigin became a bishop of this church in the year of its unification in 1947, first in Madurai, then in Ramnad, and finally in the respected Madras. From 1959 on, he served as the general secretary of IMC, leading the unification process with WCC. Later, he became the first leader of the Commission on Mission and Evangelism of WCC, between 1961 and 1965.

The Proposal practically offers the resuscitation of the vision of Lesslie Newbigin and New Delhi, taking them seriously again. The most beautiful definition of the model of organic unity is offered by the second point of the WCC New Delhi declaration (1961).

The first sentence of this text, of course, repeats the first sentences of the constitutions of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and WSCF, from 1855, 1894 and 1895 respectively, which is contained as well in the constitution (1948) of WCC: “We believe that the unity which is both God’s will and God’s gift to God’s Church is being made visible as all in each place who are This biography, which establishes contact between the two thinkers: Wainwright Geoffrey, Lesslie Newbigin: A Theological Life. Oxford, 2000.

His short biography can be found also in the Ecumenical Dictionary: Thorogood Bernard, (James Edward) Lesslie Newbigin. In Lossky Nicholas – Bonino José Míguez – Pobee John – Stransky Tom F. – Wainwright Geoffrey – Webb Pauline (eds.), Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Genève, 2002. 821–822.

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baptized into Jesus Christ and confess Him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship; holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one Gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all; and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls God’s people.”

3. Konrad Raiser and the Paradigm Shift in Canberra (1991) Thirty years after the New Delhi Assembly, in 1991, Konrad Raiser greeted the paradigm shift of the ecumenical movement in his book of great effect, resulting in him being elected the new general secretary of WCC. The Proposal highlights four elements from the analysis of Raiser, in which this paradigm shift is traceable (II./17.). It is important to note here, however, that the German theologian only describes these changes, and does not prescribe them.

The criticism directed towards his person in the text, therefore, is mostly unjust; even though these changes were certainly not far from his own notions, goals, dreams and perceptions, as we can follow in his later writings and leadership.

It is also crucial to emphasize that the great essay on the spirituality of unity (see below), which guarantees the depth of the Proposal, is identical in its main lines with the vision of the later general secretary.

Finally, it is also worth our attention that Lesslie Newbigin in his analyses depicts the task ahead of the ecumenical movement in a very similar way to Konrad Raiser. The elements of this paradigm shift are thus the following: A. Christocentric universalism is replaced slowly and gradually by a theocentric concept, which stresses and researches the hidden works of God in the world.

We quote from the original report: Report of the Section on Unity: Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC, New Delhi, 1961). In Visser’t Hooft Willem A. (ed.), The New Delhi Report: The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Genève, 1961. 116.

The original book was written in German, and then translated into English: Raiser Konrad, Ökumene im Übergang: Paradigmenwechsel in der ökumenischen Bewegung (Ecumenism in Transition: Paradigm-Shift in the Ecumenical Movement). München, 1991.

From the many examples, let us just quote one here: Newbigin Lesslie, The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches. Genève, 1983.

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B. Instead of being concerned mostly with salvation history and Divine economy, the new spirituality concentrates on caring for the Earth; in other words, Faith and Order, as well as Mission and Evangelization, take a backseat compared with the efforts of Life and Work (Church and Society).

C. In the name of balances, the composition of ecumenical bodies is defined more and more by gender and ethnicity, rather than by theological affiliation.

D. Interreligious dialogue gains more and more momentum, at the expense of traditional ecumenical topics.

This last point is mentioned in the Proposal as a sign of detriment, even though one of the measures of credibility and authenticity for Christianity is an active and creative participation in interreligious dialogue.

We certainly have to be very careful with the proportions (even though the interreligious emphases are rather to be protected nowadays); and we should not mix ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, since they are two entirely different endeavours, albeit using the same method, that of dialogue. This question is a bit like saying we do not need worship in the Church, since anyway we serve the poor.

It is, in the same way, an unfortunate association of ideas to bring interreligious dialogue into a text on ecumenism, as it is to deal with ecumenical theological questions in a text on interreligious dialogue and mission, e.g. Dominus Iesus.

Fear of an excess of interreligious dialogue is highly inopportune and untimely, especially now, when WCC is constantly restructuring its separate commission on interreligious dialogue, continuously threatening its distinct features.

These four changes are of course not (necessarily) signs of “development”. Rather, they are indicators of shifts in theological emphases and aims, of the broadening of our horizon, which might naturally go hand-in-hand with the risk of losing focus and centre.

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II. Essay on Unity and Diversity

The third chapter continues the stream of thought of the first chapter: after the “already and not yet” dimension of unity comes the question of unity and diversity. The last chapter completes this line, and the result of this contraction would be an important and precise essay on unity.

1. Biblical Basis for Unity and Ecumenism Along with the cornerstone of modern ecumenism (John 17, 21–34) and the first letter of Peter (second chapter), the Proposal cites the following Pauline letters: the first letter to the Corinthians (chapters one to three), the second letter to the Corinthians (chapters four, eight and nine), the letter to the Romans (seventh chapter), and the letter to the Galatians (sixth chapter).

In a certain sense, however, the Proposal can be considered as an interpretation of the letter to the Ephesians, as a kind of Bible study, especially on the first, second and fourth chapters. It follows the cosmic vision of the letter to the Ephesians, and calls us to be people of vision, dreaming further the dream of God. It is not the Church, nor God, but Jesus Christ Who is put again into the centre; and from His person, life and will the characteristics of the authentic image of God and Church are drawn: along with unity and catholicity, also apostolicity and sanctity.

2. Unity Existing and Desired The first chapter (I./1–10.) lays the foundation of ecumenical spirituality, guiding us from the experience of scandal, pain and suffering towards recognising our already existing unity, which is to be followed by a desire for an ever greater unity.

The desire for unity begins with recognition of the scandal of division, in itself embodying a revolt against God. In this historic moment, the age of denominational Christianity, all of the denominations are in a scandalous state of revolt.

We contribute to sustaining this institutionalised revolt simply by keeping our denomination and denominational identities separate, distinct and independent of each other. If we accept the scandal of division, we revolt against the Spirit of God. Unfortunately we have gotten used to division and deem it normal.

Neglecting our division, however, is as much a threat to the integrity of our denominations as division itself. Polite and friendly division

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is still division; exactly because of this, we must be healed from ecumenical inertia, lukewarmness and anæsthesia, taking seriously the discipline of self-denial and repentance.

Unity is the promise of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, and at the same time unity is the gift of God. Our common hope is that our unity will be full one day. Our participation in the realisation of this unity willed by God is, at the same time, recognition of the power and activity of God. Unity is an organic part of Christian life and calling, its permanent and central focus and dimension, which is to be made visible and manifest. Unity exists in the tension of already and not yet, and we must take both of these realities seriously.

Discipleship is simultaneously a call for personal sanctification, holiness and participation in community, since we must express our responsibility for each other in an effective and perceptible (visible) way. This duty of unity poses manifest challenges on the levels of authority, structure, institution and practice, calling us towards continual openness and dialogue.

3. Diversity Enriching or Self-Satisfied The first third of the third chapter (III./19–25.) continues the blessed impetus of the beautiful essay on unity. It draws our attention to the manifold meaning of diversity, discerning each from the other.

We must sharply differentiate between division on the one hand, and diversity, plurality or pluralism on the other. From among the latter, some kinds of diversity or pluralism are enriching, thus to be cherished; while others (maybe not worthy for the name of plurality) exist for their own sake, needing to be reconciled and drawn to greater unity.

The opposite of enriching diversity is therefore not only boring and monochrome uniformity, but scandalous division as well, existing only for its own sake. The ecumenical movement struggles against this last one, which aims not at uniformity but at mutual enrichment.

The ecumenical movement is, in a certain sense, the narrow path (but not the golden mean) between divisive denominationalism (traditionalism, fundamentalism or sectarianism) and libertarian undemanding indifference.

The name of the affirmation of diversity is love (agape), which is manifest in the shouldering of one another’s burden, the furthering of the benefit of the other; if the other does something wrong, one should consider this as an occasion for practising our community.

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Our belonging to Jesus Christ (which and Who is our Christian identity) provides us with a new and common identity. Whoever does not place it in the centre among one’s layers of identity fails to notice its importance and places something else instead of Jesus Christ in the centre (for example, one’s denomination or one of its elements).

Nowadays, in many denominations and confessions, there is an even graver inner division than those which separated them from each other in the past. Because of this, Jesus Christ is the great riddler of identities: he calls us to continuously rewrite and reconstruct our human identities in a discerning manner.

Jesus Christ defeats the opposition of genders, social classes, nations and cultures; He will certainly defeat the denominational divisions within His Body. The Good News of Jesus Christ has already defeated much more hopeless and impossible situations.

We cannot credibly wish for the unity of humankind if we are unable to realise and manifest even the unity of our Christian community.

All of our speeches and sermons about unity and solidarity become ridiculous and incredible, if anyone looks at our own divisions.

These describe exactly the state of confession ahead of Christianity, and call Christians and their denominations to decisively choose between one of these options. Sin divides and turns us against each other in the service of the great Divider (Diabolos). We are indeed in a state of confession: do we want a diabolic, or an ecumenical, Christianity?

4. Spirituality of Unity: Self-Emptying as Worship The last chapter (VII./70–72., and V./56.) rounds up the stream of thoughts in this essay. It deals with our spiritual duties and responsibilities in the creative tension between the existing and desired unity, as well as between enriching and egotistic diversity.

Realised unity will be and must be reached through the death and resurrection of many current ecclesiastical life forms, since demanding – and thus costly – ecumenism needs sacrifices from all parties involved.

This sacrifice is worth considering as a form of worship, connected with the requirement of our radical self-emptying (kenosis), which is the fourth requirement for dialogue, together with the three mentioned in the text.

This topic is beautifully detailed and dealt with in an article, written by another ecumenical theologian of the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), Pannonhalma: Orova Csaba, Commitment: To Truth or Identity? Mozaik 2004/2. 27–29.

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In the cross of Jesus Christ, all the personal and communitarian suffering caused by giving up some of our denominational characteristics can be transformed to the grace of community with the Son, which unites us with the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our dialogue with each other must begin with self-emptying, as the Logos, Jesus Christ, began His solidarity in a human form: ecumenical service in both its beginning and crowning is of a kenotic nature.

Working for unity is also of a penitential nature: we must repent all our deeds, habits, attitudes and behaviours which glorify division, disunity and separation. Furthermore, service of unity is also of an ascetic (connected with spiritual exercises) and self-transcendent nature: we must be ready to suspend our evangelical freedom and to align ourselves to the limitations and concerns of the weaker ones.

It also requires the denominations to take on spiritual poverty, giving up courageously even some of the authentic (good, but restricted or limited) elements of their rich traditions for the sake of greater unity realised in the light of the Gospel.

We must add to the text, however, that denominations must be ready to take on spiritual enrichment also, courageously interiorising many of the authentic elements of others’ rich traditions for the sake of greater unity realised in the light of the Gospel.

Kenotic, penitential, ascetic and self-transcendent ecumenical conversion is not an easy task, and it is not a cheap one either.

Naturally, the ancient golden rule applies to this process as well: examine everything, and that which is good, undertake.

III. Three Branches of Ecumenism

The Proposal addresses, in a hidden form, the three branches of the ecumenical movement, although unfortunately many times it substitutes the existing disproportions so wisely uncovered with its own Princetonian disproportions.

1. Proclaiming the Good News

Mission and Evangelism (III./26–36.) is dealt with rather shortly and not deeply enough. The remarks made are important, but from this part a mention of, for example, common witness or proselytism is achingly missing.

Our division not only makes our mission inauthentic and ineffective, but also disregards the essential connection between salvation, unity

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and witness: the spiritual failure of Christianity in the modern age comes from its never-ending division.

Independently from our role in the scandal of division and from the responsibility we take, we all certainly share its burden also in the proclamation of faith and the good news. Our sins against unity, coming from our divisions, have the following (cultural and denominationalistic) two dimensions.

First, when proclaiming the good news we conspire with the various cultural, social and national divisions, and instead of reconciling them, we even strengthen them, saying that we must serve their demands. Thus we do not allow the realisation of the riddling and transforming power of the good news.

Second, the encounter with other denominations many times just strengthens our loyalty towards our own traditions and our (exclusive) denominational consciousness. Of course it is salutary, so far as we would like to serve others with our unique treasures.

Its risk is, though, that we start to boast of something unique instead of the single, unified and infinite good news of Jesus Christ, or we take pride in our peculiar and diversifying characteristics, instead of confessing our common and only Lord.

2. Service of the World

The second branch of the ecumenical movement, Life and Work, or Church and Society (V./50–51.) gets even less attention in the text, of course because the authors feel this direction is overemphasised in the ecumenical movement.

The great temptation in this area consists in the submission to political ideologies, which indeed have not spared the ecumenical movement in its history. The Proposal underlines only two possible examples for cooperation.

One is the protection of life, which indeed has a confessional status and dignity, and the other one is re-mission and re-evangelism, which should rather be classified under the umbrella of the first branch.

One can of course enlist a large number of tasks and responsibilities ahead of the Church in the areas of modern society, life, work, artistic creation and culture, which are all missing from the Proposal, making this part the weakest of all, together with the historical part.

Most obviously, the authors did not want to show a good example of measured and proportioned balance; they rather chose overemphasis in their fight and struggle against another kind of disproportion.

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3. Seeking and Respecting Truth

From among the three branches, the Proposal deems Faith and Order (IV./37–43., V./44–48., 53–54.) to be the most important by far, aiming to raise it back to its lost dignity. It must be the most important area, because if the Christian community is unable to agree and consent on apostolic tradition, then its communal life will have a different basis and fundament and it will witness to something other than this.

The Church’s existence is threatened by this distortion. We might witness nowadays to the good news of Jesus Christ, too, at least in our words. But by the mere fact of our division and disunity, we witness and testify to the superficiality and insignificance of unity, oneness, community, reconciliation and atonement and even more by our deeds, acts and behaviours for the sake of prolonging and strengthening our division.

Even the sheer fact of our disunity raises serious doubts concerning the reality and worth of these values, and makes others suspicious that we are working exclusively for our institutional and cultural selfpreservation.

Division is strengthened in a certain sense even when a denomination or church makes a decision on an important question without consulting and listening to the others. Even though the apostolic faith contained and formulated in the ecumenical creeds are accepted by most Christian communities, it is not these which provide the basis and core of the denominational identities, but rather their peculiar characteristics.

Instead of being prophets for each other and calling one another to what is really important and essential, the denominations act as mutually distorting mirrors, underlining and stressing mostly the incidental and accidental characteristics of the other. Furthermore, the world reinforces this process as well, and consumerism considers denominations and confessions merely as sacral and transcendental packages of supply.

The life force of our divided Christianity was wasted in the last centuries in our ritually reinforced disunity and separation, and in our monologues reciting again and again (mostly for ourselves) our own peculiar doctrines and practices, even if from the point of view of the core and essence of Christianity these are rather marginal.

Since the priests, pastors and ministers are educated for the service of their own denominations, their socialisation (re)enforces exactly the divisive factors between them. Their professional career is defined

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by denominational structures, and threatened by any Christian initiatives for greater unity.

Because of this, the emphasis shifted from truth towards identity, leading to the tribalisation of the Christian community. The teaching of faith and truth on the one hand, and unity on the other, must not and cannot be played against each other, since the lack of one inauthenticates and discredits the other.

Because there is not only a convergence, but also a consensus between the denominations concerning the fundamental role of baptism and the central place of the Eucharist, we should take the next step in Eucharistic sharing on the basis and in the spirit of the most-read document of the ecumenical movement, the Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry (BEM, 1982).10 This part of the Proposal contains extremely important statements, and it is obvious that the authors handled it as their most beloved theme. When searching for the greatest ecumenical importance of the Proposal, this part stands out clearly.

IV. Responsible Acceptance of the Ecumenical Calling 1. Actors of Ecumenism In a certain respect, all of the above serves merely as an introduction to the excellent recommendations of the Proposal, which again unfortunately stand unstructured and dispersed throughout the text.

The sixth chapter (VI. 57–69.) addresses the various actors of the ecumenical movement, enlisting several duties and tasks for them, in a similar fashion as that found in the documents of the Groupe des Dombes.11 A. The most important actors of the ecumenical movement are certainly, as they have always been since the beginning, the unofficial communities and groups of friends, the grassroots ecumenical movements, like the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF, 1951 and 1967), the Taizé Community, or many others.

They are able to speak more boldly and freely, they can channel their creative and procreative forces more dynamically and completely into ecumenical thinking, and thus they have much larger opportunities 10 Another interesting recent document on this topic: Weth Rudolf – Nagypál Szabolcs (eds.), On Eucharistic Sharing: A Statement of the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF). Písek, 2007.

11 From among their several excellent texts, the most to our point is the following: Groupe des Dombes, Pour la Conversion des Èglises (For the Conversion of the Churches). Paris, 1991.

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and chances for new initiatives and endeavours through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Those who are not in any official position and are not bound by official duties are more likely to receive a specific divine vocation for the service of unity. They get primarily the charisma of healing (1Cor 12,9; Mark 16,18), as well as the blessing and happiness of peacemaking, atonement and reconciliation (Mt 5,9).

This is, of course, not to lessen the special service of for example all the bishops for the restoration of Christian unity. Naturally, they also have more power to really do and achieve something.

B. The World Council of Churches (WCC), as (together with the Vatican) the most important body of official ecumenism from above, must return to the vision of organic unity and must foremost strive for unity in doctrines and sacraments.

Denominations, likewise, must get out of the vicious circle of mere denominational survival. Ecumenism of local churches must be an everyday reality as a part of the life of the congregation; mission is to be conducted jointly, even as far as structure and institution are concerned.

C. Orthodoxy must see and recognise the elements of living tradition and worship in the other Christian communities, and at the same time it must leave aside its nationalistic and divisive practice and ecclesiology, since Eastern Christianity is often unable to show and manifest even its own unity to the others.

D. The Roman Catholic church must re-read its tradition on the role and service for unity of the bishops, especially the bishop of Rome.

The bigger its opportunity, possibility and power to act for unity, the bigger its responsibility is as well, which should be felt and taken by this important denomination.

The teaching office must be able to effectively influence and form the thinking of non-Catholic Christians too, avoiding any return to the conditions and states before the Second Vatican Council (1962– 1965).

It must take full responsibility for the effective service for unity, involving non-Catholic participants in decision-making also, since this is the only way it can receive trustworthy counsel concerning the faith and life of the community, in order to raise its authenticity, credibility and acceptance.

E. The various Protestant world communions must recognise their

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temporal, interim and transitional situation and service, deepening their own traditions always for the sake of the unity of the whole Church.

Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians also bear responsibility for the promotion of Christian unity. They must participate in dialogue as well, rejoicing in living faith wherever they may find it.

Moreover, they must recognise and accept the validity, spiritual authority and strength of life of other forms of Christian practices; recognising also the importance and duty of hospitality, catholicity, integrity and pan-Christian health and salvation.

2. Areas of Solidarity and Responsibility Apart from the actors, we find in the Proposal several possible and desired areas of solidarity and responsibility, structured into six different groups (V./49., 52., 55.). These are not yet detailed properly; they are to be understood rather as signposts on our way.

A. We are to beg, pray and intercede unceasingly for each other, for our sister-communities and sister-denominations, for all Christians and for the unity of the whole of Christianity, also regularly taking part in communal worship of our sister-communities, which enlivens and strengthens our community and belonging together.

B. We must design, work out and accomplish together the plan of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, continuously harmonising the different occasions and opportunities of witness and service.

C. During teaching and education, teachers in schools and institutions must always and conscientiously serve the whole Church; and we must prepare pastors and catechists for the service of unity, susciting in them the desire, attitude and spirituality for unity.

D. Joint social action, stance and service must also be blessed by common prayer and worship.

E. We must continue ecumenical dialogue, convergence and thinking, executing the already existing ecumenical agreements and conventions; the mutual recognition of baptism must be clear and crucial in people’s minds and in ecclesiastical bureaucracy.

In teaching offices, theological and doctrinal commissions, we must invite representatives of other traditions too, thus formulating our official documents regarding as wide and broad of a Christian community as possible.

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F. We must support and promote by all means the vocation and mission of those who are specially called and charismatically appropriately equipped for reconciliation, community-building and the service of Christian unity.

In the pastoral care of ecumenical weddings and marriages, we must especially accept and support the ecumenical vocation and mission of interdenominational, interchurch couples and families, always profoundly learning from their common experiences and insights.

Dialogical Cross-Theology In order to have a longer-lasting effect on the flow of the ecumenical movement, the Proposal should be rewritten and restructured now, utilising the hermeneutical close readings,12 ecumenical theological analyses,13 and many other insights14 and suggestions.15 The practical recommendations of Charta Œcumenica16 (2001), for example, are also to be taken into account.

Using the hermeneutics of goodwill, we can summarise that the reasons for the structural discrepancies can be that the text has never aimed to be anything other than a declaration, a Proposal, which as such must be kept brief, and this genre does not require a systematic treatment of its subject either.

Certainly, Christian denominations suffer from a lack of remorse because of our division and disunity; while the ecumenical movement simultaneously suffers from the inadequacy of dynamism and creativity.

It is cross-theology (as the theology of the cross, and as crossfertilising theology) that helps us to faithfully and humbly join the current dynamism of the movement of the Holy Spirit, creating unity and community in our midst.

12 The background papers are collected in another volume: Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), The Ecumenical Future: Background Papers for “In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity”. Grand Rapids, 2004.

13 In Hungary, for example, sixteen theologians (among them from the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), Pannonhalma) evaluated and analysed the work of their sixteen colleagues: Fabiny Tibor (ed.), Egy házban élnek-e a keresztények? Magyar reflexiók a Princetoni javaslatra (Are Christians Living in the same House? Magyar Reflections on the Princeton Proposal). Budapest, 2007.

14 One example of these, evaluating the Princeton Proposal: Fackre Gabriel, Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. The Gospel and our Culture Newsletter 2004/39.

15 One example of these, evaluating the background papers: Riggs Ann, Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), The Ecumenical Future: Background Papers for “In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity”. The Ecumenical Review 2004/10.

16 In English, its title is the following: Conference of European Churches (CEC) – (Roman Catholic) Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), Charta Œcumenica: Guidelines for the Growing Cooperation among the Churches in Europe. Strasbourg, 2001.

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Fackre Gabriel, Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. The Gospel and our Culture Newsletter 2004/39.

Fabiny Tibor (ed.), Egy házban élnek-e a keresztények? Magyar reflexiók a Princetoni javaslatra (Are Christians Living in the same House? Magyar Reflections on the Princeton Proposal). Budapest, 2007.

Groupe des Dombes, Pour la Conversion des Èglises (For the Conversion of the Churches). Paris, 1991.

Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. Grand Rapids, 2003.

Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), The Ecumenical Future: Background Papers for “In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity”. Grand Rapids, 2004.

Kolonits Veronika (ed.), Survey on the Current State of Ecumenism. Budapest, 2004.

Nagypál Szabolcs, “Your Faith has Made you Well: Go in Peace, and be Healed of your Trouble”: The Ecumenical Condition and Dialogue in Europe. In DeGiglio-Bellemare Mario – García Gabriela Miranda, Talitha Cum! The Grace of Solidarity in a Globalized World. Genève, 2004. 108–120.

Newbigin Lesslie, The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches. Genève, 1983.

Orova Csaba, Commitment: To Truth or Identity? Mozaik 2004/2. 27–29.

Raiser Konrad, Ökumene im Übergang, Paradigmenwechsel in der ökumenischen Bewegung (Ecumenism in Transition: A Paradgim Shift in the Ecumenical Movement). München, 1991.

Riggs Ann, Jenson Robert W. – Braaten Carl E. (eds.), The Ecumenical Future: Background Papers for “In One Body through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity”. The Ecumenical Review 2004/10.

Thorogood Bernard, (James Edward) Lesslie Newbigin. In Lossky Nicholas – Bonino José Míguez – Pobee John – Stransky Tom F. – Wainwright Geoffrey – Webb Pauline (eds.), Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement.

Genève, 2002. 821–822.

Visser’t Hooft Willem A. (ed.), The New Delhi Report: The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Genève, 1961.

Wainwright Geoffrey, Lesslie Newbigin: A Theological Life. Oxford, 2000.

Weth Rudolf – Nagypál Szabolcs (eds.), On Eucharistic Sharing: A Statement of the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF). Písek, 2007.

Nagypál Szabolcs (1974) is a graduate in ecumenical theology, law and literature. He is a researcher and theologian in the Benedictine Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI) in Pannonhalma. He was chairperson of KÖD (Magyar SCM) and CESR; and a member of ERC and ExCo. He is the vice-president of the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF), and the moderator of its Theology Commission (ThC). He is the editor-in-chief of the Central European Ecumenical Anthologies, of Student World, and was that of Mozaik. His email address is nagypalszabi@yahoo.com.

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Ecumenical Partners and Meetings in Romania after 1989 The republic of Romania, situated in South Eastern Europe, has a population of about twenty-two million inhabitants. Over 90% are Romanians, almost 7% Magyars, and the rest are of other ethnic origins.

Many years after the death of dictator Nicolae Ceaus˛escu, about a third of Romania’s population still lives in poverty. 29% of the inhabitants in Romania are poor, 11% are very poor and 6% live under the poverty line. The minimum wage is rated at 70 EUR, whereas the minimum retirement pension is around 28 Euro.

In 1920, the region of Transylvania, after centuries of belonging to the Kingdom of Hungary, became part of Romania. It substantially increased the number of ethnic and religious minorities. There is a close kinship between ethnic identity and confessional membership.

Nowadays millions of Romanians live in the diaspora: 500.000 in Spain, 600.000 in Germany, mostly married to ethnic Germans, who left Romania in the 1980s and 1990s. Many ethnic Magyars also live abroad.

The effects of the crumbling social welfare system are particularly felt by the elderly, ill, disabled, Rroma people and those with large families. Romania has been a member of NATO since 2004 and it joined the European Union (EU) in 2007.

The normal UK spelling is Roma, but the Roma in Romania insist that their name is spelled as Rroma.

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I. Four Ecumenical Partners 1. Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC) 86,7 % of ethnic Romanians are Orthodox and, by that, the ROC is amply the majority church. The church has been autocephalous since 1885 and was organized as a Patriarchate in 1925. There are five Metropolitan Sees, ten Archdioceses and thirteen Dioceses.

The highest authority for all dogmatic and canonical issues, as well as for religious matters of any other kind is the Holy Synod. 12.173 priests and deacons serve 12.761 parishes and branches. There are fourteen faculties of theology with 10.178 students (in 2004). 438 priests function in hospitals, the army, prisons and social centres.

2. (Magyar) Calvinist-Reformed Church This church of ethnic Magyars is based in Transylvania and numbers about 700.000 believers (3,2% of the population), has two bishops and is divided into two districts, Cluj (Kolozsvár) with 486 parishes and Oradea (Nagyvárad) with two hundred sixty communities.

The church came into being in the XVIth century, during the Reformation. There is a theological training centre in Cluj. Training and education play an important role maintaining the cultural and church inheritance.

For centuries Magyars have almost only married Magyars. The church has to deal with a double minority position: religious as well as ethnic. The number of Protestant and Roman Catholic Magyars is about the same.

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3. (German) Evangelical-Lutheran Church This Lutheran church is based in Transylvania and represents a small ethnic German minority with a rich cultural and historical heritage. The church has one bishop and some 15.000 members, mostly elderly people. There are 260 communities and the services nowadays are in German or bilingual, German and Romanian.

In Sibiu (Hermannstadt, Nagyszeben), there is a theological institute with about thirty students. The church has been decimated in a very short period. 90% of the ethnic Germans moved to Germany, mainly in the 1980s and 1990s. The church is no longer able to finance itself or to provide services in all its parishes, though it fulfils a bridging function in ecumenical relations.

4. (Magyar) Synodal-Presbyterian Evangelical-Lutheran Church This church is also based in Transylvania with thirty-nine parishes, sixteen diaspora points in the country and one bishop. The services are mainly in Magyar, but also in German and Slovakian languages.

It has a double minority status, denominational and ethnical. But there is one Romanian speaking Evangelical-Lutheran congregation in Bucures˛ti. The church has approximately 30.000 members.

II. Six Interchurch Meetings after the Changes 1. Sibiu (1990): Interchurch Cooperation The first meeting took place in 1990 at the Orthodox theological institute in Sibiu in Transylvania. The subject of the discussion was to create a platform for better and more efficient interchurch cooperation.

Another focus was on the establishment of a National Council of Churches and an Interconfessional Bible Society (IBS). The period under the Communist dictatorship was acknowledged to have had good ecumenical cooperation.

There is some confusion whether Sibiu or Novi Sad should be regarded as the first new kind of ecumenical meeting in Romania. The statement of Novi Sad also refers to “the first time under freedom.”

2. Novi Sad (1990): Sincere Repentance In 1990, representatives of Christian denominations in Romania and Hungary met on the invitation of the CEC and in cooperation with Patuleanu. 278.

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the WCC in the former Yugoslavia. The participants present at this meeting belonged to the Evangelical-Lutheran, Calvinist-Reformed, Baptist and Orthodox confessions.

The Free Churches or Neo-Protestant denominations (the Pentecostals, Baptists and Adventists) had grown strongly in those years, and they were then over half a million in their numbers. The joint statement expressed the following.

These churches recently passed through a dark period of totalitarian atheistic Communism, which flagrantly infringed their freedoms and impeded the proper fulfilment of their mission; now for the first time in decades they have the freedom to speak openly. That meeting constituted a first step towards finding the best ways to help the rapprochement and the creation of a new relationship between their peoples.

They were aware of the realities in their countries and were cognizant of the recent past, when denominations could not fulfil their calling as they would have wished. They deeply regretted, in a spirit of sincere repentance, all the past failures and compromises.

The statement continued in affirming that the denominations must seek to help each other and to purify their conscience of any kind of selfishness, intolerance and chauvinism. All forms of extremism were rejected; the present borders between Romania and Hungary were respected.

Also, an atmosphere which encouraged all to feel at home in their own country was to be created; all peoples and ethnic minorities in their countries must have equal rights and the possibility to practice their own culture in their own schools, in all cultural institutions, and at all other levels of life.

The rights of minorities were declared as sacred and inalienable, the creation of a new irenic spirit between the denominations had to be worked out and enemy images had to be properly corrected.

To their great regret, the denominations in Romania were often forced to keep silent and could not condemn the violation of human rights and ethnic minorities. A commitment was made that if any denomination were to be hurt in its religious or ethnic rights, other denominations had to manifest their support and solidarity.

A real tension was the slow reaction of governments to give back the stationalised church properties and institutions. The statement ended with a commitment to convene further meetings of this character and with the hope that other churches in Romania and Hungary also might become involved.

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The future was in the hands of God, but the statement was also seen as a first step in a process of reconciliation and healing. At the end of this meeting, the Romanian churches declared that they wanted to continue the process without direct CEC or CEC staff assistance.

3. Ias˛i (1991): Healing, Education and Diakonia The next meeting, again with international participation, was held in the capital of Moldavia in 1991. One notes with concern that the confidence among denominations was deteriorating and a real reconciliation was not achieved.

The establishment of an ecumenical platform was dropped. The denominations had to deal with the national situation of transition and renewal. Christian education and diakonia were formulated as common priorities.

Also, a substantial need for moral, ethical and spiritual healing was pointed out. Therefore new forms of training for professors, school systems and religious education were said to be needed.

4. Bucures˛ti (1994): Fraternity under the Cross In 1994, a meeting was organized in the capital of Romania at the invitation of Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of WCC, and in cooperation with CEC. There were not only representatives of the member churches of the WCC and CEC, but also of other churches (Baptist Union, Adventists Union, Greek Catholic, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical denominations), and the ecumenical association AIDRom. Ajutor Interbisericesc Departmentul Romania (Interchurch Aid Department in Romania) was renamed in 1993 to Asociatia Ecumenica a Bisericilor din Romania (Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania).

AIDRom was an ecumenical organisation created in 1991 as an instrument of the Calvinist-Reformed, Evangelical-Lutheran and Orthodox churches, following the downfall of the Nicolae Ceaus˛escu regime.

AIDRom started as a channel for the distribution of aid. The WCC and other funding agencies played a key role by providing both human resources and funds. In 1993 AIDRom was officially registered as an Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania.

At the meeting of 1994 in Bucures˛ti, Konrad Raiser referred to Patuleanu. 278.

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the Novi Sad meeting in 1990 on ecumenical relations in Romania.

Since then, WCC and CEC have contributed to the establishment of AIDRom, which has brought the Orthodox and Protestant member churches closer together.

After the meeting in Novi Sad, the church leaders gathered regularly to discuss their common concerns. The WCC and CEC wanted to encourage this process and include the other churches also, because there were many unresolved problems.

The purpose was to evaluate the situation and to see what could be done to promote ecumenical cooperation. It was an occasion for mutual consultation, interpretation and articulation of difficulties and grievances. Each participant could express the main concerns of her or his church.

The (German) Evangelical-Lutheran Church mentioned the immense exodus of people of German origin to Germany in the 1980s and 1990s after the changes. During this time, 75% of the German population had emigrated.

So, the church has become a small minority, though it represents a rich cultural and historical heritage of eight hundred years of Saxon settlement in Transylvania. The mission of a minority church is to be a bridge and to promote an open and sincere dialogue. It wants to preserve its identity, however, and it is afraid of getting squeezed by larger churches.

The (Magyar) Evangelical-Lutheran Church expressed that many of the expectations of December 1989 have not been fulfilled. The present era was not a dream, but fraught with many problems.

The Orthodox Metropolitan Daniel of Ias˛i expressed his point of view on ecumenism and stated that ecumenism was in a crisis.

During the Cold War, denominations inside the Communist block had limited freedom, and ecumenism was a necessity and a chance to communicate with the outside world.

It was a fraternity under the cross. Ecumenical meetings and conferences were frequent, but rather formal and limited to making official declarations. The policy of the state was to diminish the social role of the Church.

Ecumenical cooperation remained equally important, not for survival but for involvement in society. AIDRom is a good example of practical ecumenism. The Orthodox church has worked hard to re-establish its social role.

The most difficult part was the struggle to reintroduce religious instruction in the public schools. The ROC was fighting to get back the confiscated properties, but success has been rather limited.

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The state had agreed to grant some subsidies, and other denominations also benefited from this. For example, all the theological schools were subsidized by the state. But the practical, local cooperation between the denominations was episodic and insufficient.

The reasons were denominationalism, proselytism, defensive attitudes; nationalism of majority and minority churches; and differing interests and problems. There was a need for new ecumenical education and analyses. Priority had to be with the suffering in society, not with the interests of the denominations.

The (Magyar) Calvinist-Reformed church mentioned that, after 1989, the student, youth and women’s movements of the church had been organized again. The church wanted to establish its own schools, but the legal provisions for confessional schools were still lacking.

In the area of diakonia, many projects had been set up. Through the restitution of its properties, the Church wanted to improve its material situation. Some students and young people were involved in interdenominational activities. For them it was easier to find a common language.

The small Armenian Apostolic church (about 4000 believers) reported that its communities never received help from abroad. After 1989, the parishes opened Sunday schools and kindergartens. The restitution of properties was a priority for the Church. The relations with the ROC were excellent, and there was also good collaboration with the other denominations.

The spokesperson of the Roman Catholic church stated that the personal relations between Roman Catholic and Orthodox clergy could be friendly, but in official discussions there had been bitter fights.

It was interesting that the international Orthodox−Roman Catholic dialogue seemed to be easier than the dialogue at the national level.

The Church advocated religious education in public schools.

But the society in general lacked ideals. The spokesperson hoped that the meeting helped to establish an open and serene dialogue.

If invited for future meetings, the Roman Catholic church would be present. Practical ecumenism was also needed.

According to Jean Fischer, secretary general of CEC, three issues emerged from the discussion: Church−state relations, religious education, and local interchurch relations.

Bishop Mózes Árpád of the (Magyar) Evangelical-Lutheran church said that the restitution of properties indeed was a common problem, but for the minority churches it was even a matter of survival.

He expressed his opinion that the meeting was indeed meant

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to discuss common problems, but also questions on which the denominations were divided, for only in this way could the dialogue be fruitful.

It was true that other denominations had benefited from the results obtained by the ROC, but regarding religious education it was different, because the smaller denominations could not gather enough children to set up classes.

The spokesperson of the Evangelical churches expressed that in a Christian spirit all problems can be solved. He expressed that the Romanian society needed the denominations very much. In contrast to scientific progress, there was a heavy moral decline. Evangelisation has nothing to do with proselytism, and is not a search for power.

Konrad Raiser advised a focus on the question of education, which was shown to be a common major concern. The representatives talked about the three different aspects present in the discussion. One was religious education in public schools, the other was the confessional schools, and the third was education in the Church. These facets should not be seen as alternatives, but as complementary.

In the discussion, the theme of the family was mentioned as well as the importance of the family in relation to religious education and ethical issues. Metropolitan Daniel of Ias˛i proposed to organize an interchurch meeting on the Christian family. Some encouraging examples of cooperation between Orthodox and Evangelicals in a prison and a hospital were mentioned.

Konrad Raiser said the meeting had been a genuinely ecumenical discussion. Concerning legislation, he added that if some Western models could be of help, these could be made available through AIDRom. CEC and WCC would continue to assist the Romanian denominations.

5. Bucures˛ti (1996): Transforming Communities In 1996, the Presidium of CEC gathered in Bucures ˛ti. They met representatives of the member churches in Romania. Knowing the very specific problems confronting CEC in Romania, an additional initiative was taken by sending visitors from staff and presidium to Cluj, Oradea and Sibiu in Transylvania.

Such visits took place because CEC had received correspondence from member churches, raising awareness that they were experiencing problems caused by the lack of legislation on Church and state affairs in connection with education law and restitution of property.

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The CEC had also been accused of neglecting the interests of minority churches. Jean Fischer, president of the CEC staff, replied that this charge was not acceptable. The small CEC staff spends much time visiting member churches in fifty-two countries of Europe.

The representatives confirmed the problems with the state. In addition, Calvinist-Reformed voices mentioned the state support for new church buildings of the ROC and they expected better support from the ROC to get these problems settled.

The ROC also already received back some buildings from the state.

Metropolitan Nifon (Mihaita) of the ROC, who is currently president of AIDRom, said that, similar to other denominations in Romania, the Orthodox were faced with fascinating times—it was a transitional period.

The joy of freedom soon passed away, but it is better to have freedom than not. The problems raised by the other denominations were the same for the ROC. He was surprised about the allegations that the ROC was not cooperating in getting a religious law enacted, for this was as important to the Orthodox as to any other denomination.

The reports of the visits to Transylvania showed the following picture. In Oradea there were many wounded feelings among the ethnic Magyars: people are hurt and not heard. The issue of belonging to a minority arose.

There was disappointment with the ecumenical movement, both national and international, towards WCC and CEC also. But one encountered strong ecumenical relations at the local level, the churches were full during the Week of Prayer.

The denominations were facing diaconal challenges, and the need for diaconal work and training was enormous. Diaconal training in order to transform communities had to receive ecumenical support.

In Cluj, the Orthodox−Protestant relations seemed to be correct, but were not very dynamic. Roman Catholics seemed to be remote from local ecumenical life. But there were ecumenical opportunities for diaconal service, and many young people attended the churches.

One could attend performances of joint choirs of the Orthodox and Protestant seminaries. The Week of Prayer demonstrated a commitment to ecumenism, but services and prayers were still largely organized along confessional lines.

In Sibiu, the ecumenical relationships were generally good at the local and national level. One of the reasons was that the quantity of the German-speaking Evangelical-Lutheran church was negligible.

There were no organised structural ecumenical activities such as

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Week of Prayer. The relations between the lecturers of the Orthodox and Evangelical-Lutheran theological faculties were good.

˛ti demonstrated that the issues at stake, The meeting in Bucures such as the restitution of properties and a law on Church and state relations as well as on education, were problematic and difficult.

They were seen differently by the member churches. Their resolutions called for serious and continued dialogue between and within the denominations. It was not likely that an external force would bring a solution to such difficult problems.

The denominations had to give themselves a proper structure for regular and permanent consultation and common positions, and they had to strengthen their relationships with the government.

There was a more needed than implied peaceful co-existence between the denominations. Active cooperation and demonstrations of unity had to be built on what had already been achieved between the various confessions.

6. Ias˛i (1998): Theology in Ecumenical Thought

In 1998 an important seminar took place on the theme: The Ecumenical Movement in the XXth century: The Role of Theology in Ecumenical Thought and Life in Romania. This seminar, actually the first real theological meeting after the changes, was jointly organized by the WCC and Metropolitan Daniel of Ias ˛i (Moldavia).

Part one of this significant conference concentrated on the existence of fifty years of the WCC. At that very moment, an acute crisis arose between the Orthodox and Protestant denominations within WCC. Part two focused on ecumenism in Romania. It included a critical survey of the past and endorsed the present initiatives for a new movement towards ecumenism as a duty to overcome the shame and the tragedy of division.

The acute problem of the relationship between Church and state was also tackled. Some characteristics of ecumenism in Romania were formulated. The period under political repression led to positive results for the deepening of sisternal and fraternal relations.

The theological interconfessional conferences were exceptional moments in the Romanian ecumenical movement. From 1990 on, one could talk of ecumenism under freedom, which meant a bigger responsibility for the denominations.

The relationship between Christians became more open. This implied actions to intensify ecumenism at the national, regional and local levels with the goal of reconciliation and Christian union.

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The difficulties within the framework of the ecumenical dialogue after the changes were reduced to the lack of information as well as to an inadequate strategy regarding ecumenical awareness.

Two initiatives were launched. The first initiative called for the establishment of chairs of ecumenism at all schools of theology where they do not currently exist as well as the teaching of all other disciplines in an ecumenical spirit.

The second initiative advocated the development of an ecumenical atmosphere, also at the local community level. Local churches were asked to commit themselves to an educational project for believers.

In order to realize this program, it was mentioned once again that a National Council of Churches should be established in which the Roman Catholic church hopefully would participate fully; but the goal to establish a National Council of Churches in 2006 was not accomplished.

The main goals of the Council were formulated as well: first, re-starting the theological interconfessional conference; then elaborating on a Romanian ecumenical theology related to the international theological discourse as well to the Romanian context; also, issuing an ecumenical memorial to the martyrs of faith during the Communist period.

Additional goals included promoting the Week of Prayer, setting up pastoral care for ecumenical marriages and inter-church families, exchanging professors and students of theological faculties and, finally, organizing regional meetings among communities.

In spite of all inevitable temporary difficulties, the ecumenical movement in Romania has a future. In order to achieve this, the reinforcement of the inter-theological conferences is one of the principle building stones.

III. AIDRom: Church, State and Society

AIDRom was created in 1991 as an instrument of the Protestant and Orthodox denominations following the downfall of the Nicolae Ceaus˛escu regime. AIDRom started as a channel for the distribution of aid, but in 1993 officially registered as an Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania.

The three founding members were the ROC, the Magyar CalvinistReformed Church and the German Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

In 1994 two new churches joined the association: the Synodal Patuleanu. 281.

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Presbyterian (Evangelical-Lutheran) Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Since 1995, the staff of AIDRom has been completely Romanian, and one of the presidents of the board was the Orthodox archbishop Nifon Mihaita of Targoviste. AIDRom has generally been known for ecumenism through diakonia, including work among Rroma people and street children as well educational projects for minorities and human rights.

Later on, AIDRom accepted some responsibilities towards the creation of a National Council of Churches. At the meeting with the CEC in Bucures˛ti in 1996, Christian Teodorescu, the EvangelicalLutheran director of AIDRom, said that for the time being the association had not been able to function properly as a platform for interchurch dialogue, nor as a proper spokesperson to the state on behalf of the churches.

Bishop Mihaita (AIDRom) added that the Ecumenical Association was not a proper platform empowered by denominations to discuss these questions. But it is a blessing because it exists, and at the yearly General Assembly items from member churches are raised without hesitation.

The Round Table structure functions as a platform, but AIDRom is not yet a National Council of Churches. The ROC has asked other churches about forming a NCC. Until this is created, AIDRom continues to fulfil that function to some extent.

Meanwhile, the mandate of AIDRom has been revised in the sense that it is now also dealing with theological matters. It has a Department of Ecumenical Formation which is focusing on the subjects of ecumenical prayer, inter-theological conferences, and theological and ecumenical education.

The objectives of ecumenical prayer (Week of Prayer and World Day of Prayer) are to express a common witness as Christians in a divided world and to organize these opportunities for common prayer.

The objectives of inter-theological conferences are to restart theological dialogue, to take care of a local contribution to worldwide ecumenical themes, to establish a permanent Ecumenical Working Group on specific subjects like the Charta Ĺ’cumenica and the properties of the denominations, to cope with past and present, to promote religious education and to organize comparative church history conferences.

Also, theological and ecumenical education is its task, in which ethnic reconciliation is seen as a priority. In Training for Transformation

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workshops, women and men of different denominational and ethnic groups meet in dialogue.

The association AIDRom became a National Council in 2006, with the Roman Catholic church as a full member. During his visit in Germany in 2003, Patriarch Teoctist stated that “AIDRom will be transformed into a larger organization such as a Council of Churches that could offer a sisterly cooperation platform for all denominations.”

Mihail Brinzea, an Orthodox executive of AIDRom, explained that “there are some distinct avowals of denominations on the issue of ecumenical life, but in Romania, ecumenism was achieved so far not through common declaration and statements, but via co-operation, and this probably will be valid also for the future.”

A good example for sustaining this was the last Charta Œcumenica seminar organized by AIDRom in Brasov in 2003, where the delegates of different confessions decided together to fix the yearly event date of 29 June as a Day of Prayer for each other.

Besides a CEC delegation, there were representatives from most of the historical Romanian churches. Among them were many young Orthodox theologians discussing their responsibilities emerging from the Charta Œcumenica.

Another decision of the seminar in Brasov was to initiate a Romanian ecumenical Church Congress in 2005, according to the model of the Kirchentag in Germany. The bishops of the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Catholic church fully accepted the text of the Charta, which was discussed with both priests and believers.

The level of discussion and reception is similar in the CalvinistReformed and Evangelical-Lutheran Churches of Romania. In 2003 the Evangelical Academy of Sibiu and AIDRom hosted an international ecumenical conference entitled Church, State and Society.

The conference was included in the series of ecumenical meetings organized in Romania at various levels, and emphasized the perspectives of the future common dialogue. Items such as religious freedom in Western democracies and the reflection of this in Central and Eastern European countries jurisprudence were discussed.

Also, the development of the relationship between Church and state in South Eastern Europe and the relationship between Church and state from the perspective of the Romanian state were discussed.

The government representatives underlined the importance of this Newsletter of AIDRom 2003/2. 1.

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conference for the integration of Romania into the European Union (EU).

Thirteen years after the establishment of AIDRom, its mandate has been changed relating to the developments in Church and society.

In the midst of the 1990s, there was not yet the intention to provide AIDRom with the tasks some voices (CEC) were asking for.

Gradually, the association started to develop more theological initiatives. AIDRom can be seen as the main ecumenical structural body of Romania in which the Protestant and Orthodox confessions fully participate.

Suggested Reading Belopopsky Alexander, Between Chaos and Kairos: Churches, Ecumenism and the WCC in Central and Eastern Europe 1989−2003. The Ecumenical Review 2004/1.

Botica Paul, Kissing the Crucifix, Practical Steps toward Effective Ecumenical Dialogue and Cooperation in Romania. Religion in Eastern Europe 1999/2.

Bria Ion, Evangelism, Proselytism, and Religious Freedom in Romania: An Orthodox Point of View. Journal of Ecumenical Studies 1999/1−2.

Ionita Viorel, Kirchen und Ökumene im heutigen Rumänien. Glaube in der 2. Welt 2001/7−8.

Oancea Dorin, Zur heutigen ökumenischen Situation in Rumänien. In Klein Hans − Köber Berthold − Schlarb Egbert, Kirche, Geschichte und Glaube, Freudesgabe für Hermann Pitters zum 65. Geburtstag. Erlangen, 1998.

Pap Géza. Letter. In Landelijke Werkgroep Gemeentecontacten, Karpatenbekken.

Patuleanu Constantin, Die Begegnung der rumänischen Orthodoxie mit dem Protestantismus (16. bis 20.

Jahrhundert), unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des bilateralen theologischen Dialogs zwischen der Evangelischer Kirche in Deutschland und der Rumänischen Orthodoxen Kirche (1979−1998). Hamburg, 2000.

Romocea Christian, A Strategy for Social Reconciliation in the Ethnic Conflict in Transylvania. Religion in Eastern Europe 2003/5.

Van de Vyver Greet, Samen in het land van Dracula, socio-culturele praxis en interetnisch samenleven in Transylvanië. Leuven, 2002.

Vogelaar Huub, Œcumene in het land van Dracula, Samen op weg in Roemenië. Wereld en Zending 2004/2.

Huub Vogelaar is involved in a research project for Centrum IIMO in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Orthodox−Protestant relationships in Eastern Europe. He teaches ecumenism and missiology at the Protestant Theological Faculty as well at the Protestant Training Centre for teachers of religion, both located in Brussels, Belgium. His email address is: huub.vogelaar@planet.nl.

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John George Huber

Can a Pope and a Patriarch Lead us towards Greater Unity?

Ecumenism is not static, but it is always in a dynamic change as the different actors vary and individuals dialogue with others. Reflecting on my experiences as an Evangelical-Lutheran and as a life-long student of ecumenism, I will first write about my changing perceptions of Pope Benedict XVI. Then in the second part I will share my experiences at the Orientale Lumen Conference in San Diego. Perceptions change, but the common road of Jesus Christ draws us together, despite personal and denominational separations.

I. Three Encounters with the “Enforcer of the Faith” who Became Benedict XVI

When a cloud of white smoke wafted heavenward above the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican on April 19, 2005, some of us were hoping that the cardinal from Honduras would fill the shoes of the Fisherman.

But this was not to be. The choice was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who instantly assumed the papal title of Benedict XVI.

1. Dominus Iesus Why was I so apprehensive about this particular member of the Curia? During my research for the Master of Ecumenical Studies program at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the name Joseph Ratzinger surfaced twice as I wrote a major paper on interconfessional agreements.

My arrival at Bossey coincided with the announcement of the

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release of a controversial document co-authored by this German cardinal who headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Its full title is Declaration Dominus Iesus on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, dated August 6, 2000, the Feast of the Transfiguration on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, and coincidentally the fifty-fifth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

This Declaration registers an important missiological concern: “The Church’s constant mission proclamation is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism.”

The document expresses concern about “certain theological proposals … in which Christian revelation and the mystery of Jesus Christ lose their character of absolute truth and salvific universality.”

Thus, Dominus Iesus responds to what its main author would more recently call a “dictatorship of relativism” (April 18, 2005) with a heavy emphasis on the uniqueness and universality of Jesus Christ.

As a Missouri Synod Lutheran who is committed to both ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, I can accept this strong Christological accent as a way of preserving the integrity of our witness.

But there is a down side to the document that makes me wary about

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this cardinal being elevated as Shepherd and shaper of the Church of Rome. Dominus Iesus insists on the ecclesiological uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Roman Catholic church as well, in relation to other churches.

I am reminded of a thesis posed in 1866 by the founding president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, Carl F. W. Walther: “In short, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church has all the essential marks of the true visible Church of God on Earth, as they are found in no other denomination of another name; it is therefore in no need of any doctrinal reformation.”

In a similar tone of arrogance, Dominus Iesus claims that the “ecclesial communities, which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not churches in the proper sense.” The document says that “these separated churches and communities … suffer from defects.”

This seems like such a harsh judgment and more sectarian than catholic until further research reveals that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was borrowing the “defects” vocabulary of one of the most revolutionary documents to emerge from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Unitatis Redintegratio: Decree on Ecumenism (1964; third paragraph).

This very important document nevertheless commits this formerly isolated church to the quest for Christian unity and has paved the way for multiple bilateral dialogues with a wide range of church traditions.

Even the 1995 encyclical of John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, despite its remarkable affirmation of the goal of unity with all Christians that would include the “common celebration of the Eucharist” (seventyeighth paragraph), echoes this notion that the separated communities “suffer from defects” (tenth paragraph).

2. Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification My second encounter with the name Joseph Ratzinger happened when I wrote a chapter of my paper that documents the history and significance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

This is an agreement between the churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Roman Catholic church, signed at Augsburg, Germany, on October 31, 1999. Before that date could be set for official representatives to affix their signatures to this breakthrough consensus statement, the breakthrough almost suffered a breakdown.

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Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), issued a progress report on June 25, 1998, announcing plans for a formal signing ceremony in the fall of that year.

The Roman Catholic Church, however, released a statement that mentioned “major difficulties” and the need for “clarification”. John L. Allen, author of the book, Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith (London–New York, 2000), sees this development as a behind-the-scenes struggle between Edward Cassidy and Joseph Ratzinger.

But in his favor, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger met with two Evangelical-Lutherans and a Roman Catholic theologian who were able to identify their differences and resolve them by including an Annex in the Joint Declaration.

This fortunate step was documented in a ZENIT news release from Rome dated May 5, 2005. Joseph Ratzinger is quoted as follows: “We had a very important meeting in my brother’s house, in Germany, as it seemed that the consensus on the Doctrine of Justification had failed. In this way, in the course of a debate that lasted a whole day, we found the formulas that have clarified the points that still present difficulties.” This agreement, said the cardinal, made it possible to “proceed to the signing of a document of consensus on the basic contents.”

3. A Papal Mass at Saint Peter’s Square Immediately following the Master’s program at Bossey, I boarded a train in Genève for an overnight journey to the Eternal City. It was there in Roma that I enrolled in a three-week summer course, Introduction to the Ecumenical and Interreligious Movements from a Roman Catholic Perspective.

If you are looking for an exciting continuing education experience, I highly recommend this seminar that is offered each summer at the Centro Pro Unione (CPU), a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement.

In addition to daily lectures and occasional excursions to historic churches and archaeological sites, there was an opportunity to attend a papal mass in Saint Peter’s Square on the Festival of Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, on June 29, 2001.

I must confess an inability to resist receiving the Sacrament that day.

The official celebrant was Pope John Paul II, but the actual presiding priest at the main altar was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Perhaps this was already a clue as to the pope’s choice of a successor.

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John George Huber: Lead us towards Greater Unity

Four years later, this “Enforcer of the Faith,” now adorned in his papal pallium and fisherman’s ring, is easing my apprehension a bit. Known for many years as a tough disciplinarian, he is currently described by some of his interviewers as a “mild, meek and caring person, someone open to ideas and suggestions” (The Southern Cross, San Diego, April 28, 2005).

His homilies, like the one delivered at the funeral mass for John Paul II, are Scriptural, evangelical and personal. As Pope Benedict XVI, he has expressed a primary commitment to “work without sparing energies for the reconstruction of the full and visible unity of all the followers of Jesus Christ” (April 20, 2005).

This is the conservative theologian and church leader, who apparently was able to salvage the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification at the last minute. Hopefully, he will surprise us again.

Perhaps, under his leadership, what his predecessor called the “real but imperfect communion existing between us” (Ut Unum Sint, ninety-sixth paragraph) will become—despite our ecclesiological defects and personal sins on all sides—more real and more perfect.

II. A Report on the Orientale Lumen Conference in San Diego

An ecumenical quiz question: What church-dividing event happened in 1054? Answer: It is called the Great Schism. Mutual excommunications were issued by the pope of Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople. The Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox churches experienced what amounted to an ecclesiastical divorce.

1. Gathered Together Now, ten centuries later, something new is happening. We saw it with our own eyes during the Orientale Lumen Conference held on the University of San Diego (USD) campus, June 25−28, 2007.

This is an annual gathering of lay and clergy representatives of the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions. I came as a token Evangelical-Lutheran, and witnessed the cordial relationships and the common faith shared by these representatives of Eastern and Western Christianity.

There is a popular notion that lay people are yearning for Christian unity, while the clergy, especially the hierarchy, are erecting

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roadblocks along the ecumenical road. But what struck me at this conference is how many clergy, including bishops, made clear their deep commitment to fulfilling our Lord’s priestly prayer: “that they may all be one” (John 17,21).

Then, to dramatize this fact even further, a video was presented, showing Pope Benedict XVI of Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople coming together in a service of worship on the Festival of Saint Andrew, November 30, 2006, at the Phanar.

This is the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarch, most senior in order of all the Eastern Apostolic Patriarchates and Churches, followed by Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The location is what today is called Istanbul, in Turkey. Ecumenical history was made. It was only the third time that a pope had ever visited a patriarch at the Phanar.

2. But Divided Of course, there is a down side to my glowing report. Although the pope and patriarch participated in a common act of worship, greeted one another with the kiss of peace, and exchanged meaningful gifts as gestures of love, Bartholomew I and Benedict XVI were unable to share the Eucharist with each other.

This eucharistic separation among Christians, who are able to confess the Nicene Creed together, was also evident during the morning liturgies celebrated in Founders Chapel as a vital part of the Orientale Lumen Conference program.

It was necessary to hold a Catholic Holy Mass on one day, and an Orthodox Divine Liturgy the next, with no sharing of the Eucharist by members of the two communions. On the plus side, the liturgical affirmation of a common faith in Jesus Christ and the Blessed Trinity was edifying for all in attendance.

3. Living Icons The most instructive feature of the conference was its focus on the significance of icons as a central aspect of eastern spirituality. A very scholarly presentation was made by Archimandrite Robert Taft SI of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

Even the title of his topic was a bit overwhelming: Church and Liturgy as Living Icon: The Final Formation of Byzantine Synthesis. Here are some slightly paraphrased quotable quotes: Liturgy is not just a representation, but a re-presentation of the living Jesus Christ.

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Also: the sacrament of priesthood is Baptism. Ministerial priesthood and episcopate are by ordination. Byzantine art is a window to the Sacred. Icons convey not symbolism, but realism. The word “saint” in the New Testament refers to the baptized. The pope does not make saints; God makes saints.

4. Encompassing Worship We traveled by bus and automobile to participate in an evening service of vespers at Saint John Garabed Armenian Apostolic Church. While waiting for the service to begin, I opened up the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church and appreciated this statement in the introduction: “The Armenian word used for ‘worship’ literally means ‘kissing the ground.’” It further explained: “Words and thoughts alone cannot express all that we believe. The entire body and all the senses are involved.”

Archpriest Datev Tatoulian welcomed us and noted that the Parthenians mentioned in the Pentecost story in the Book of Acts were Armenians. In 2001, the Armenian Christians celebrated their 1700th anniversary, tracing their origins as an established church to the year 301.

Datev Tatoulian presented to each of us a commemorative cross and expressed the hope that the one, holy, catholic (universal) and apostolic Church will realize its unity, also in the sharing of the Eucharist. A most delicious dinner, with food typical of Armenian fare, followed the liturgy.

5. The Common Road Another conference plenary session was an opportunity to hear a presentation by Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco who gives leadership in the Greek Orthodox Church of North America.

His lecture on Byzantine Iconography and the Formation of a Christian Worldview was illustrated with icons projected on a large screen by Power Point (a vast improvement over my own low-tech color slides).

He assured us that his ideas are common to both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Examples of Eastern iconography included a VIth-century portrayal of Jesus Christ, housed in Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai.

We saw additional ancient icons of Saints Peter, John the Baptist, and John Chrysostom, among others. Icons, said Metropolitan

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Gerasimos, create a direct encounter between the person depicted and the observer.

He reminded us that salvation is not granted by knowing about God, but by a direct relationship with God. In a world dominated by noise of all sorts, including visual noise, icons help us to attain inner peace.

Icons affirm that God became human so that humans might become God. They help us to see humans as the potential image of God. A special highlight for me was the privilege of incorporating the monthly meeting of my Faith, Order and Witness Committee into a lunch hour of the Orientale Lumen Conference. This was made possible through the generous invitation of Archpriest George Morelli, assistant pastor of Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church, who is also a member of the committee.

He arranged for Subdeacon John Figel, a Byzantine Catholic who organized the conference, to speak to us and present the dramatic video of the pope and patriarch at worship. Am I overstating it when I say that a pope and a patriarch could lead us all toward greater Christian unity?

Think back to the Second Vatican Council (1962−1965): Pope John XXIII convened this historic event. But before its sessions were concluded, this elderly pope died. His successor, Pope Paul VI, was elected in 1964, and that same year he flew to Israel where he met and embraced Patriarch Athenagoras I on the Mount of Olives. The mutual anathemas of 1054 were soon after rescinded.

The location of this encounter between a patriarch and a pope was a way of reminding us that the road to unity is not the road to Constantinople (Orthodox), the road to Rome (Catholic), the road to Canterbury (Anglican), the road to Augsburg (EvangelicalLutheran), the road to Geneva (Calvinist-Reformed), or any other denominational road.

It is the road to Jerusalem, where the Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up in crucifixion and resurrection, in order to draw all of his followers to himself that they all may be one.

John George Huber is a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church − Missouri Synod, who chairs the Faith, Order and Witness Committee of the Ecumenical Council of San Diego County, and is a board member of the North American Academy of Ecumenists. His email address is john.huber@ecunet.org.

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Jennifer Stiles

A Prophetic Herdsman:

Amos’s AntiEstablishment Message Amos 7,10–17 is a politically charged text with social economic dimensions. It speaks from a time in human history when socioeconomic divides were deepening and political and religious authorities were blurring.

In this text, the prophet Amos, a messenger of the Lord, distances himself from the political establishment as he delivers an antiestablishment message. The semantics of the text reflect social and economic distinctions.

They acknowledge the tug-of-war between religious and political authorities and make a statement about the limitations of human authority within the political and religious spheres of the time. The text reads as follows: 10. Then Amaziah, priest of Bethel, sent a message to King Jeroboam of Israel saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all of his words.

11. For thus Amos said, ‘By the sword Jeroboam shall die. And Israel will indeed go into exile away from his land.’”

12. Then Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go! Flee away for your Literally: “sent to King Jeroboam.”

From ‫ רשק‬, “bind, league together, conspire” (Brown Francis – Driver S. R. – Briggs Charles. 905).

From ‫( הלג‬qal, infinitive absolute) ‫( הלגי‬qal, imperfect, third person, masculine, singular). The combination of the infinitive absolute and the imperfect creates emphasis, yielding the necessity to insert “indeed.”

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own good to the land of Judah. Eat bread there and prophesy there.

13. But in Bethel, do not continue to prophesy, for it is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

14. Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet and I am not the son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees.

15. The Lord took me from watching after the flock and said to me, ‘Go! Prophesy to my people, Israel.’

16. “Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

17. “Therefore the Lord says, ‘Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided by the line. You will die in an unclean land and Israel will indeed go into exile away from its land.’”

Literally: “Flee away for you…” (‫)ָךְל־חרב‬.

Literally: “Eat bread there…” ‫( לכאו םש םחל‬qal, imperative, second person, masculine, singular). Douglas Stuart translates this “earn your living,” noting the idiomatic usage of the phrase (374).

This is the only occurrence of this particular term in the Hebrew Bible.

This is the only occurrence of this particular term in the Hebrew Bible. Of this and the previous term, James Luther Mays writes: “the precise meaning of both terms lacks certainty, because they appear only here in the Old Testament” (138).

See note 3.

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Historic Setting

The narrative that unfolds in Amos 7,10–17 speaks from a time in human history on the cusp of dramatic social, political, and religious change. Anderson and Freedman note: “there is not a word about time, place, circumstances, causes, or consequences” in the narrative confrontation between Amos and Amaziah (764).

The book itself, however, does contain such references. Anderson and Freedman point to the title of the book (Amos 1,1), which indicates that Amos’ visions took place during the reigns of Uzziah of Judah and Jeroboam (II) of Israel (18).

The text implies that a certain message is being sent. As James Luther Mays writes in his book on Amos, “When [Amaziah] reports to his king he is doing no more than what is expected of him” (135).

Sending this message is part of Amaziah’s official function as statesanctioned priest. The word “conspired” is translated to reflect the political tones used by Amaziah in his political correspondence to the king.

Kings Uzziah and Jeroboam were historical contemporaries.

James Limburg describes their reigns as peaceful and prosperous (84). Anderson and Freedman agree: “In the period in which we are speaking, roughly from 785/780 to 755/750, Israel and Judah had few if any worries about the great powers to the Northeast and Southwest, Assyria and Egypt” (22).

Likewise, “international peace, in contrast to the frequent wars of the previous century … allowed Israel to gain wealth via international trade” (Douglas Stuart 283). The historical setting of the book of Amos appears to be a relatively peaceful time, free of wars and international conflict.

But it may have been only a blip on the radar screen for Israel at the time; the Neo-Assyrian Empire was on the rise. Marvin Sweeney explains: “As for the Assyrians, they did not begin to threaten Israel until after the ascension of Tiglath Pileser III to the Assyrian throne in 745 BCE, but this was well after the time of Amos” (194).

However, Marvin Sweeney continues, because of political realities of the time, “Amos could speculate that Assyria would someday threaten Israel once again” (194). The absence of an immediate external threat does not necessarily indicate perfectly peaceful conditions existed on the home front.

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All not at Peace

The fact that prophets—such as Amos—stood up against the government suggests some internal situation that is problematic at the very least. Social and economic divides plagued the historical setting of the book of Amos.

David L. Petersen writes: “Economic developments in the Northern kingdom were dispossessing Israelites from their traditional positions as independent land owners and creating a wealthy group who had been securing land through illicit use of the court system” (187).

Marvin Sweeney explains: “Although Israel seems to have been secure during Amos’ lifetime, the prophet consistently points to the upcoming punishment and exile of Israel at the hands of enemy nations” (192).

The root ‫ הלג‬denotes “uncover, remove,” which here carries the meaning “go into exile,” as Brown Francis, Driver S. R., and Briggs Charles explain (162–163). “Uncovering” the land carries the connotation of leaving the land and its people vulnerable, which is a way “exile” can be understood.

Marvin Sweeney describes the “subservient” relationship the Judean state had with the state of Israel during the time of Amos and the “economic hardship” apparent in the book of Amos (192–193).

He points to economic injustices as root causes of the punishment forecasted by Amos. “[Amos] sees a very wealthy ruling class in Samaria, the capital of the Northern kingdom, which lives on the backs of poor farmers like himself” (Marvin Sweeney 193).

Anderson and Freedman also identify the social and economic problems plaguing Amos’ historical setting: “All of the oracles that are preserved and presented in his book are concerned with oppression and corruption in commerce and courtroom. Crimes against humanity, not deviations from the proprieties of the cult, are his main target” (20).

The economic and social problems on the home front are the internal counterpart to the absence of external political or military threat to Israel on the international level. A Judahite prophet from the Southern kingdom, Amos is certainly aware of the social, economic, and political realities of his time.

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Overlap of Secular and Sacred

David L. Petersen writes: “Amos does not discuss the political world, but rather the social and economic conditions of the Northern kingdom” (184). While that is true, the book of Amos certainly reflects a time in history when political and religious authorities overlap.

“In ancient Israel, prophets were compensated by donations … and in some instances by the government” (Douglas Stuart 284). James Luther Mays elaborates: “Prophets, like priests, in Israel received gifts and fees from individuals or courts for whom they functioned” (137).

Anderson and Freedman reference the “spiritual advisors” who served kings Jeroboam II and Uzziah—contemporaries in Israel and Judah, respectively (22).

“The kings could feel secure in the theological implications and applications, undertones and overtones of their policies, which would most likely make them very resistant to any criticism offered by other but effectively unlicensed prophets” (Anderson and Freedman 22).

Specifically addressing the situation of Amaziah and Amos, Douglas Stuart writes that Amaziah “appealed to the king not simply because Bethel was a royal sanctuary frequented by the monarchy, but also because, in ancient Israel, kings controlled the religion to a substantial degree” (375).

One might say that, to a large extent, the book of Amos reflects a time when the established religion was in the pocket of the state. As Amos himself illustrates, however, it was not a time free from antiestablishment voices.

Certainly the narrative exchange between Amos and Amaziah—and the state priest’s appeal to the highest national authority—points to an underlying tension in Israelite society. James Luther Mays articulates this reality: “This encounter between prophet and priest…belongs to the long history of tension between charisma and institution in Israel’s religious life” (134). Anderson and Freedman also address this historical tension: “It is to be noted that in other instances of a similar nature, the ecclesiastical authorities, when confronted with cases of possible civil disobedience, regularly turned to the civil authorities for assistance; often as a matter of policy they handed over people who might be guilty of criminal offenses to the royal administration” (792).

The authority of the state easily crossed over to the religious sphere.

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The blurring of the political and religious authorities in ancient Israel was complicated by the political agenda of Jeroboam I, predecessor of Jeroboam II. “When Jeroboam I was organizing and consolidating the national life of Israel after the Northern tribes had separated from Judah … one of his most significant projects was the founding of state sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan to compete with the established religious centre in Jerusalem” (James Luther Mays 135).

James Luther Mays identifies Jeroboam I’s initiatives as part of a “calculated policy to break the relation of the Northern tribes to the central sanctuary in Jerusalem, by creating a religious structure identified with his own dynasty” (135).

Perhaps it was for good reason that Jeroboam I took concrete steps to solidify state influence and control over the important spheres of religious life. Paul Shalom describes the history of the Jehu dynasty, the one to which Jeroboam I and II belonged.

“For the king there would be ample reason to fear … possible treason. Not only did the preclassical prophets on several different occasions instigate insurrections, but also the dynasty of Jehu … actually came to power as a result of a prophetic conspiracy.” (Paul Shalom 239) The historical setting of the book of Amos is electrified by social, political, economic, and religious, controversies and complications. All these historic realities are evident in the rhetoric of Amos 7,10–17.

Rhetorical Setting

Without a doubt, Amos 7,10–17 is steeped in politically charged language. The text begins with the state priest, Amaziah, sending a message to the king (v10). The text identifies Amaziah as ‫לא־תיב‬ ‫ןהכ‬, priest of Bethel (v 10).

“This title is unique. It points to a head priest of a specific shrine” (Anderson and Freedman 766). In his message, Amaziah accuses Amos of conspiracy (vv 10–11).

Douglas Stuart writes: “Amaziah’s report probably took the form of an official letter … it was certainly worded to arouse the king to action in that it presumptuously accuses Amos of ‫ רשק‬, ‘conspiracy,’ a highly political word” (375).

Already in the first verse of the narrative exchange between the state priest and the prophet (v 10), the language of the text places the dialogue within a quite tense and treacherous political context.

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As Amaziah renders his report to king Jeroboam, he does not mention any theological or divine references as being a part of the Amos’ message (v 12). James Luther Mays describes Amaziah as making a “fundamental change in the quality of Amos’ prophecy” by describing Amos’ message in “de-theologized” and “quite neutral terms” (136).

“There is no hint of any reckoning with Amos’ presentation of his message as the word of Yahweh and therefore a message from the God of Israel. Amaziah’s readiness to reduce the whole crisis to an incident of mere political proportions is one more measure of the true state of official religion in Israel” (James Luther Mays 136).

Amaziah, as a high priest sanctioned by the state, recasts the divinely inspired prophecy of Amos into purely political terms. He thereby attempts to recast the issue in an entirely political light.

There are more than political dynamics at play, however, in Amos 7,10–17. In addition to the theological dimensions of Amos’ divine prophecy (v 17; v 11), the rhetoric of Amos 7,10–17 reveals social and economic aspects as well.

Not a Prophet, but a Herdsman

While it attracts a broad scope of interpretations, v 14 is a crucial to the discussion of social and economic aspects within this dialogue.

Amaziah commands Amos to discontinue prophetic activity at Bethel (v 13), and Amos responds (v 14) with a statement that is “grammatically ambiguous and has thus engendered considerable scholarly discussion” (Douglas Stuart 376).

Paul Shalom explains: “the basic problem lies in the apparent contradiction between [Amos’] denial of being a prophet and the ensuing verse, in which Amos acknowledges that God selected him to prophesy in Israel” (244).

The response of Amos (v 14) is a nominal sentence, which is quite neutral in reference to time (Paul Shalom 244). Douglas Stuart summarizes possible renderings for Amos’ response (v 14): “I am neither a prophet nor a professional prophet (or member of a prophetic guild);” “I am indeed a prophet and indeed a professional prophet;” or “I am indeed a prophet but not a professional prophet” (376).

Verse 14 is complicated and provokes various English renderings.

While its precise English translation may be unclear, a few key dimensions of v 14 can be noted with certainty. Without a doubt, both

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key participants in the text of Amos 7,10–17 dialogue are identified with a certain profession.

Amaziah, “priest of Bethel” (v 10), and Amos, “herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees” (v 14), speak from distinct professional backgrounds. In his response to Amaziah’s instructions that he flee to Judah, Amos distinguishes prophets and sons of prophets.

Marvin Sweeney writes: “the term ‘son of a prophet’ is well recognized as an indication of professional status rather than biological descent, as indicated by the use of the term to designate prophetic guilds” (260).

Marvin Sweeney arrives at the conclusion that Amos’ response was designed to describe himself as “a simple person who, with no thought of personal advancement or motivation, responded to a spontaneous call by YHWH to serve in a special and authoritative capacity” (260).

Douglas Stuart reads Amos’ reply in distinctly social and economic terms: “the evidence suggests … that Amos intends to identify himself as one who had no financial reason to prophesy at Bethel or anywhere else” (377).

By identifying himself as a “herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees” (v 14), Amos stands in stark contrast to Amaziah, a professional priest who is quite undoubtedly on the government payroll.

Thus the preferred translation of this text could be: “I am not a prophet and I am not the son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees.” (v 14) Paul Shalom writes in his book: “Amos clarifies that, contrary to whatever Amaziah may think, he does not earn his livelihood by delivering oracles.” (245) Amos’ reply to Amaziah articulates a sharp contrast between his independently employed lifestyle and Amaziah’s professional priesthood on the government payroll.

Prophetic Rebuttal

The structure of the text supports this semantic distinction. The structure of the dialogue distances Amos from Amaziah. There is no back-and-forth exchanging of words in the Amos 7,10–17 narrative.

The text begins with Amaziah’s message to the king, and his instructions to Amos (vv 10–13). The text then concludes with Amos’ rebuttal to Amaziah and his message from the Lord (vv 14–17).

Not only does Amos have the last word, but Amaziah is silenced immediately after giving instructions to Amos, which Amos flatly

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ignores (v 13). The character of Amaziah changes from a priest with authority at the Bethel temple (v 10) to an ignored and contradicted mute, destined for a shamed and cursed future at the hand of the Lord (vv 15–17).

Amos, as prophet of the Lord, has the last word in the exchange, and concludes his comments with the Lord’s reply to the priest sanctioned by the state, his family, his land, and finally his parish.

Struggle of Authority

Douglas Stuart explains that the history of monarchial control of religion was quite strong in the Northern kingdom of Israel (376). It is by this authority that Amaziah sought to dismiss Amos from Bethel (Douglas Stuart 376).

Not only does the structure of the dialogue between state-sanctioned priest and divinely-sanctioned prophet illustrate the power struggle between national and divine authorities, but the semantics and grammar of the text illustrate this as well.

Douglas Stuart identifies Amaziah’s use of a hendiadys (v 13) in describing Bethel as ‫“ שדקמ ךלמ‬royal sanctuary” and ‫תיב הכלממ‬ “state temple” (376). These expressions reveal the interrelationship between the king’s authority and the religious reality in early or mideighth century Israel.

Paul Shalom translates these descriptive terms as the “king’s sanctuary” and the “state temple,” and describes Bethel as representing “both the private and public sanctuary and/or temple of both the king and all of Northern Israel” (243).

In light of the official status of the sanctuary and temple at Bethel and Amaziah’s political (and “de-theologized”) spin on Amos’ words, Paul Shalom writes: “Amos, according to Amaziah, has set himself up directly against state authority” (243).

The stakes are high in the dialogue between Amos and the priest of Bethel. Amaziah speaks as a state official and is ignored by Amos. The structure of the dialogue of the narrative clearly makes a statement about the limitations of human and state authority in the face of divine commission and prophetic message.

The structure of the text has two main parts: Amaziah’s actions and speech to Amos (vv 10–13) and Amos’ response and delivery of the message of the Lord (vv 14–17). Both parts contain these similar features: identification of social and professional status (v 10a; vv 14–15), relating of a message to or from a higher authority (vv 10– 11; vv 15 and 17), and issuance of instruction (v 13; v 15).

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It is precisely these similar features that bring out the points of contrast between the characters of Amaziah and Amos and all that they may represent. Anderson and Freedman describe Amos 7,10– 17 as “full of contrasts:” The themes and tensions of the confrontation are … seen to be complex and closely interwoven. It is full of contrasts. Amaziah’s report of Amos’ activity as “conspiracy” (vv 10–11) contrasts with Amos’ own account of his activity as compulsion (vv 14–15).

Amaziah orders Amos to be silent (vv 12–13, 16b); Yahweh orders Amos to speak out (vv 14–15). Amos’ reported prediction of the king’s death and the people’s exile (v 11b) is matched by a similar prediction of death for the priest and his children, and the exile of the people (v 17b) (765).

These many contrasts are a rhetorical device used to juxtapose Amaziah, as spokesperson for the temple at Bethel (and statesanctioned religion), and Amos, as divinely-commissioned messenger and prophet for the Lord.

Through this juxtaposition and comparison it provokes, the text makes a statement about the limitations of human authority when it finds itself in opposition to the word of the Lord.

The Divine and Dissident Message

Amos 7,10–17 makes a statement about divine limitations on political vitality and human authority within political and religious spheres. It is set within a historical context that has a long history of tension between “charisma and institution” in religious life.

Among the deepening social and economic divides, and blurred religious and political authorities, Amos 7,10–17 pits “charisma” against “institution” in a dialogue designed to identify, clarify and assess the relative powers of the competing authorities.

Through the means of semantics and structure, the text presents the prophet Amos as being outside the social-political establishment of the state and the religious structures instituted by the state.

A messenger from the Lord, Amos speaks directly to the establishment as he delivers the Lord’s anti-establishment message. The Amos 7,10–17 narrative indeed makes a statement about the limitation of human authority relative to divine authority, and in this dialogue the Lord of course has the last word.

Mays James Luther. 134.

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Suggested Reading

Anderson F. I. – Freedman D. N., Amos: Anchor Bible 24a. Garden City, 1989.

Brown Francis – Driver S. R. – Briggs Charles (eds.), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.

Oxford, 1907.

Hayes John H., Amos the Eighth-Century Prophet: His Times and his Teaching. Nashville, 1998.

Elliger Karl at al. (eds.), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Stuttgart, 1967–1977.

Limburg James, Hosea to Micah: Interpretation Bible Commentary. Atlanta, 1988.

Mays James Luther, Amos: A Commentary. Philadelphia, 1969.

Paul Shalom, Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos. Minneapolis, 1991.

Petersen David L., The Prophetic Literature: An Introduction. Kentucky, 2002.

Stuart Douglas, Hosea to Jonah. Waco, 1991.

Sweeney Marvin, The Twelve Prophets. Collegeville, 1989.

Jennifer Stiles (maiden name: Mueller) got married in October 2006. She now lives in Virginia, United States of America (USA). She is a Master of Divinity student at the Union–PSCE seminary in Richmond, Virginia. She anticipates motherhood as they await the birth of their first child coming in November 2007. She is a former copy editor of Mozaik, and a former intern in the WSCF Europe office. Her email address is lost_in_schweiz@ yahoo.com.

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Peter Šajda

The Quest for a Holistic Approach to the ‘Other’ in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love “Love for God and love for neighbor are like two doors that open simultaneously, so that it is impossible to open one without also opening the other, and impossible to shut one without also shutting the other.”

When analysing such phenomena as nationalism or xenophobia, the question emerges, “in what way do they contradict the essence of Christianity?” Usually, it is argued that they violate one of the most fundamental pillars of Christianity, namely the imperative of undiscriminating universal love for the neighbour. The discourse, however, often stops there, as it is presupposed that everyone knows who her or his neighbour is, and what Christian love means.

In the following, the reflections of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard on the nature of Christian love and the concept of the neighbour will be presented, as they can yield inspiration for the mentioned discourse and be of interest to those whose activism has its roots in Christian spirituality.

Preferential and Non-Preferential Love

In 1847 Søren Kierkegaard published his most complex treatise on Christian love, entitled Works of Love. This book, which Sylvia Walsh described as “one of the most profound meditations on love ever written,” was not intended to please the eye of the reader or to Hong Howard V. – Hong Edna H. (eds.), Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. Bloomington – London, 1967–1978. vol. 3., entry nr. 2434.

The present article draws on the material published in my study which appeared in the Slovak philosophical journal Filozofia. Šajda Peter, Nácˇrt kontrapozície preferencˇnej a nepreferencˇnej lásky v diele Sørena Kierkegaarda. In Filozofia 2007/2. 110–121.

Walsh Sylvia I., Forming the Heart: The Role of Love in Kierkegaard’s Thought. In Bell Richard H. (ed.), The Grammar of the Heart. San Francisco, 1988. 234.

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reinforce stereotypes, but rather to present the Christian imperative of love in a most uncompromising way.

Therefore, the author specified at the very beginning of his work that it is addressed to “that single individual”, a reader who will not look for aesthetics, but will “read precariously—in a prayerful and perilous setting”, in order to find courage for future actions.

Contrary to many other Christian thinkers who made attempts at bringing together the concepts of preferential and non-preferential love—eros and agape—Kierkegaard goes ahead and intensifies the tension between the two forms of love.

As the most typical examples of preferential love, he mentions erotic love (Elskov) and friendship (Venskab). As non-preferential love, he identifies the Christian love of the neighbour (Kjerlighed).

For Kierkegaard natural love is object-conditioned, whereby the intersection of the lover’s preferences with the qualities of the loved object determines in what measure the object is perceived as lovable.

In other words, the lover depends largely on the features of the object and their correspondence to her or his preferences. The objectto-be-loved also has to pass the test of comparison to other potential objects of love and has to prove to be optimally satisfying for the aims and needs of the subject.

This kind of love is steered and controlled by the inclinations of one’s own self and thus it cannot be considered ethical behaviour with positive moral value. The eminent focus on the preferences and antipathies of the subject produces love, which in practice looks for likeness and relatedness in the object of love: the lover looks for herself or himself in the other.

Therefore, Kierkegaard agrees that, in fact, it is very adequate to refer to the partner or friend as “the other self” or “the other I”, as the relationship is to a considerable degree based on self-projection.

It is obvious that a pattern of relating based on the concept of the other as alter ego leads to a selection of a narrow range of lovable objects; thus excluding most people and rendering itself incapable of creating a foundation for universal love and general equality.

Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Princeton, 1995. 3.

Hall Amy L., Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love. Cambridge, 2002. 24.

Kierkegaard does not explicitly refer to preferential love as eros and non-preferential love as agape, but his argumentation is rooted in the differentation which lies at the basis of this tradition. The Danish terminology he uses corresponds roughly to the Greek distinction between eros and agape. Cf. Pattison George, Representing Love: From Poetry to Martyrdom. In Kierkegaardiana 22. Copenhagen, 2002. 142; Taylor Mark C., Love and Forms of Spirit: Kierkegaard versus Hegel. In Kierkegaardiana 10. Copenhagen, 1977. 111.

Hannay Alastair, Kierkegaard. London – New York, 1991. 244ff.

Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 53.

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As a matter of fact, in friendship and erotic love the protagonists love each other on the basis of mutual similarity, which makes them distinct from other people, and therefore it is a type of love that enables loving “by virtue of the similarity that is based on dissimilarity”.

The mode of operation of love based on exclusive inclination differs substantially from the inclusive character of Christian neighbour-love, which prompts Kierkegaard to present the co-existence of these two kinds of love in the form of a competition, in which ultimately the latter should condition the former.

Although Christianity has accepted eros as its organic constituent, according to Kierkegaard, the religion of Jesus Christ cannot be neutral in the question of precedence of preferential and nonpreferential love.

He claims that “Christianity has thrust erotic love and friendship from the throne, the love based on drives and inclination, preferential love, in order to place the spirit’s love [Kjerlighed] in its stead, love for the neighbor”.10 Ibid. 56.

10 Ibid. 44.

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When specifying what he means by neighbour-love, Kierkegaard states that it is love based on a divine command, which “has undergone the change of eternity by having become a duty, it has gained enduring continuance.”11 The ethics presented by Kierkegaard in Works of Love focuses primarily on the loving subject and her or his way of perceiving the other. This ethics differs fundamentally from the ethics elaborated by the philosopher in the framework of what is known as the ethical stage,12 and Arne Grøn characterises it as the ethics of vision13 or the ethics of disposition.14 In opposition to the preferential perception of the other, Works of Love remove the object of love from the network of natural inclinations and introduce a generally valid prism of the neighbour, which serves as the most basic determinant for the perception of another human being. Thus the object of Christian love is defined in clearly different terms than it is in the case of preferential selection pertaining to romantic love and friendship.

The Copenhagen philosopher is aware of the fact that the mode of relating to oneself determines relations to others, and thus maintains that if the Christian element of neighbour-love is absent in relating to the other, it is necessarily lacking also in the relationship to one’s own self.

Therefore, when reflecting on the situation of lovers, whose love does not comprise the Christian determination, Kierkegaard remarks that as yet “neither one is the spirit’s definition of self. As yet, neither one has learned to love himself Christianly. In erotic love, the I is defined as sensate-psychical-spiritual; the beloved is a sensatepsychical-spiritual specification. In friendship, the I is defined as psychical-spiritual; the friend is a psychical-spiritual specification. It is only in love for the neighbor that the self, who loves, is defined as spirit purely spiritually and the neighbor is a purely spiritual specification.”15 When elaborating on the nature of Christian love of the neighbour, it is important to note that unlike preferential love, Christian non11 Ibid. 32.

12 Kierkegaard’s concept of stages comprises three, or more precisely, four basic paradigms of individual existence: aesthetic stage, ethical stage, religious stage A and religious stage B. In addition there are two interstage confines. Irony forms the confine between the aesthetic and the ethical stage, and humour between the ethical and the religious stage.

13 Grøn Arne, „Anden“ etik. In Garff Joakim – Olesen Tony Aa. – Søltoft Pia (eds.), Studier i stadier.

Copenhagen, 1998. 84.

14 Ibid. 85.

15 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 56–57.

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preferential love is a spiritually conditioned commandment and duty, and thus it is not derivable from a concrete relationship or a concrete object.16 Christian love is not a direct continuation of eros, it is qualitatively different and in a way represents an offence to natural love,17 since it defines inclination as something secondary to the category of the neighbour, which is injected into every love relationship.

By making the spiritual reality of the neighbour the highest priority in any kind of relations, Christian love clearly erodes structures in which sympathies and antipathies rule the realm of relationships.

On the other hand, it is important to reiterate that Christian love is not aimed at a total devaluation of preferential love, but rather at its permeating and transformation18 by interposing God between the lovers. As Alastair Hannay pointed out, “neighbor” is a “dimension added to love and friendship, where they exist, rather than something from which these two must be subtracted.”19

Impossibility of Comparison in Christian Love

When reflecting on the counterposition of the Christian love of the neighbour and nationalism, it seems worthwhile to reflect on the concepts of equality, similarity and difference as expounded in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love.

An interesting and useful category in this context is that of the infinite debt of love, which the philosopher introduces in order to paralyse all attempts of dosing love according to the measure of the object’s lovableness.

Kierkegaard points out that Christian love precludes any form of calculus, exchange, repayment or any other quid pro quo in the area of love. With the intention to render impossible the perception of reciprocity as compensation, the philosopher introduces the category of the infinite debt of love, which is based on the postulate that the one who loves does not reduce this debt by loving, but rather sinks ever deeper into it.20 The author explains further that an “accounting can take place only where there is a finite relationship, because the relationship of the finite to the finite can be calculated. But one who loves cannot 16 Müller Paul, Kierkegaard’s “Works of Love”: Christian Ethics and the Maieutic Ideal. Copenhagen, 1993. 25.

17 Walsh Sylvia, Living Christianity: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence. University Park (PA), 2005. 95.

18 Ferreira M. Jamie, Love’s Grateful Striving. New York, 2001. 94.

19 Hannay Alastair, Kierkegaard. Op. cit. 266.

20 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 176–177.

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calculate. When the left hand never finds out what the right hand is doing, it is impossible to make an accounting, and likewise when the debt is infinite”.21 The main antipole to love which is based on infinite debt and does not operate with finite quantities is, according to Kierkegaard, comparison. Fundamental concepts with which comparison operates are likeness and unlikeness,22 more and less, or finite debt of love; thus contradicting the axiom of the Kierkegaardian concept of nonpreferential love, which states that love permits no calculus and no accounting.

Kierkegaard warns the reader that “comparison’s sidelong glance all too easily discovers a whole world of relationships and calculations (...) In comparison, everything is lost, love is made finite, the debt is made something to repay—exactly like any other debt.”23 Thus, comparison leads to the elimination of the equality of objects of love, which was introduced by Christian non-preferential love by means of the category of the neighbour. The category of neighbour enabled perception equality of all objects of love—despite their external differences and different levels of inclination on the part of the loving subject.

Comparison operates, however, on an antipodal principle and in opposition to the category of the neighbour which focuses on equality; comparison searches for differences. Since comparative behaviour is steered by what makes people different from each other, it necessarily avails itself of calculation and assessment of differences and thus cannot accept the category of the infinite debt of love, as it neutralises finite proportions. Kierkegaard therefore conditions the practice of Christian love by the necessity of retaining infinite debt and eliminating comparison: “If you wish to maintain love, you must maintain it in the infinitude of the debt. Therefore beware of comparison! (...) Comparison is the most disastrous association that love can enter into; comparison is the most dangerous acquaintance love can make; comparison is the worst of all seductions. No seducer is as readily on hand and no seducer is as omnipresent as comparison is as soon as your sidelong glance beckons—yet no seduced person says in his defense, ‘comparison seduced me,’ because, indeed, it was he himself who discovered the comparison.”24 Similarly to comparison, also non-preferential love is confronted 21 Ibid. 178.

22 Ibid. 182.

23 Ibid. 183.

24 Ibid. 186.

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with the reality of differences between objects of love. According to Kierkegaard, however, the decision to become a neighbour entails the commitment to see through and transcend differences—to see what lies beyond them.25 If non-preferential love shall realise the equality of all humans, it is necessary that the spiritual sight of the loving subject does not stop at outer differences, but penetrates the very inside of the human, reaching her or his deepest humanity26 which is shared by all people.

In this sense, Christian love is absolutely inclusive27 and its theory of the equality of all humans differs from the theories that are based on the conviction that the first step is to eliminate outer differences.

Kierkegaard’s concept of equality emphasizes the practice of the loving subject and per consequens, also her or his duty to perceive all neighbours in the same way—“to exist essentially equally for every human being”.28 Outer similarity (Lighed) is for him secondary to the eternity-based equality of humans (Ligelighed),29 which is given by God and which represents the most basic prism of perceiving the other in Christian non-preferential love.

Ligelighed is thus a concept aimed at the transformation of the perceptive activity of the loving subject, of her or his vision of the object of love. In case such a transformation of the subject’s perception takes place, it necessarily has an effect on the elimination of social inequality too.

From Kierkegaard’s perspective, inverting this consecution would be wrong and he was critical to social movements that focused solely on the application of outer social cohesion. In this respect, Kierkegaard also confronted the pre-Marxist communism,30 which proclaimed the ideal of Lighed, but not that of Ligelighed.31 Since the social activity of a Christian individual is determined by the perception prism of the neighbour, the relationship of equality eliminates all relational superiority and inferiority. In intimate relationships this postulate means that neither of the two parties is 25 Søltoft Pia, Den Nächsten kennen heißt der Nächste werden. In Dalferth Ingolf U. (ed.), Ethik der Liebe: Studien zu Kierkegaards „Taten der Liebe“. Tübingen, 2002. 95.

26 Grøn Arne, Kjerlighedens Gjerninger. In Olesen Tony Aa. – Søltoft Pia (eds.), Den udødelige: Kierkegaard læst værk for værk. Copenhagen, 2005. 263.

27 Walsh Sylvia I., Forming the Heart: The Role of Love in Kierkegaard’s Thought. Op. cit. 236.

28 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 85.

29 Ibid. 58. 72ff.

30 Hannay Alastair, Kierkegaard: A Biography. Cambridge, 2001. 361.

31 Hong Howard V. – Hong Edna H. (eds.), Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. Vol. 4, entry nr. 4131.

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entitled to dominate, own or use the other, as the partner is in the first place a neighbour and as such a redoubling (Fordoblelse)32 of one’s own self, ie. equally autonomous self as the self of the loving subject.

In broader social interaction, this approach implies that the individual must be “victorious over his mind”33 and perceive the poor and socially marginalised in the first place as neighbours, in order to remove from her or his vision the possibility of viewing them as inferior.

The importance of this imperative is illustrated by Kierkegaard with the image of a banquet to which one invites the poor and the lowly.

The term “banquet” (Gjestebud) is, in the opinion of the philosopher, an expression of categorical equality between the host and the guests, and precludes the formation of a relation of superiority and inferiority between the host and the invited ones: “The one who feeds the poor—but still has not been victorious over his mind in such a way that he calls this meal a banquet—sees the poor and the lowly only as the poor and the lowly. The one who gives the banquet sees the neighbour in the poor and the lowly.”34 The feeding of the poor because they are poor is, according to Kierkegaard, based on the difference between the host and the guest, and stems from a comparison and outer dissimilarity between the loving subject and the addressee of her or his love. The spiritual glance of such a host concentrates on it (poverty, difference) and not on her or him (neighbour that is equal with the host),35 whereby the host remains blind to the inner equality (Ligelighed) and relatedness with the guest.36 A gift—in this case a banquet—“should not be given in such a way that it is seen as a gift”37 because such a mode of giving still includes a trace of relation-building that presupposes superiority and inferiority between the involved parties. As M. Jamie Ferreira puts it, such “distinctions do more than particularize – they particularize in ways which disconnect us”.38 32 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 21.

33 Ibid. 83.

34 Ibid.

35 Grøn Arne, Ethics of Vision. In Dalferth Ingolf U. (ed.), Ethik der Liebe: Studien zu Kierkegaards „Taten der Liebe“.

Tübingen, 2002. 116.

36 Ibid. 117.

37 Ferreira M. Jamie, Love’s Grateful Striving. Op. cit. 159.

38 Ferreira M. Jamie, Moral Blindness and Moral Vision in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. In Cappelørn Niels J. – Deuser Hermann (eds.), Kierkegaard Revisited: Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series 1. Berlin – New York, 1997. 215.

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Absence of the Neighbour in Nationalism and Non-Preferential Features of Patriotism

It is obvious that on the basis of the above-mentioned principles nationalism can be considered a preferential behaviour par excellence.

On the other hand, patriotism which cultivates national awareness and national pride without placing them above the dimension of the neighbour can be seen as containing a vital non-preferential element.

Their vision of the other is naturally different, as the former places a primary emphasis on it (nationality) and the latter sees first her or him (neighbour that is equal to oneself) and only then discovers further characteristics.

The differences between nationalism and patriotism in their relation to the neighbour are similar to those that are characteristic of the anti-agapeistic eros on one hand, and the spiritualised eros that has accepted the universal validity of agape on the other. An important element in Kierkegaard’s critique of the aesthetic paradigm of love is the delimitation of what type of eros is the target of the critique.

It can be maintained, on the basis of the works illustrating the defects of aesthetic love, that the object of the philosopher’s critique is not eros as such, but rather eros that refuses the integration of ethical and religious imperatives or even attempts to acquire hegemony and replace ethical and religious love with itself.

It is therefore a kind of eros that is clearly anti-ethical, anti-spiritual and anti-agapeistic, and whose perception of the object of love is contradictory to the doctrine presented in his book Works of Love.

Kierkegaard does not aim his criticism at the immediacy and spontaneity of erotic love;39 he even emphasizes that just like it is impossible to imagine a conflict between the spirit and a stone or a tree, it is equally impossible to imagine a conflict between the spirit and the body.

Such a conflict arises only when there is “a rebellious spirit on the side of flesh, with which the spirit then contends”.40 The motive of the critique of preferential love is therefore the very fact that it orients itself according to the ego of the lover, rejecting spiritual determination of relations which would educate and form both the relations to external objects of love as well as to one’s own self.

The commitment to one’s own nation or nationality is not necessarily 39 Walsh Sylvia, Living Christianity: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence. Op. cit. 96.

40 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Op. cit. 52.

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in conflict with Christian non-preferential love—a conflict originates only when the preference becomes controlled by “a rebellious spirit (...) with which the spirit then contends”.

Similarly to erotic love, however, the love for the nation requires further spiritual determination, as it does not contain of its own accord the awareness of the infinite debt of love, the neighbour as a universal and primary perception prism of the other or the consciousness of the eternity-based equality of all humans (Ligelighed).

The incorporation of religious determinants enables the individual, who loves her or his nation, to see beyond the boundaries of her or his preferred object of love. By interposing God between her or him and any other human being, she or he discovers the reality of the deep humanity common to all humans, which is a more fundamental object of love than personal identities.

Christian love also instructs the patriot to apply the ethics of vision, which shifts her or his focus from what makes people different from each other to what unites them. In this way the neighbour—as a (purely) spiritual specification—is made equal to the compatriot, with whom it would be otherwise impossible to compete, because of the lack of physical and spiritual bonds with the loving subject.

Spiritual determination of interhuman relationships also prevents the individual from basing preferential love for her or his own nation on the dynamics of superiority and inferiority. When approaching a member of another nation, the subject is prompted to call the encounter a “banquet,” thus avoiding even the slightest hint of inequality and power relation.

Just like Christian love is not a direct continuation of eros, it is neither a direct continuation of the preferential love of the individual for her or his nation or any other collective. But as in the case of erotic love and friendship, the category of neighbour does not intend to devalue, but rather to permeate and transform nation-love.

Therefore, in line with the point made by Alastair Hannay that “neighbor” is “a dimension added to love and friendship, where they exist, rather than something from which these two must be subtracted,” it can be maintained that “neighbour” is a category added to the love for one’s nation, where it already exists, with the aim of spiritualising it and making one’s approach to reality Christianly holistic.

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Ferreira M. Jamie, Love’s Grateful Striving. New York, 2001.

Dalferth Ingolf U. (ed.), Ethik der Liebe: Studien zu Kierkegaards „Taten der Liebe“. Tübingen, 2002.

Grøn Arne, Ethics of Vision. In Dalferth Ingolf U. (ed.), Ethik der Liebe: Studien zu Kierkegaards „Taten der Liebe“. Tübingen, 2002.

Hall Amy L., Kierkegaard and the Treachery of Love. Cambridge, 2002.

Hannay Alastair, Kierkegaard. London – New York, 1991.

Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Princeton, 1995.

Søltoft Pia, Den Nächsten kennen heißt der Nächste werden. In Dalferth Ingolf U. (ed.), Ethik der Liebe. Studien zu Kierkegaards „Taten der Liebe“. Tübingen, 2002.

Walsh Sylvia I., Forming the Heart: The Role of Love in Kierkegaard’s Thought. In Bell Richard H. (ed.), The Grammar of the Heart. San Francisco, 1988.

Walsh Sylvia, Living Christianity: Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Christian Existence. University Park (PA), 2005.

Peter Šajda was born in 1977 in Bratislava, Slovakia. He completed his studies in modern philology in 2001, in Roman Catholic theology in 2007, and received a PhD in philosophy in 2007. He participated in study ˚lborg, Copenhagen) and Switzerland (Gene`ve). He is Roman Catholic and a programmes in Denmark (A member of the Order of Preachers. He was a member of the European Regional Committee (ERC) of WSCF Europe, an editor of Student World, and the chairperson of WSCF CESR. He was the editor-in-chief of Mozaik.

His email address is sajdus@yahoo.com.

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The Choice to Act in Faith Somewhere in a newspaper I read that words such as courage, discipline, duty, honour or selflessness are waning from our vocabulary.

Moreover, not only words, but also such people are waning. It is as if there were no such people of whom one could say, “This is a brave and honest person.” What has happened?

The situation which the generation of our parents and grandparents had to cope with was very different from what we experience today. Not only has the world around us changed, but we have also changed under the influence of our surroundings.

“To have” instead of “to be – to exist” has become the aim of our actions. “To live” has been substituted by “to use”. The word “morality” belongs only to those good old films. And “immorality”—that archaic notion including egoism, heartlessness, rudeness, the absence of moral principles? If you want to be successful, you cannot look backwards.

Our Short Memory

The world is full of hatred and anxiety. Where should we start? Is this not the right time for the Church? Can everybody ask questions?

What is my list of values? What priorities and values do I have in my life?

What am I like? Is it really so serious with our society, with the Church, with me? Answers can be found in crowded foster homes, prisons, but also in many disintegrated families, lonely people, and in broken and destroyed human relationships.

The illness of egoism has struck everyone. Nobody has time. People stop listening to each other. Christians have one large advantage, however; they know where to look for the truth and they are conscious of the Decalogue.

Here is the main task for the Church, for laypersons and priests to form a “battalion” and fight bravely—like the Hussites, who fought fearlessly against their numerous enemies, aware that “If God is with us—who is against us?”

They did not look around, they did not make excuses that it was not the right day. We have a free will—we can choose between good

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and evil, and, finally, today we can form the “battalion” of courage, honesty and forgiveness.

Central Europe has to deal with many problems at present. The number of attacks against people with different colours of skin—tourists, students, immigrants—has been increasing. And in fact, these attacks are at times not even considered to be racially motivated.

What is behind them? Why do they happen? The main reason may be the negative information about immigrants coming from the media, as well as the general prejudice that all immigrants come solely because of economic advantages.

Hardly anybody believes (including the administration) that they are political refugees, in spite of UNESCO’s massive information campaign on the importance of accepting refugees. Another contextual reason is that there already exists a large ethnic minority group in Central Europe, the Roma, whose full integration in society is in many cases still an unresolved matter.

The Roma were not allowed to continue their nomadic lifestyle during the Communist regime, and the state “compensated” them for this inhibition with various economic advantages and benefits. This did not lead to much improvement, however, and many of the Roma

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communities became maladjusted, causing the start of conflicts with the majority population.

Media often play a negative role, as they focus on the “dark side” of the life and behaviour of the Roma. Even though the states, together with various mission organizations, try to contribute to a lasting solution for this problem, the results are far from satisfactory. Views towards the Roma also largely reflect how the majority of society approaches immigrants.

An immigrant is normally perceived as a person who is a wheelerdealer, refuses to work and looks for social benefit. Because of this, it is nearly impossible to be branded as a political refugee.

Normally, people point to immigrants in countries which readily accepted refugees and are currently facing many difficulties. In coutries of asylum, the immigrant is exposed to a broad array of problems, ranging from a language barrier to lengthy and often also clumsy treatment from police.

An immigrant is perceived as dangerous from her or his first day on. Mutual conflicts in refugee camps are not a rare thing either, often involving escapes. An immigrant has to get used to life in an atmosphere full of racism and xenophobia coming from certain parts of the local population.

This feeling provokes emotional tension in the person who has left her or his country of origin and has lost many of her or his roots.

We have forgotten all too quickly how we were accepted by other nations before World War I when many Central Europeans emigrated overseas, or prior to 1989 when a lot of our countrymen left the “communist gold cage” and emigrated to the West.

The support of the Western countries was very encouraging for our emigrants, especially in the beginning. It was certainly not always easy, but mutual acceptance, understanding and co-operation helped to overcome prejudices and prevent conflicts.

The Choice of Oneself

What should be the Christian attitude in this respect? Jesus Christ accepted all people without exception and took the risk of not being understood and received with enthusiasm. The acceptance of an immigrant or a foreigner requires love towards our sisters and brothers; it requires forgiveness and the elimination of prejudices and fears of the foreign and new.

It is also necessary to get rid of the idea that an immigrant represents

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a danger to our lifestyle and came to take our comfort away. In fact, we can learn a lot from someone who is not the usual neighbour next door. The decadence of the society, decline of morality and the lack of interest in public affairs are typical for our day and age. Books are published, conferences are held, philosophers, social workers and theologians discuss the ethics and morality of the people of the age we live in.

But there is often no result since we do not care about the things which do not bring us personal benefit and we have lost interest in spiritual matters. Where is the problem? How did we fail?

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) points at the main problems of the society of his day and describes “the crisis of human” in his books. Despite the fact that his philosophical message is one hundred and fifty years old, it is still relevant for our considerations today.

He saw the crisis of the human in the dissolution of the individual who is, in reality, not an abstract but a concrete personality; someone who is choosing between an Either and an Or. This choice lies at the beginning of ethics.

The choice is made between possibilities. The first precondition of this choice, however, is to become aware of these possibilities. For Kierkegaard, the very choice is more important than its result.

The choice of human depends on seriousness, pathos and energy used in the process of choosing. This choice is a basic one for the human, because it enables her or him to become a real personality.

The choice itself is crucial for the content of one’s personality. When one chooses, she or he wants; and that is important. Kierkegaard concentrates on the desire for choice, on the desire for decisionmaking. Being personally engaged in this choice, the individual is able to contradict the system and the crowd, and hold on to what she or he considers good in the human.

The crowd does not want any autonomous thinking or decisionmaking; it wants blind obedience and imitation. We do not have to go far to find an example. The following of Adolf Hitler and his ideology brought an unexpected tragedy to the whole world. It is a tragedy that many representatives of the Church failed to see, since many of them supported his regime. The crowd was crucial and the crowd determined what was right.

Kierkegaard very often addresses his treatise to “that single individual, whom I call my reader”. He calls for autonomous thinking on the part of the individual—thinking that does not depend on

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the mainstream, masses, dictatorship of the Church or society. He experienced how the Church authorities were failing and realized that one cannot rely on the words or utterances of people: the actions, and more importantly motives for human acting, are the decisive part.

Presenting this position, Kierkegaard conflicted with the Copenhagen-based tabloid Corsair and became the object of attacks and ridicule. He dared to reveal and criticize Poul L. Møller, the anonymous contributor from the university.

However, Kierkegaard did not give up his fight for the autonomous thinking of the individual. Moreover, he pointed at the “nonardent and non-authentic” society, which lives in its illusions. He was persecuted for his opinion and criticism and in the end died, exhausted at the age of forty-two.

“Kierkegaard was searching for the light, because he was conscious of the darkness.” He wanted the human to boost higher, not simply to live her or his life without any personal interest or passion. A human has to live his/her life spiritually, with interest and always as an individual, never as a member of the mass.

Kierkegaard is famous for the introduction of three categories of human existence: aesthetical, ethical and religious. He criticizes the aesthetical stage for the avoidance of duties, making the enjoyment of life one’s highest priority.

The life of such an individual depends on good luck and chance; and hence on something that she or he did not cause her- or himself. It is life without stability, where one acts solely on the basis of extrinsic impulses.

Her or his love is oriented at erotics, not at the neighbour as a sister or a brother. She or he wants to get regardless of how she/he gets it.

Her or his aim is to have, to own, to make her or his wishes true.

In the aesthetic stage, one does not know anything about the love of a pure heart and honest faith. The result is immediate: one slides into despair and scepticism. This is like chaff, which is trailed by the wind of ephemeral ideas.

Søren Kierkegaard is better understood as a philosopher, existentialist, irrationalist, or as someone who criticised religious conditions and the Church in the same way as Friedrich Nietzsche did.

Alastair Hannay, in the preface of his monograph, gives different perceptions of Kierkegaard: “Satan, Saint, or Socrates.” Thus,

Králik Roman, Zápas Sørena Kierkegaarda. (The Fight of Søren Kierkegaard) Nitra, 2006. 78.

Hannay Alastair, Kierkegaard. London – New York, 1993.

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he figuratively helps us to explain three different interpretations of Kierkegaard.

For the first group of readers, Kierkegaard is a critic of the Church and a sick man. For the second group, Kierkegaard is someone who searched for the truth of the Church; and for the last, third group, he was a philosopher par excellence, ethicist with the same impact on individualism as Socrates.

Many times, and it is paradoxical, the less critical assessment of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the Christian religion is heard from philosophers and Roman Catholic theologians, compared to Protestant theologians.

One of the many critical Protestant theologians is Oscar Cullman, who “blames Kierkegaard for rejection of Jesus Christ’s resurrection in the history”. Karl Barth poses a question related to Kierkegaard: “Where in his teaching are the people of God, the meetings, and the Church, where is its diaconal, missionary, politic, and social content?” The Slovak Protestant theologian Dušan Ondrejovicˇ also sees Kierkegaard’s understanding of Jesus Christ as problematic.

The Czech theologian Josef Smolík in his study Current Attempts at Gospel Interpretation analysed Kierkegaard’s attitude towards preaching, claiming that “preaching should not be done in the Church. This seriously harms the Christian religion.” In the United States, the last writings of Kierkegaard were translated under the title Attack upon Christendom.

These studies lead the conservative circles of the Christian churches to reject Kierkegaard as a Christian religious thinker. The other reason for this is Kierkegaard’s Bible interpretation, in particular: the imitation of Jesus Christ, adult baptism, and the emphasis on the individual being before God.

Transformation through Faith

Simply said, Kierkegaard in general happens to be a troublesome and critical “problem” for the Church. For this reason, the American researcher Walter Lowrie wrote, “At all events Søren Kierkegaard’s impact upon the Church in Denmark is nil.”

Thulstrupová Mikulová Marie, Kierkegaard a deˇjiny krˇest’anské zbožnosti (Kierkegaard and History of Piety of Christianity ). Brno, 2005. 173.

Barth Karl, Mein Verhältnis zu Søren Kierkegaard. Orbis Litterarum 1963/3. 99.

Ondrejovicˇ Dušan, Teologická encyklopédia (Theological Encyclopædia). Bratislava, 1992. 55–57.

Smolík Josef, Soucˇasné pokusy o interpretaci evangelia (Current Attempts at the Interpretion of the Gospel).

Praha, Oikoymenh 1993. 45–46.

Lowrie Walter, Translators and Interpreters of Søren Kierkegaard. Theology Today 1955/3. 312.

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According to some, it would be better if he had died three years earlier without turning too radical and provoking an open confrontation with the Church. But in fact, Kierkegaard did not explicitly attack any doctrine posited by the Danish Church. He considered the doctrines to be correct and he accepted the existence of the Church with all its sacraments, liturgy, and regulations. In his criticism, he did not attack the Church but its leaders and representatives.

One of the most significant questions when interpreting Kierkegaard from the theological point of view is his understanding of faith. As a renowned Kierkegaard researcher, Gordon D. Marino, wrote in a review: “There is no better conversation partner for thinking about faith than the lyrical Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813– 1855).”

As Kierkegaard presented in his works and prayers, faith was of crucial position and importance for his way of thinking and life. He considered faith to be indispensable: “Therefore I thank you, God, that you require just faith, and please, give me more of it.”

Kierkegaard’s faith was convincing: “My eternal consciousness is my love for God, and for me that is the highest of all.”10 Faith, in Kierkegaard’s interpretation, means deep experience—meditation and practical following of the prototype of faith, Jesus Christ.

Compared to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s conception that eliminated faith through cognition and rejected miracles, this inwardness is demonstrated by internal interest and concern in acceptance of claims of the Christian faith, and not by speculation about God. For Kierkegaard, it was also significant that to be a Christian means to believe and love God. Faith is related only to God, and God is the subject of faith. Jesus Christ is a paradox, the subject of faith, and serves only the faith. According to Zden ˇek Trtík, “Kierkegaard bases his whole theology on the absolute paradox.”11 Jesus Christ, however, demands faith from every individual. For Kierkegaard, faith was not an aesthetic feeling or immediate impulse of heart, but it was something much deeper and higher: the paradox of life.

Kierkegaard asks his reader to take a stand on Jesus Christ, and the reality that Jesus Christ had lived is essential for his whole Marino D. Gordon, Alastair Hannay: Kierkegaard: A Biography. Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter 2002/44. 11.

Kierkegaard Søren, Bázenˇ a chveˇní: Nemoc k smrti (Fear and Trembling, The Sickness unto Death). Praha, 1993. 254.

10 Kierkegaard Søren, Fear and Trembling. Repetition. Princeton. 48.

11 Trtík Zdeneˇk, Vztah já – ty a krˇest’anství (Relationship I – Thou and Christianity). Praha, 1948. 28.

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life. Murray E. Rae aptly defined the Christian faith as one which is characterised by the transformation of the individual under the influence of theophany.12 Where there is no change in attitudes and life, there is not even faith. For Kierkegaard, to believe meant to be “contemporary” with Jesus Christ, done through a decision for Jesus Christ (to follow him—note by the author) at the “moment”.13 The target of Kierkegaard’s criticism of the conditions in the Church was the fact that personal Christianity had lost its challenge and became an affectation where everyone does as she or he pleases.

Kierkegaard, on the other hand, called for an ideal and the Christian demand. The demand must be expressed, stated and heard; and confessed by ourselves.

Kierkegaard never stated that he embodied the Christian ideal.

What he stated was that he knew what the contents of that ideal were, and that they were presented in the Scripture. Josef L. Hromádka wrote the following lines about Kierkegaard’s notion of faith: “Kierkegaard knew very well that faith is acceptance of God’s mercy with empty hands. He knew that faith does not stem from human, sacred or moral preconditions, but originates in a place, where God

by God’s word cuts the paths of human earthly life and reaches a person in his/her naked existence.”14 Faith is more lasting than the whole world. Faith, in Kierkegaard’s interpretation, is not something that lacks evidence: it is real, it is not designed for the naive, for those who need a “small crutch,” neither is it for those who are proud of having acquired a doctorate from religious philosophy.15 If a person wants to live as a Christian, she or he must live with a passion that represents the absolute condition. There are certain requirements that arise from faith and refer to a person, because, as Kierkegaard points out, when reaching eternity you will be asked about your faith and faithfulness.

The human race must decide between two different choices:16 to be or not to be. By this choice, an individual (a person in front of God) achieves a more permanent and deeper relation to God and Christ.

12 Rae A. Murray, Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation. Oxford: Clarendon Press Oxford, 1997. XI. 13 Smolík Josef, Soucˇasné pokusy o interpretaci evangelia (Current Attempts at the Interpretion of the Gospel).

Praha: Kalich 1993. 50.

14 Hromádka Josef L., Evangelium o cesteˇ za ˇc loveˇkem (The Gospel about the Way to the People). Praha, 1986. 57.

15 Perkins L. Robert, Søren Kierkegaard. London, 1969, 14.

16 Petkanicˇ Milan, Pojem vášneˇ u Sorena Kierkegaarda (The concept of Passion in Soren Kierkegaard). PhD Thesis FF UK Bratislava, 2007. 15.

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A person is either a Christian who follows God, or a person who does not follow God, and thus cannot be called a Christian. In this statement lies Kierkegaard’s radicalism (criticism of Church) and the basis of his way of thinking.

Faith represents a conditio sine qua non in the life of a person. It helps the person to overcome difficulties and problems. The most important part of a person’s life is when the person enters into a relationship with God, Who becomes for the person a hidden Saviour against despair.17 Kierkegaard was convinced about the statements of the New Testament relating to faith, and tried to apply them in daily life: “By faith I do not renounce anything; on the contrary, by faith I receive everything exactly in the sense in which it said that one who has faith like a mustard seed can move mountains.”18 In another instance, he writes: “This is precisely the nature of belief; for continually present as the nullified in the certitude of belief is the incertitude that in every way corresponds to the uncertainty of coming into existence.

Thus, belief believes what it does not see.”19 Kierkegaard found the climax of life to be in the faith that compensates everything. In his works, he tried to defend Christian faith and to make the importance of faith clear to his Christian reader—faith in Jesus Christ. Faith, for Kierkegaard, was perceived not only as a decision of an individual, but as a decision always assisted and helped by God. The evident influence of Pietism is apparent here, emphasising personal and practical faith. Two manifestations of faith are dominant in Kierkegaard’s works: passion as a manifestation of faith, and deeds as a manifestation of faith. The reason for this kind of emphasis on deeds and passion was that religious faith had become formal and abstract, not requiring a choice that would give faith meaning and content. With the assistance of passion, Kierkegaard tried to liberate the person from the “imprisonment of the system.”

The passion of faith represents motivation towards action, “towards the correct being”,20 and is an important key to authentic morality 17 “The only guarantee against despair (suicide) is faith, Christian faith, faith that is conscious and active” In Thulstrupová Mikulová Marie, Nemoc k smrti a Sebevražda (Sickness unto Death and Suitside). Krˇest’anská Revue 1992/2. 38.

18 Kierkegaard Søren, Fear and Trembling. Repetition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Trans. Howard V. Hong. 48–49.

19 Kierkegaard Søren, Philosophical Fragments. Johannes Climacus. Princeton: Princeton Univerity Press, Trans.

Howard V. Hong. 81.

20 Diem Hermann, Kierkegaard. Frankfurt am Main, 1956. 13.

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and Christian faith.21 Faith is, for Kierkegaard, the highest passion of a person.22 Faith allows us to make the decision to be or not to be.

“Either I exist and am the highest, or I do not exist at all either all or nothing.”23 He compares his time with the beginnings of Christianity and, at the same time, challenges the individual: “Think now what passion there was in primitive Christianity, without which it never would have come into the world.”24 Passion is, according to Kierkegaard, inevitable for Christianity; when there is no passion, there is no Christianity.25 Making the passion weak causes confusion; it diminishes without decision, when a person is an unconcerned spectator (obedient, formal, uncritical member of the Church). Passion is, however, unnecessary when Christianity becomes a matter of the masses, without personal decision, when everybody is Christian.26 Relation between God and human, which Kierkegaard metaphorically named as a relation between a teacher and a disciple, is not expressed by blabbering and divulging, but only by passion, which we have named faith and whose subject is paradox.

Faith is, therefore, not a form of cognition, nor an act or a product of will, but an eternal condition, accepted in the moment of encounter with the absolute paradox in time, creating faith together with the absolute paradox of miracle, a paradox which cannot be comprehended or negated by thought.27 Kierkegaard places passion against the so-called speculative theology of Jacob Peter Mynster and Hans Lassen Martensen.

“There is a knowledge that presumptuously wants to introduce into the world of spirit the same law of indifference under which the external world sighs. It believes that it is enough to know what is great – no other work is needed.”28 When reflecting on Kierkegaard’s term “passion of faith,” we come to the conclusion that this interpretation is very close to the “first 21 Roberts C. Robert, Passion and Reflection. In Perkins L. Robert, Two Ages: The Present Age of Revolution: A Literary Review. Macon, 1984. 87.

22 Kierkegaard Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (tr.: Lowrie Walter). Princeton, 1971. 118.

23 Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love (tr.: Hong Howard V.). Princeton, 1995. 45.

24 Kierkegaard Søren, Kierkegaard’s Attack upon :Christendom (tr.: Lowrie Walter). Princeton, 1968. 184.

25 Kierkegaard Søren, Kierkegaard’s Attack upon :Christendom (tr.: Lowrie Walter). Princeton, 1968. 231.

Passion Is noticed and also related to Job. Kierkegaard Søren, Fear and Trembling: Repetition. Princeton, 1983. 210.

26 According to statistics from 1900, 99.6 % of Danish inhabitants claimed to be Christians. From the total number of 2.449.500 inhabitants, Christianity was rejected by less than 10.000 inhabitants. Barrett B. David (ed.), World Christian Encyclopædia. 236.

27 Walsh Sylvia, Living Poetically. Pennsylvania, 1994, 148.

28 Kierkegaard Søren, Fear and Trembling. Repetition. Princeton, 1983. 27

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love” that can be found in the New Testament. Blessed is the person who can truthfully say: God in heaven was my first love.29

Human in the Shadow of End

In our conclusion, it is necessary to add that the faith Kierkegaard presented in his works is not based primarily on the acceptance of philosophical or dogmatic perspectives. On the contrary, Kierkegaard’s aim is a passionate attitude which has been lost in contemporary Christianity and human life. Kierkegaard does not want the human to become apolitical or acosmic, turning into his inside and rejecting the outer reality.30 Faith must be lived out in practice, as a real choice and a real stance, following the footsteps of Christ on this Earth.

He warns those who have forgotten to make decisions between to be or not to be (following God) in every moment of their lives to change their attitudes because “from God towards a person do not lead two paths: expensive and cheap, but only the only one: expensive path, confirmed by the life and testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.”31 If this is fundamentally rejected, we cease to be interested in one another, to accept each other, to be human to each other. Conflicts appear, and hatred among people is deepened. Divorce and crime rates rise and we start to worry about our future.

People, individuals, who see the crisis of the present age and the emphasis on “to own” instead of “to exist,” try to respond. This year there was a conference called, very adequately, Human in the Shadow of End. Are we close to spiritual and moral decay when only powereconomic interests manage society? An action requires courage and everybody has to be responsible for its consequences.

Every autonomous decision and swerving from the crowd is worth the energy. We lack desire. Desire not in the meaning of physical passion, but is understood as personal, essential and active interest and authenticity.

One lacks interest and desire to choose between either–or, not on 29 Kierkegaard Søren, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Princeton, 1971. 101.

30 Šajda Peter, Nácˇrt kritiky Kierkegaardovho konceptu lásky v diele M. Bubera, T. W. Adorna a K. E. Løgstrupa (An Outline of the Critique of Kierkegaard‘s Concept of Love in the Works of M. Buber, T. W. Adorno and K. E. Løgstrup).

Filozofia 2003/7. 488–491.

31 Liguš Ján, Víra a teologie Dietricha Bonhoeffera (The Life and Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Banská Bystrica, 1994. 35.

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the basis of emotions, but on the basis of ethical and Christian laws.

One is strongly influenced by society, media, and forgets about one’s own existence and conscience.

The people of our age have a wide range of possibilities. Science and technology progress, and, thanks to them, one is able to reach almost everything, but it becomes useless if one cannot reach the peace of one’s own soul.

Kierkegaard requires real imitation of Christ, not only the pretension of it. He also warns us against superficiality. It is not enough to go passively to church from time to time; it is useless if one lacks a real living relation to his/her sisters and brothers and to God. He offers a solution: to become an individual, to love one’s sisters and brothers, to decide autonomously.

Every human is the object of his/her own activity; he/she is not determined arbitrarily. One is a task for oneself, and this task becomes what it is due to one’s choice. There is the challenge and example of Jesus Christ for every single Christian and for the Church as a body.

Jesus Christ accepted us with all our failures, characters and nationalities, and he died for us. We are expected to do less: to love and forgive each other.

Suggested Reading Barth Karl, Mein Verhältnis zu Søren Kierkegaard. Orbis Litterarum 1963/3. 97-100.

Barth Karl, Kierkegaard und die Theologen (Kierkegaard and the Theologians). Kirchenblatt für die reformierte Schweiz 1963/10.

Diem Herman, Kierkegaard. Frankfurt am Main, 1956.

Evans C. Stephen, Faith beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account. Michigan, Cambridge, 1998.

Hannay Alastair – Marino D. Gordon, The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. Cambridge, 1993.

Kierkegaard Søren, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Princeton, 1971.

Kierkegaard Søren, Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon Christendom. Princeton, 1968.

Kierkegaard Søren, Works of Love. Princeton, 1995.

Králik Roman, Zápas Sørena Kierkegaarda (The Struggle of Søren Kierkegaard). Nitra, 2006.

Králik Roman, Problém Zvaný Kierkegaard (The Problem Called Kierkegaard). Nitra, 2006.

Lowrie Walter., Translators and Interpreters of Søren Kierkegaard. Theology Today 1955/3. 312–327.

Perkins L. Robert., Søren Kierkegaard. London, 1969.

Rae A. Murray, Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation. Oxford, 1997. Šajda Peter, Nácˇrt kritiky Kierkegaardovho konceptu lásky v diele M. Bubera, T. W. Adorna a K. E. Løgstrupa (An Outline of the Critique of Kierkegaard‘s Concept of Love in the Works of M. Buber, T. W. Adorno and K. E. Løgstrup). Filozofia 2003/7. 488–491.

Thulstrupová Mikulová M., Kierkegaard a deˇjiny krˇest’anské zbožnosti (Kierkegaard and History of Piety of Christianity ). Brno, 2005.

Roman Králik (1973) studied pedagogy, philosophy and theology in Banská Bystrica, Nitra, Slovakia, and in Praha, Czech Republic. He took part in a research programme at St. Olaf College, Hong Kierkegaard Library (2004, 2007), and published a number of articles dealing with the thinking of Søren Kierkegaard. In 2005, he established the Kierkegaard Collection in Slovakia, (The Public Library in Šal’a) which is the only specialised library of this kind in Slovakia. He has a doctorate in theology from HTF UK in Praha. He is a chairperson of the Kierkegaard Society in Slovakia. His email address is kierkegaard@centrum.sk. This article was translated

by Jarmila Jurová and Anton Péntek.

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Drama as Passion’s Action in the World: A Conversation between two Friends

Theology that is not lived is not “real”—passion is about being real.

The perspective of passion is concrete, at ground level, not abstract, up in the head.

It is the human heart which is thrown into and bound up with this world, unbreakably.

And what makes that unbreakable attachment, involvement, interconnection, is passion.

The passion of heart is what binds the heart to the world.

I have at times said that passion’s struggle in and with and for the world is a story, and that story is intensely dramatic. In conversation with my oldest friend Andy Harmon, who has explored and pushed the investigation of drama very far, I realised that his account of the ‘dramatic’ is addressing what I call the ‘passionate’.

I. Rehearsal

Andy believes that the ascetic path is itself dramatic. He thinks this in regard to Buddha’s struggle for enlightenment, because Buddha had to wrestle with temptations, difficulties, and privations on his path. The walk to enlightenment is no stroll in the park. It is no airy fairy, sickly sweet, etherealising out of the world. The sitting posture in meditation is itself a posture of strength, a planting of oneself firmly on the ground. Meditation can become the “mind taken down into the heart,” as the Egyptian desert tradition instructs us to do. A deepening happens, something is at stake, there is a struggle, and a changed condition is reached on the other side of struggle. All this is, indeed, dramatic.

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The ascetic is suspended, inwardly, between life and death, love and evil, discovering wisdom and losing the way entirely. The ascetic is, to borrow Federico Garcia Lorca’s phrase, “on the rim.” All this is the stuff of drama, without question. And existential pillars uphold this drama, according to Buddhism: faith, doubt (angst, anguish, dread, awefulness), and determination. All three of these elements are foundational to what I am calling “passion.” Passion enters a drama, and its passage through is highly dramatic; and this is true of asceticism.

But, despite all this, asceticism has within its way neither the ultimate drama nor ultimate sacrifice of passion’s road in the world.

A greater and deeper drama awaits passion in the world. This is the drama that increasingly engulfed Jesus Christ in the second half of his ministry, climaxing in the Passion of Christ.

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II. Real Performance

Both to those living the ascetic life in the monastery and those given over to the sacred life of the temple, I want to say, as a disturbing herald: neither asceticism, nor sacredness, is enough. As the means to an end, they are fine; as an end in themselves, they are deceiving, because they are not sufficient. There is a formula “necessary, but not sufficient” – asceticism’s yoke, and the temple’s sacredness, are necessary, but not sufficient.

One argument articulates that asceticism is not confined to the monastery but exists in the world, and similarly that sacredness is not confined to the temple but exists in the world, so that no religious Tradition owns either the ascetical yoke or the sacred temple in any exclusive way. But there is a bigger argument about the world that all religions tend to ignore because they do not have the fortitude and the heart to face up to it.

This bigger argument says that the world is more important than any inner arena within each of us or any sacred space between all of us, because it is in the world that God’s greatest and deepest purposes are put at risk, must be struggled and suffered for, and paid for, to be redeemed. Christ was speaking of this when he said: “I came not to judge, but to save the world.”

Christ did not come to strengthen the ascetical path that goes back to the dawn of time or to rebuild Solomon’s temple. No ‘Christ’ is needed for either of those tasks. Christ came and is needed for redeeming the world.

The world is the field of greatest risk, greatest danger, greatest cost, for God and for humanity, and thus greatest redemption. Our redemption is not “in the church.” Redemption is of the world—by ‘world’ is meant the entire material and historical world process over all time from innocent beginning to holy end. This redemption is great and deep; it is terrible and dreadful, as well as glorious and wondrous. It is totally universal.

The Church, or religious Tradition, is a part of the world; it is not the world. Christ called it the leaven in the bread, but it is not the bread; and thus the Church, or religious Tradition, loses its leaven power when it sets itself up as refuge from the world, or in any manner contrary to the world. The Church or Tradition is not a life raft sailing through the stormy seas of the world, saving its members ‘from’ the world. When the Church or Tradition seeks to do this, it

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falsifies its role as a means to an end, but not the end. Such a Church or Tradition loses heart for engaging with and committing to the world as did Christ. It ceases having any redemptive meaning for the world. Instead, its members see it as a shelter where they can flee the world. All courage and generosity towards the world is thrown away. The bread loses its leaven and it rots. But what happens to the leaven? It is, in Christ’s own words, “good for nothing,” and is thrown away. All mission to the world, all heart for the world, all passion required to redeem the world, is evaded by religious people when the ascetic yoke or sacred temple becomes their escape from the world.

The human heart cannot escape. The heart is bound hand and foot to the destiny of the world: whatever happens ultimately to the world happens ultimately to the heart. The heart passes through the ascetical desert to be spiritually scorched, and the heart goes into the sacred place to be spiritually nourished, but the heart is basically in and of the world, bound to the fate of the world. The heart is on the ground, and enworlded, in a manner neither nous nor soul is.

The heart and the world are tied up together. To untie the heart’s bond with the world is to give up on any redemption for the world, and, at the same time, it is to give up on the heart and give in to the passionless, disheartedened existence that allows the world to be taken over increasingly by the powers of hell. Redemption must heal and transfigure the world and the heart together.

But God holds the ace up his sleeve: however much we flee the world by becoming a wraith in the desert, or abandon the world by becoming a pillar-hugger in the temple, God has a way of showing human beings, including the religious, that we humans are all in one boat together, and that boat is the world, such that if the world is lost, then the boat sinks and we all go down with it. God restores us to the world through drama.

Drama engulfs the world, and reveals to all of us that there is no escape from the world. The world is it—or forget it. This is why the world is not secondary to, not added to, passion, but passion is inherently bound to the world. This is so because passion’s mission is to the world.

What passion is really passionate about is the world.

Passion loves the world, sacrificially.

Passion fights for the world, sacrificially.

Passion carries the world, sacrificially.

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III. God’s Gamble

But all this can and needs to be stated in terms of drama. The drama which comes from God disturbs the peace of one and all: it disturbs the worldly and materialistic, ensconced in comfort, in laziness, in aspiration for status, in ambition for fame and riches, as well as disturbing the peace of the other worldly and religious, ensconced in some domain supposedly protected from the tumult of worldly Sturm und Drang.

Passion’s entry into the world is dramatic, because the world process as made by God is itself dramatic. The world is a drama, something deep is at stake, it could go either way, there is no guarantee how it will turn out. Only when passion ‘steps up’ and takes on the world, does the drama of the world go electric. All the creation, including the spirits, is electrified, and they stop whatever they are doing to watch. They want to know what is going to happen next. They are on the edge of their seats.

The world is created by God as a drama.

Passion is created to enter this drama and make a difference to it, by its own loving sacrifice—by its sacrificial suffering of a wound, by its sacrificial fight with a lie, by its sacrificial carrying of a burden.

Thus, when passion withdraws from the world, what is really at stake is ignobly abandoned, but everyone and everything breathes a sigh of relief. The challenge is not taken on. We can all go back to our undramatic, static life, where nothing of the heart ever changes. We can ‘relax.’ But when passion steps up, and gets stuck in, everything goes electric, and suddenly becomes very dramatic. What is always at stake, though we tend to sleep through this in the routine of the everyday, is all of a sudden savagely in play. Now we are playing for high stakes, and it matters what happens. The air is humming and the ground is on fire.

Thunder shakes the earth, lightning strikes the hills.

It is important, indeed vital, to know that God created a deep drama in the world process, beneath the shallow “sound and fury that signifies nothing.” Both the ascetical yoke and the sacred temple tend to assume that the world does not much matter because it is entirely sound and fury, signifying nothing. This is only true of the surface of things. Deeper down in the underneath, the world is resting on ‘nothingness’, because that ‘nothing’ is either the abyss of heart so deep it is fathomless, or the abyss of voidness and vacuity ‘filled’ by death and hell. In the depth of the world and in the depth of the

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heart, there is an almost sickening, dizzying, dreadful and fearful drama, where something so ultimate is at stake, its outcome affects God and humanity equally. Both are bound to what is at stake. To ponder this, to look into its ambiguous abyss, is to start to tremble; it is to grow faint.

What is at stake?

God does play dice with the universe, contrary to what Einstein thought; God is a gambler like Dostoyevsky, because what is at stake in the world is whether the world can rest on, and be true to, the heart passion of sacrificial love. This ‘at stakeness’ places God and humanity at risk, because the drama—the ordeal, the clashing, the sweat, tears, and blood—cannot be resolved by God for humanity, nor by humanity for God, but requires both God and humanity, working in alliance ultimately, even if on the way they must also work in opposition. In fact, alliances and oppositions are essential to all drama. God and humanity are both at risk, at danger, at cost, in this drama of redeeming the world. Moreover, there is another player in the drama, because the devil does not want this gamble of God to succeed.

At its deepest, the drama is entrusting and risking the world to the care of the ‘heart’ with its ‘passion’ of love—thus God’s heart and humanity’s heart, divine passion and human passion, are required.

And the devil seeks to deceive the human heart, that the divine and human may be separated. If divine and human are separated, the task and gift of the heart’s passion will come to nothing. The drama will end tragically; it will end in ruin. And this will be ruin for the world, for all in it, and this will be ruin for God. As an existentialist, God fights fair: God relinquishes God’s omnipotent power in order to make truth, or what in my writings I call ‘heart truth’, the only ‘power’, the only life, the passion of heart can use to win through the journey and battle of the world’s drama.

Thus, the human heart wrestles towards truth; this is dramatic enough in itself because it is a hard road, with its own tests, ordeals and clashes. But the human heart also wrestles against evil’s deception; the lie about heart and the lie about passion becomes the lie about the world and the lie about the world’s redemption— and this is even more dramatic. Passion is the ‘hero’ of drama, who dramatically rises to the occasion and undergoes a whole dramatic journey and battle which matters for the whole world process, past, present, future. It is exciting, but fearful, because it counts. Indeed, it counts so much, we cannot bear to look at it. Deepest at stake is

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heart truth and the change that the wrestling for this as the truth of the world brings to all concerned. But change is not attained quietly, peacefully, undramatically, by some unfolding organic growth.

As my friend Andy explained to me, drama progresses through the cooperation of alliances, and the ordeals, tests, and oppositions that elicit confrontation and conflict. Change is provoked; it emerges dramatically as both ordeals and tests, friends and enemies, wrestle.

The climax is always preceded by a ‘moment of truth’, where truth is revealed or deception tries to distort and hide that truth. John the Baptist reached such a moment of truth in prison, while awaiting beheading, when he was plunged into crisis over whether Jesus Christ was really the Messiah or not. Had all his preaching and indeed the surrender of his life been true to the ultimate heart truth, or had he been a fool? Was it all for nothing? Andy has written an extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic song about John the Baptist just before his death—despite being a Jew practicing Zen Buddhism.

And after the moment of truth comes change, through a sacrifice.

In fact, the Old Testament is a special book not because it contains historical genealogies and moral commandments, but because it tells the story of passion: it tells the story of the drama which God placed in the world at the centre or heart of the world process; the Old Testament tells how only God’s passion and humanity’s passion can contend with that drama and bring it through to its other side, despite the evil one seeking to derail it. Unlike any other sacred text I know, the Old Testament is ‘sacred history’ because it is an account of the “sufferings and raptures of the spirit” of heart passion, wrestling towards truth in the world, a world contested by the devil. We are in a fight for our life, and the life of the world, and for all time.

Sacred history tells the dramatic story of this fight as it goes through an immense journey in time, and goes through all sorts of ups and downs of a radically dramatic nature. Abraham has to insanely and criminally kill his son to be true to heart truth: what passion enabled him to climb that mountain with a long knife, as his beloved son played in the undergrowth on the way up? Judith seduced, slept with, and killed an alien king to save her people Israel and had God’s blessing for it: but was this action moral, by conventional standards?

Was Abraham moral, by any moral standards even conceivable?

What about David’s life? Lover, warrior and poet: will you tell me his life was not dramatic, not passionate? It was David who killed the giant Goliath, which saved Israel, but it was also David who sent his best friend into the most risky, dangerous, costly, part of a battle,

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knowing the friend would die, so as to get the friend’s wife. Is David, like Abraham, Judith, and so many other Jewish heroes of heart passion, entirely rational or entirely moral? I think not.

In the life of passion, as it enacts the wrestling toward heart truth in the world, there is craziness to be gone through, there is amorality, immorality, and fallen passions, to be gone through. Yes, we recover our sanity as we go along and later become wise; yes, we take responsibility for and repent of our many delusive cravings and evil passions: we shed greed, hate, vanity, pride, envy, lust, and the rest, as we go along and later we become virtuous. This isn’t the point. The point is that the struggles with these inner errors of heart passion are enacted outwardly, in the world. It is in the world our fallenness is exposed; it is in the world our fallenness is healed. It is in the world there is a change of heart, which then makes sacrifice for the change of the world. The Jewish heroes of the Old Testament both are changed in the world and change the world in a single process. This process is drama. Their story is part myth, part history: it is sacred history, realistic to the drama outside us in the world and inside us in our heart.

Indeed, in the Old Testament, the inner drama reflects the outer drama, and contributes to it for good or ill: if I have a bad heart, I add to the world’s misery and push it further over the brink, if I have a good heart, I add to the world’s redeeming and bring it closer to fruition. My interior battle of heart directly affects the outer battle for the world. If asceticism is dramatic, as Andy has argued, this is only because, from a Jewish orientation, it is enacted by people living in the world and seeking to redeem the world. The inner drama is dramatic, because the outer drama is absolutely crucial for me and for you and for all of us. The little drama inside me serves the big drama outside me, which involves many other people, and indeed ultimately involves everyone and everything.

But this entails, then, that our heart is purified so it can be given to the world, that the world may be saved. A heart saved out of the world is an evil deception, a lie, yet this is the lie all religions, all religious Traditions, tend to become fooled by. But the heart is not saved from the world; the heart is saved that the world can be saved.

Thus in Judaism there is no monastic asceticism, because the human heart is not simply purified by the religious yoke, the commandments, and the sacred temple, but by the drama of living in the world. The drama inherent to the world exposes the heart, breaks the heart, changes the heart. Only such a scorched heart can scorch the world, only such a heart in which fire is lit can light fires in the world.

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From Abraham, at one end, to Christ’s Passion on the Cross at the other end, is the unbroken continuity of the story of the drama of passion. It is God’s passion and humanity’s passion in play, but the devil is the passionless one, trying to deceive and instil his lie.

At stake is the world and all people and creatures and things that sail in the world over the ontological sea. At stake is whether heart passion can win through, or will be defeated. It is a fair fight. There is no guarantee. Tragedy is central to it, and might be what ends the day. When we witness such drama we are on the edge of our seats, because we know we merely witness the same drama in which we are all participants.

IV. The Hero

Drama, says Andy, is about the choices we make under pressure.

In a drama, action is compelled. It is not chosen; it is a fate that befalls us. How we act, and what heart our action discloses, is our choice, but that we are in a situation where something is at stake, and we must act for or against it, is where drama really kicks off. The pressure demands we act, demands we give our heart or withhold it, and give one kind of heart or another kind. Drama forces the heart into action. This action is passion: passion moves us and we act towards the world.

When we reject passion, what we really reject is the action in the world that alone can change the world. The world is not changed in any other way. It is not changed by thought; it is not changed by planning directed by thought (the malaise of today). It is not changed by beauty, by good will, by romantic imagination, by idealistic ethics, by aspiration. We are not changed fundamentally in the heart except by our own action: and the world is not changed except by action that comes from the heart.

The true heart and the false heart both act in the world. Drama puts them together to create the tension, intensity, and pressure that will reveal deeper truth and will also expose the deception working against truth.

Passion stirs up drama in the world for reasons very basic and profound. Passion, by virtue of being enworlded, is situated in a drama. The world is a drama. But only passion really takes it on, really ‘acts’ in a way that can affect the balance of power in the drama already inhering in the world process. What I am calling ‘passion’ here is, in dramatic terms, the ‘hero.’ The hero enters an already

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charged situation and that electrifies and galvanises it, because this hero can make a difference to the wider drama in whose grip we are all held. As Hamlet prevaricates on the rim, our anxiety goes berserk, for we wait to see how he will act, because this will affect us all. The hero’s defeat is our defeat. The hero’s coming through ordeals, tests, losses, and doing the noble heart action in the most intense clashes and conflicts is our winning through. .

It takes action to change the world, and the action that is redemptive of the world is a sacrifice.

Thus all dramatic storytelling, if it really is true to the world’s drama, is about sacrifice. It is the hero’s sacrifice that saves the situation, that saves the day. This unites God and humanity, and shows the devil to be the small hearted, passionless being that the devil in truth is.

Drama reveals the heart truth that has the strength, wisdom, and love to care enough about the world to give and empty the heart for its sake.

The hero is staked to what is at stake.

Whatever happens to the hero, however much the hero must lose or even offer her or his own life to death, it is this heart truth that wins through, is revealed, is vindicated. It is tested and it is proved. It is deepened as it goes through the crises of the hero’s journey and the hero’s battle. Whatever the thunderous storm of the dramatic events and deeds that happen on the stage of history, the place where the two roads cross—the road of heart and its adversary—is clarified, and people’s stand there and people’s refusal to stand there is all starkly unhidden. Suddenly, despite shallow storms that add up to a hill of beans in the end, the depth is clearly displayed. What is at stake, what matters most, and what action this compels on everyone, whether it is an action of greater or lesser heart, is electrifyingly clear and set in motion.

The hero serves, protects, sacrifices.

In my slowly dawning understanding of heart, I see now four heart figures of supreme importance, exemplifying the heroism that only emerges through passion. I showed these four to Andy, and he confirmed them as the pillars of drama (though he named them differently). They are:

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1. King or Chief, who is also Judge, Holding up the Light of Justice He does not teach, he is not a mentor in that direct way, but he ‘sets the standard’, he is the model, the paradigm, the embodied vision of the human being who has attained heart truth. The king is the one who puts his money where his mouth is, the one who never talks without backing it up with the walk. He models what we all serve—the heart truth that is like a central lodge pole upon which all other poles lean. He is a moral exemplar in his person and deeds, but he is more than that; he is what the Lakota call a “person of great heart, who has self control, bravery and generosity.” He takes care of his people, always, and has special concern for the poor, the bereft, the hurt and broken. He gives all he is and all he has to the people, constantly. The king can also be a warrior, a hero right down in the thick of it, because of the consequence that he never espouses for others what he cannot do himself. Basically, the king or chief is thus a powerful influence on all people, a powerful motivator for others.

The king models the Stand on Heart Truth. He doesn’t preach what that truth is, he does not talk ‘about’ it; rather, he existentially stands on and acts from heart truth. He is it, in his person. Thus, in his heart he has attained the truth which all persons seek.

It was as a king, not as a prophet and not as a priest, that Christ died for his people, for all people, making the ultimate sacrifice for their universal redemption.

2. Warrior, who is neither Soldier nor Thug The warrior is the hero par excellence, the one going through the test, the one right in the midst of the clash. The warrior fights, but the warrior also works—he exemplifies both the fighting spirit and the hard-working shouldering of a burden, task, duty, implicit in one of the two root meanings of passion in both old Greek and old Hebrew. The warrior fights the battle, but he also ‘carries the load.’

He is a doer. He knows how to wade straight in, unhesitatingly.

He is practical; he knows how to use tools and techniques, not just weapons but any and all implements, to get the job done.

Christ was a warrior, for as he says of himself, he brought not peace but a sword.

3. Holy Fool or Sacred Clown (Heyoka) This is the reversal person, the heart reversed by God’s dæmonic wound. The holy fool is portrayed in Dostoyevsky’s novels and is

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very similar to the sacred clown, who disrupts religious ceremonies with foul language, obscene gestures, gutter humour. He protects true seriousness by challenging and shaking up religious airs. In one sense, he is the laughter of the heart when our human pomposity and vanity is deflated; but more profoundly, the fool shows the meaning of God’s words in the Old Testament— “my ways are not your ways.”

What we regard as wisdom is folly to God, and what God regards as wisdom is folly to us. The same holds with power: God’s power seems weak to us, and our power is weak to God. A huge reversal, a huge turning upside down, is needed and will be part of the heart’s learning of life lessons and coming to more real wisdom and more real power. The holy fool reveals the emperor has no clothes, whether a pope or a prince it makes no distinction; the holy fool exposes their paucity of heart, whatever bright package they put round it to hide its shame, or guilt, for being so small.

The holy fool challenges hypocrisy, both religious and worldly.

The holy fool is also the craziness saner than sanity, the folly wiser than wisdom, the vulnerability more powerful than any power. The holy fool has the eyes of an innocent, with which to see through the deceptions and lies of the sophisticated. He or she comes out and says, directly, the heart truth in a person or in a situation, without hesitation or gloss, without politeness or deference. Like God, the holy fool is no ‘respecter of persons.’ Holy foolishness is the lightning that strikes the tower to reveal the pit beneath it. God can even trick us into learning, into change—the lesson of many Red Indian trickster stories. The clever who think they can trick others by manipulation and superior wits are often the most easily tricked and shown up as utter fools.

Christ was a holy fool, for, according to Saint Paul, his wisdom was foolishness to Greeks and his vulnerability a stumbling block to Jews.

4. Prophet, Holy Person, Shamanic ‘Wounded Healer’, Mystical Ascetic This is the heart disrobed and stripped naked in God’s ‘duende’, burnt to ashes to be reformed in the furnace. Much of Federico Garcia Lorca’s best poetry and his two stunning articles on the duende of flamenco music portray the process of suffering, sorrow, mourning, poverty and loss this heart undergoes. My chapter on asceticism in the book Raising Lazarus (2004) addresses the inner drama of spiritual warfare in the deep heart, as lived in Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

This is the heart that most thoroughly faces the interior abyss, even as the king and warrior face this abyss in the world.

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This figure is also the teacher, the mentor, the helper. In dramatic stories, the prophet advises the king or the warrior, as the keeper of principle. As such, the prophet does not stand back from the world, but, like John the Baptist, the prophet enters the world dramatically to herald change, to call people to change. And there is a price to be paid for this, like John the Baptist. The prophetic presence is still, collected, silent: the prophet has the mystical ascetic composure, but the prophet only ever withdraws to come back to the world, and get involved in its redemption.

Christ was a teacher, mentor, healer, and prophetic voice crying in the wilderness.

In a way, holy fool and mystical ascetic are flip sides of one coin, as is king and warrior. Holy fool and prophet are on the healing side of heart, while king and warrior are on the sacrificial side of heart.

Maybe there are more than four pillars to the heart—we know the soul has seven pillars to the house she builds in wisdom—but if so, it can rest for today.

V. Action Exceeds Reason

The world compels action, and action has consequences for the world. Such is drama. There is a deep drama in which we are all involved, whether we fully recognise this or not. Our angst, our anguish and agony of heart recognises it, even if, as is usual, our mind does not.

In this life, we will encounter tumult and trouble that means nothing in the end; we would be wise to become dispassionate toward it.

In this life we will encounter tumult that means everything in the end, and we will know desperate trouble of heart as we wrestle passionately in its drama. If we let the drama do its work, we will find the depth of the heart and the depth of the world. And we will find our heart is called to the world in a fateful encounter, a heroic meeting, make or break for us but also make or break for the world.

Pascal famously said: “the heart has reasons the reason knows not of.” This is the essence. Though reason is sometimes needed to put a brake on passion, to weigh its alternatives, as we get deeper into the real drama of life our options reduce. On the rim, our options are very few, but very powerful. In the moment of truth before the final clash, we are reduced to basically only three options: trust that the way of heart truth in the world really stands upright from an abyss;

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or flee the heat of the kitchen and run from any heart way in our response; or side with the devil and opt for some pseudo-advantage in the dramatic situation which is secured by some action false to the true passion of heart struggling and suffering to be true to truth.

In these moments of ultimate crisis, our heart has its reasons, but this is still irrational. The conscious mind, even the best intentioned reason, cannot decide what the heart must decide in its willingness, cannot do what the heart must do in its passionateness. This is a leap.

Let us try to be with John the Baptist, suddenly wondering if the man he baptised in the river Jordan really was, or wasn’t, the Messiah.

These moments of truth before final decision, before final engagement and commitment, are horrendous. Christ went through his moment in the garden of Gethsemane, before he was hauled away to the Jewish court, then the Roman court: religious and worldly authority would judge, accuse, and condemn him. Boddhidarma sweated ‘white beads’ in the drama of his wrestling toward enlightenment, but Christ sweated blood in the garden, before he finally gave himself over to his great and deep passion, and made the final sacrifice, of God to humanity and of humanity to God. In this horrendous garden of challenging truth, the devil tried to break his heart so he would not go on but put down the way of heart. We know from the Gospel account of how hard this moment was for him. He was almost broken in himself before he accepted to be broken for all.

This moment is awful for us too. It is aweful and awesome. It is beyond any words. No images come when it is really upon us. On the rim, in that moment when we fight in a different way, before we go forth into the fight, or back off, or side with the devil’s deception and lie, we know how deep and how irrational passion is.

Here I am; I will probably have to die, I am stepping off the rim and plunging into the abyss, going forth on to the killing ground, but for what?, and what will meet me? The mind cannot answer. Reason, at this moment, can neither guide nor decide. When the heart moves, as it did in John the Baptist before he was executed, as it did in Christ when he picked himself off the ground, accepting his fate for the sake of the destiny of all, this movement is irrational. It could be for nothing, it could be absurd, the heart is not allowed to know for certain, yet the heart leaps.

It knows, as it leaps, there is no guarantee. But this is the irrationality of passion. Something deeper in us says, let’s go. Hoka hey!

The heart takes the risk, embraces the danger, pays the cost.

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This is passion.

This is passion’s irrationality.

This is passion’s faith.

The heart is afflicted with deep doubt, but the very depth of this doubt forces the heart to go all the way in passion’s faith and in passion’s bearing and enduring, its ardent fervour, its patient persisting. There is no extrinsic reward, but something inherent to the heart, something intrinsic to passion, stirs and rises and goes into action only to what is deep, hard, fated. It falls back, and does not rise to, what is shallow, easy, take it or leave it.

The moment of truth is horrendous, yet when we are really in it, we also know it is the moment of destiny, and something in our heart irrationally says yes, let’s leap, let’s burn.

VI. Conclusion

It is through the deeper drama of the life of passion that the world is redeemed. This drama calls us out.

It is this deep drama where we either resist, or let our passion sew its seed in the ground, and spark a fire in the world.

Hoka hey!

Jamie Moran was born in the United States of America (USA), of Red Indian and Celtic descent, but he married and now works in England. At 22, he converted from Tibetan Buddhism to Russian Orthodox Christianity; he works as a therapist and senior lecturer on counselling and psychology at a university in London. He is writing a novel on the conflict between settlers and indigenous peoples in the American West of the XIXth century, and he is a sub-chief in the Cante Tinze (Brave Hearts) Warrior Society of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. His email address is J.Moran@roehampton.ac.uk.

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Daniel Pastircˇåk

A Little Girl from a Wild Rose Bush I do not know who was the better storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen or my grandfather, for stories used to come to my grandfather

in the stable. When a story materialized, he would drop the udder and begin telling the tale, immersed in dreams with his eyes fixed on the wooden frame strewn with swallow nests. Andersen died a long time ago, and my grandfather has also died; the stable became dilapidated and crumbled to pieces, and what remained was rebuilt into a garage.

And fairy tales were lost too. They moved out from human dwellings, higher into the mountains, to old roads, to wild gardens, among ivy in cemetery walls, to deserted and unaffected places where the lost treasures of purity hide.

A story can be found in anything, and there was one in a wild rose bush. The bush grew near a path, and the path faded into a shrub behind an old viaduct. The bush modestly swathed its body of bark with a veil of leaves. In the windows of the shadows cast by the leaves, the ivory of the flower petals glowed. The petals of the flower made the shape of a little heart. In the midst of the petals, a big sun of red gold shone. It appeared to me that from behind the thorny gates an unknown fairy tale was peering at me. Thus, I listened until I heard its voice and saw its story.

There was a castle and behind the castle was a garden. The garden was full of flowers, the flowers were full of fragrance, and the fragrance was full of the quiet singing of birds. This singing was carried all the way to a distant cliff where the garden ended. Under the cliff, a chasm stretched out into the distance. The chasm was full of the sea, the sea was full of waves and foam, and the waves and foam were full of thunder that drowned out the garden birds’ singing.

There, inside the rocky cliffs, in a cave that the tempestuous sea had hollowed out, lived a tiny, little, fair haired girl. She never saw

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the castle or the nobility strolling amidst the flowers. She knew only wings of water, like those of an eagle, rearing up between the granite at the bottom of the chasm and wild trees in the deserted part of the garden. The only face she knew, old and wrinkled as a tobacco leaf, bent over her bed every morning. Today, this face was looking at her for the last time. The old woman, that had, for years, been protecting the girl’s childhood innocence, was dying.

“You do not have anyone,” she said when the girl brought her a glass of water and knelt next to her bed. “You are as alone as I am, as the rocks are, as the sea is. The friends who are coming today to hold my hand for the last time will become your guardians.”

A white albatross flew in at dusk. From behind him, clothed in dazzling brilliance, an old man entered the cave. When he leaned over the bed, the girl saw the flowing clouds in him.

“Farewell, Seanlian, Brother of the Dawn,” whispered the old woman. “Take my little girl under your protection.”

The old man drew aside a fold of his robe and placed a small harp on the bed. It was a wondrous instrument. The strings were crystal clear and the sounding board glittered with reflections of all hues like a fragment of pearl.

“My gift will protect you, little girl,” he said. “The songs in these strings possess power; in each human heart they awaken, even in the lost soul, a modicum of good.”

Immediately following his departure, a black eagle flew into the middle of the cave, and another old man followed it in. This man’s garment was made of leaves, branches, roots, field flowers, and wild grasses. When he leaned over the beloved face, the girl saw little wings of birds and creeping wild animals in the shadows under the leaves.

“Farewell, Draganur, Brother of the Mountains,” whispered the old woman. “Please, become a father to my little girl,” she added, breathing her last breath.

The old man put his rough palms on the little girl’s slender shoulders and said, “From this moment on, whoever touches you with an evil thought will have her or his hands pierced by the sharpest thorns of my forest and, thus, through pain, be disarmed.”

After he left, the girl covered the dead woman with a sheet. She lit the last candle, took the harp, and with two little teardrops on her face set off across the deserted garden.

On the other side of the garden, along the rocky coast, a forest, as unforgiving as the spikes of a sea urchin, flourished and was as dark

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as the night during a new moon. In the midst of the forest, bandits encamped. Their ringleader could not fall asleep in the night; he heard wafts of music over and over again. Before midnight, he stood up and set off into the forest following the distant notes. He stopped where the forest ended. There, in front of him, a little girl was sitting in the grass, caressing phosphorescent strings with her tiny fingers.

Magic chords hovered in the night. In them rang painful bells of lonesome rains; the breath of the southern sky lit up with purgatory flames of dawn. In the flood of this music, the ringleader of the bandits saw clouds, infused with mysterious light, towering from the garden up to the heavens. Even the smokiest lamp can give out light; even the cruellest heart hides inside it a pure teardrop.

A kindly hand has touched everyone at least once and the moment is never forgotten. The heart of a bandit is not any different. In the midst of the clouds, the bandit saw a stairway and his mother slowly descending directly towards him. He heard her saying: “Where have you gone, my son? What have you done? Your hands are stained with the blood of innocents and your heart is as black as the burned out estates that you left behind. The pain makes me restless.”

Even the strongest knees shake before love that reveals its helplessness. And the bandit shook, too. “What should I do?” he whispered.

“What should I do? How can I bring you peace again?”

“Look at this tiny little girl,” she said. “She is the purest creature that ever walked on the Earth, but she is completely alone and does not have anyone. If you become her protector, you will purge your black heart in the pristine waters of her innocent soul.” The words faded and the vision disappeared.

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When the girl saw the thief’s rough face suddenly emerge from the dark, the harp tumbled out of her hands. His eyes, however, were filled with so much tenderness, that in the next moment she recovered her trust. He took her to the camp and put her in a bed of warm pelts. She fell asleep immediately, but the captain could not. The music had died away, and once again, he was thinking as a bandit.

“Tomorrow I will send her to the king’s court. Jewels offered by her will not be suspicious. Everyone will trust her eyes. Then she will find her eternal home at the bottom of the lake in the forest. Her lips will not be able to speak there. Whoever has no one will be missed by no one.”

Early in the morning the ringleader woke the bandits. When he was unable to sleep late, no one else was allowed to either. Dragging them by their ears, he awakened them from their warm pelts.

The bandits were rubbing their eyes with one hand and their red ears with the other, all the while muttering: “It is an honour for me, Sir, that my ear was touched by your venerable fingers.” It is no wonder that such were the customs among them, since bandits are also merely humans. After they fed and groomed the ringleader, they brought the girl before him.

“Dear child,” he said, placing his dirty hand on her golden hair.

He immediately screamed in pain. Thousands of thorns had suddenly pierced his hand and it gushed with warm blood. “A witch!” he roared. He wanted to hit her with his other hand, but it was now attached to his body by the same thorny manacle.

The girl was stunned. Draganur had displayed his power. She nearly began to cry; away she must go, in order not to hurt the others.

She took her harp and ran away. She ran long, and she ran far, as far as was possible through an inhospitable forest.

At the other end of the forest, there was a meadow. In the meadow, purple bluebells grew. Their ringing was quieter than the ringing church bells in the valley, which were calling the village people to a service. The little girl made her way to the church and sat down on a stone bench under the statue of a saint. She sat there until the sound of the organ ceased, and people began coming out of the church.

They asked her: “Who are you, and whom are you looking for?”

She had not been looking for anyone; she was afraid of Draganur’s power and so she replied: “I am looking for the most virtuous person, someone whose mind has never encountered a single wicked thought.”

The people advised: “The most virtuous person lives at the edge

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of the village, Hannah, a poor widow. She has been working her whole life. When she is done with her work, she goes and helps her neighbours; from what she has left, she helps other widows in the village.”

The door of the house at the edge of the village was open. When the girl walked through the door, a smiling face at the table greeted her. “Welcome, child! Whom are you looking for? Do you need any help?” Hannah stepped towards her.

The little girl replied: “I am glad I have found you. Please, I beg you, let me live with you, if only for a few days. I will be in your service in return for food and shelter.” The woman, faithful to her reputation, smiled kindly, and took the little girl to the attic room.

“Everyone respects me,” she murmured the next day, while she was assigning the work. “It is easy. The others think only of themselves, but I also think of other people. Hold on to this rule. And never boast, for a good person is praised by her or his good deeds.”

The misery in which the common people lived in the houses below the church on the hill caused the girl more pain than her own loneliness. Therefore, after completing her work in the house, she would go to the village. She helped out as much as she could, and in the evenings, she would play quiet songs to the weary people. In early evening, as dusk faded and the sounds of the day waned, her songs, a smoky offering, wafted past the roofs of the poor and lifted up to reach the stars that lit the night like candles. “You are a good woman,” the village people began saying to Hannah, “but your ward is even better.”

Their words stole Hannah’s sleep. She could not resist opening herself to the jealousy that knocked at the window of her mind. “Come, and let me braid your hair,” said Hannah to the girl one morning.

When she reached into the girl’s hair, however, she howled in pain.

Her hands, pierced by countless thorns, were bleeding. “I have seen through you,” yelled Hannah. “You are a fairy, a bewitching nymph.

This is how you pay me back for my goodness? Get out of my house!”

And so, everything returned once more to the way it had been prior to the little girl’s appearance.

“You really are the most virtuous one,” the village people affirmed Hannah. “How could she behave so shamelessly?” remarked those who used to talk about the little girl with the finest words.

“There was something bewitching even in the music. Often, I could not fall asleep and the worst things from my life flashed before my eyes,” grumbled an old soothsayer, who had always cared about the public’s opinion, since her living depended on it.

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“Where will you go?” the wind asked, while wiping away the little tears of a child from her face.

“Where will you go?” the Sun asked and kissed her weary feet with his golden lips.

“I do not know,” answered the girl and she began playing a song that neither the wind nor the Sun had ever heard. It was a song about the heart; a song about the good that is not lost, but only slumbers in the human’s heart, about the evil that prevails like weeds in an untended garden.

The young prince Abelar cried out, “What beautiful music!” and stopped his horse. The prince’s retinue accompanying him on the hunt stopped also. Abelar was still almost a child. He had been raised since birth by kind hearted monks in the forest monastery. Therefore, no evil thought had entered his young heart. When he saw the modest beauty of the girl, huddled in the midst of music, a sudden fire seized his heart. Abelar took the girl and brought her with him to the castle, the very same castle behind which stretched the garden, at the end of which was the cliff with the cave, in which the solitary candle must have long ago burned out.

The girl was dressed in brocade and began to experience life as a noble. Time passed and there was a wedding. “Conjugal love is the purest one,” the ladies of the court sang, while weaving white roses into a wreath.

The priest asked: “Do you promise to stay faithful until you die?”

“Yes, we do.”

The pipes on the chancel burst into jubilant song, and the girl became the queen. As usually happens, however, the king soon became troubled about royal matters. The neighbouring ruler invaded the king’s territory and gained control of the king’s ore mines, which were the richest in the whole country. “I am going to declare war,” stated the king.

“Do not do that,” advised the queen. “You are burning with anger.

Turn your heart away from the fire of vengeance that prevails in it.”

Her voice trembled with anguish. “We are rich, and human blood is more valuable than the ore mines.”

“You are naive,” he laughed. “If I listened to you, we would soon become beggars.” He resolved not to discuss matters of the kingdom with his wife any more, and so he deluded her. His heart become colder and slowly drifted away from her.

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One night, when he embraced her, thorns pierced his hands. The blood was dripping on his robe, and he, unable to comprehend, kept looking from his hands to the queen and to his hands again.

“She is a witch,” decided the royal counsellors. “In the interests of the kingdom, she must be burned to death.” Abelar suffered, but still, he ordered her to be imprisoned. “I have made a mistake,” he admitted. “The music infatuated me, but now I have to behave as a king and defend the interests of my nation.” In spite of his reasoning, he was unable to sleep well.

One day, early in the morning, he saw an old man dressed in white setting the fires of dawn. He also thought he heard a voice saying, “She is innocent, and you are guilty.” Somewhere in the distance he heard the soft tones of a harp. It was the same song that he had heard on the hunt many years ago. He rose from his bed and set off after the sound. Through a narrow stairway, he stepped underground.

The music became stronger. The notes led him to the cell where his queen was confined. She sat facing the barred window, looking into Seanlian’s face and playing her old song.

“Who are you?” asked the king, when she noticed that he was watching her. This was the one question he had not dared to ask her.

The girl lifted her faded eyes to him. “I do not know. I do not have a name. I was born inside the rocky cliffs. The old woman who raised me died, and her two friends gave me special gifts. This harp has the power to awaken goodness in the heart of even the most wicked person. The second gift, however, is my curse. The hands of anyone who touches me with an evil thought are pierced by thorns of the wild forests.”

The colour left his face. He remembered everything that had been in his heart, when his own hands had been wounded by the thorns.

“My queen,” he said, his voice trembling. “Your purity has divided us.

I have never loved anyone like you. My mind, however, is weak and sometimes the most sinister thoughts intrude. If we stay together, we will cause each other more suffering than joy.” He took her to the courtyard, illuminated by moonlight. “Take horses, a carriage, as many clothes, and as much gold and jewellery as you want.”

“No,” she replied. “I came with nothing. I will leave with nothing.”

She turned around and did not look back, while he watched her disappear into the night fragrant with thyme.

Years later, the Sun beheld her on a different road. “Where will you go?” the Sun asked and caressed her body, pale as a petal of a wild rose.

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“Nowhere,” the girl said. “I do not have a home in this world.” She lay down on the dried, summer grass and exhaled for the last time.

Draganur, Brother of the Mountains, and Seanlian, Brother of the Dawn, were the only ones grieving at her meagre funeral. One of them put thorny wreaths on her small body; the other covered it with a veil embroidered with tiny, white flowers of light.

“I am delighted to see you again.” The Sun smiled at the wild rose bush that sprang up where her grave had been and poured a drop of fragrance into each of its white cups.

This was the very same bush in front of which I stopped to listen to this fairy tale.

Daniel Pastircˇák (1959) is a poet, prose-writer and essayist. He graduated with a degree in Protestant theology in Bratislava, Slovakia. He works as a preacher of the Free Evangelical church (Bratská cirkev). His book Damian’s River (1993) was listed on the List of Honour of the International Board of Books for Youth. His other books are Tehilim and Cintet; Christ in Brussels. Cintet was honoured as the best Slovak book of the year for youth. He is also engaged in art and has exhibited in galleries in Slovakia and abroad. His email address is pastirco@isternet.sk.

Rachael Weber

Looking Forward to the Past “Immanent and transcendent experience are nevertheless connected in a remarkable way: by a change in attitude, we can pass from the one to the other.”

Edmund Husserl

A boy pulls on his mothers’ hand; he holds up a clear glass Coke bottle for her to inspect. She continues looking ahead, not breaking her line of vision with the traffic light, her hand pressed into his back, urging him forward. His head keeps moving; he stretches, waving the bottle high for her attention. He puts the bottle mouth to his eye, turning his head this way and that. He looks up, through the bottle at the electric lines above. He bends down, inspecting the crack in the sidewalk through the glass. “Look, Mom,” he calls. Her hand still presses him forward; the walk light is green ahead. Looking to the side, examining a patch of grass with his bottle, he trips. She grabs his shirt in her fist, but he falls, throwing the glass bottle to the side. I wait for a cry, but instead he picks up the unbroken bottle, looks to his mother, and announces, “You can’t walk and look through a Coke bottle telescope at the same time.”

Yet, we walk, run, stumble, and run again with faded lenses, not able to see or understand (often pretending we do). A picture cannot capture a moment of change; one mind cannot fully penetrate another. Our senses experience, yet their memories limit observation.

Words and sound—to hear words aloud changes their interpretation (to listen through different ears does also). Another outside voice, other than the one within our minds, changes the sound, purpose, meaning, giving a variant interpretation and another filter, another life to the text.

I first presented a piece similar to this for an oral reading, combining poetry and prose, not liking the idea of my voice influencing the minds of the listeners, but desiring to play with this ancient tradition. An oral text, an oral poem, details felt yet written on the page—not necessarily meant to be read aloud. The puzzle is for the eyes (sight’s interpretation), and we are all listeners.

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Snapshots of comparison, articles of memory, reminders of hidden touches of lore.

Rustles of inspiration, crimson sashes, mustaches, slim waists, clickity bustle, hints of eternal aspiration.

Scrutinizing, self-despising. singing in, singing out, an unquieting din, aloud or silent.

Now and then, again the mute voices rise.

Reversed in the search for what, him, when, how, not found now, but almost, not so lost as before, but getting closer.

The rhymes are not worth the time to give them birth, but the eternal cycle tickles, dreaming of childhood past.

Grassy feathers waving up, tree peaks pointing heavenward, holes of mud and rock to bury disillusions and false conclusions.

The steady churning of the fan is silent background music, only the cars rush by, un-rhythmically. Yet in their failure to follow a uniform beat, the siren shrieks, the horn honks, the passing winds, all fulfill their own unordered rhythm—also blending into the silence of repetition. Nothing awakens John’s slumber but the wind—the wind blowing through the window, speeding the spinning wings of the fan, breaking the arrhythmic rhythm of his dreams. His eyes flutter, and his head jerks up. He searches for the clock; had he slept through his alarm? Four o’clock, three more hours yet. The spinning old fan heightens the resonance of the wind gusts, magnifying the sound as if rushing through his room at hurricane speed. The air is thick oversalted ice cream, and the whirling mixer is wearing out. But even the winds define their own patterns in the arrhythms of his room, and his head falls back to the embroidered pillow case.

John adjusts his pillow ten minutes before the blaring red numbers morph to 7:00. The time to lapse back to sleep is too short and his mind fades to snowy whiteness.

The blaring beeps out-scream every rhythm of his flat. 7:30. Cold air swathes him as he lifts blanketed layers, awakening his skin with thousands of pin pricks as he climbs out of bed. He parts the slats in the blinds with his fingers, breaking their horizontal uniformity. The light forces his eyes shut and he only wants to fall back on the bed.

But his shirt is ironed; his bike waits at the door. A bit of rushing, and a stack of papers at the office air will greet him at eight.

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Introduction

The metal poles from the construction take over more of the already narrow sidewalk. If John’s hands were not on the handlebars, he would plug his ears to block the drill and their yelling. Horrible desk, papers, computer—but at least he did not have to work construction, miserable working, the same thing, the same pounding. But his bike works well, weaving in and out, around the girl skipping ahead of her mother, who’s yelling for her to slow down. Around the man with a bag in one hand and a cane in another. Between the pile of dirt and the pole and around the hole. When will the drilling, the dust end?

Past a girl walking with a bounce to the beat of her headphones, the sidewalk is empty. Open. The front wheel twists on the corner of the pole. His weak ankle is crunched beneath the spokes.

One drill stops: “Ok?” “Yeah,” he sneezes and looks up to bottom of the wooden planks above. No neatly pressed shirt today.

The hand that held the drill reaches out, lifting him up. His hand is dry; John can feel the grains of sawdust pressed against his skin and floating in the air. But his eyes bounce, reflecting sun; they are not bored from hammering, not tired, not squinting in the morning light.

… in the beginning again …

“I am running away,” John says, shaking beside his bike, angry to be grounded from TV again, but older now because his father had taken the training wheels off his bike yesterday.

“I am taking a nap,” his father says, staring at John’s brown curls and on, to the neighbor’s long green field beyond.

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“I am running away. For good.” John stomps his feet, grounding his tennis shoes into the gravel.

“Well, dinner is at 6:30,” his dad says as he turns to walk back into the house, pulling a low-hanging apple from one of the trees.

John runs to the shed, hopping over the extending tree roots and jerks open the door, breaking the wooden peg holding the latch.

Thrusting his body back, he jerks on the seat of his bright blue bike and scrapes his calf on the pedal of his father’s much larger bike. He pulls up and out, untangling his bike from the spokes of his father’s.

Breathing heavily from his tug-of-war, he swings onto the bike, pedaling hard across the grass. He stops, looking up at the apple tree; food for the trip. No apples within reach again. The gravel bounces under his wheels and he focuses ahead, to the maple tree at the end of the driveway.

Reaching the towering tree John slows down; he is not going back ever. He has pedaled all the way over the hill and he is not allowed to go past the end of the driveway. Dropping his bike down in the sprinkling of grass at the gravels edge, he squats to the ground, curling against the base of the maple tree. He is never going back.

He notices a half-cherry-half-maroon trail meandering down his calf and his eyes begin to tear. But he is not going back for a band aid.

His breathing evens out, sucking breaths not coming so often, and John wishes he would have brought his football with him. He rises, brushing the clinging leaves from the back of his pants, and begins to gather the golden and burnt red leaves into a pile, a bed because he is not going back. As he bends over again and again, his stomach begins to rumble; it must be almost dinner time and Dad was going to grill. He abandons his leaf pile and lumbers over to his bike. He climbs on and begins to pedal back up the hill, back over the gravel toward home, because never does not always mean forever.

… in the beginning again …

“Good morning,” the radio announcer sings, her cheery voice cutting through the stale office air.

“Please open a window, Sarah—stuffy in here.” John says, looking to the stack of papers to the right. One by one he must go through them. By lunch, he would be halfway, but in the afternoon—finished.

Hopefully.

“Good morning to you too,” Sarah calls; the screeching of the window latch hurts his ears. “Have a good evening?”

“It was okay,” he says, dreading the sound, which will fill the office when he turns the computer on.

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“Same here,” she slides into the next desk. “Hear back about that job application yet?”

“No,” he reaches for the first paper.

“Will you stay if you do not get it?” Sam asks from the next desk.

“That is hypothetical,” John sets the paper down and stands. He cannot begin yet. He pours coffee into the filter; the smell wakes him more than the taste.

“But you turned it in this time?” Sam asks again, turning his computer on. John knocks his elbow against the counter at the sound.

“Hhhmmmm,” John mumbles; the deadline was not till tomorrow.

The lines, “What is your long term vision?” scroll across his vision.

The blank white space below the question is on the application, lying to the right of his computer. How could they ask him that? But he will not look; maybe it will be answered with rolling script, miraculously.

Morning light from the window illuminates the power button on his own computer; he must push it. Another day, again.

… in the beginning again …

He pulls his step ladder to the tree side, the bottom rung bangs against his knees as it catches on clumps of grass. Balancing as he climbs, he reaches up, stretching, holding the apple’s stem, while trying to untangle the tape. John pulls and the tape sticks together; he pulls and falls to the ground, a jagged root cutting into his skin. He bites his bottom lip. One apple, Dad said, one apple without worms and he would not cut down the trees. Wiping away the blood, he stands, back up the ladder. The noise of the tape peeling off the roll echoes in the cricketing night, and he holds his arm steady. There will be an apple in the morning. He tapes round and round the branch and over the stem from the apple from the basket in the kitchen.

Mom had never bought apples in the summer before.

The sun wakens him. He looks to the window. One apple hanging on the tree. But his foot ladder—left outside. Dad will know, he might see, he will know it was not natural.

… in the beginning again …

“Oooww…” John yells.

“What happened?” Sarah calls from down the hall; the echoes of her fingernails clicking on the keyboard follow her voice.

“Nothing,” he murmurs, his finger in his mouth, the taste of blood on his tongue. He braces the packet of paper towels between his stomach and the counter; the plastic is sealed, wrapped tightly. Of

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course there would be no more tissues, when the knife slipped from the carrot. His finger bounces off the plastic as he tries again to pierce through. Damned plastic. But the knife is right where he dropped it; he slits the plastic open and presses his finger against the fresh blue floral printed roll.

“Coming again tomorrow night? It will be better this time, I promise.” Sam asks.

“Better be,” John says, sliding back to his desk. The paper towel slides from his hand, blood smears on a paper.

“Ahhhhh, got blood on the work.”

“At least you will not have to prepare the food for yourself for dinner,” Sam says.

His finger in his mouth; he picks up the paper. It is not full of numbers, but a red smear through the blanks lines, and covering the end of vision?

… in the beginning again …

John sits up. “Do you hear that?” Grant passed a note in geometry that it was not safe at Henry’s; John needed to watch when he fell asleep.

“What?” Henry turns to his side.

“That sawing sound.”

“That is just Dad. He is finishing up on a project.” Henry closes his eyes. John tries to close his eyes, but the sound rises, louder and louder.

“What is he making?” John cannot sleep.

“Hmmmmm…, a table I think; or cutting up the one he made before.”

“Why cutting?” John imagines the wood falling to pieces, bouncing off the ground.

“So he can use the wood again. Of course.”

The sawing rises and falls, fading into the silence; but then there is a ticking against the wall.

“Henry … what is tapping?”

“Mom, putting cups out for breakfast.”

Something is making his nose itch: the smell. Grant warned him about it at lunch.

“What is that smell?” John asks again.

Henry breathes in, “I don’t smell anything.”

John breathes in again; he does not smell anything either.

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… in the beginning again …

The white screen, the scrolling numbers, his mind is blank yet filled with unconscious calculations. “Almost finished?” Sarah calls from around the corner, her voice high, cheery. “Yes,” John shuts his eyes, the moisture of the lids soothing them from the artificial brightness.

Forcing his eyes wide against the glaring white screen, he focuses again on the scrolling numbers. His finger hurts to bend, to stretch to the keys. How many does he push each minute? How many each hour? But he will not calculate that, just ask.

Must double-check the numbers: their numbing blackness against the white, against the grey-blocked spreadsheet. The dates are right, the amounts. Check again. Command S. Command P., and he will be free.

But the music of the printer stops, jarring. P-a-p-e-r j-a-m scrolls across the screen and he cannot go home yet.

His fist hits the wood, shaking the desk, knocking the papers to the floor.

“Okay, John?” Sarah calls, leaning over to help him gather papers.

“Printer …” The desk is now littered, where papers were neatly piled once before. One shove and all this.

“John … what is this?” She holds the application; the red spot mocks him. “I thought you turned it in.”

“I can tomorrow.”

“But John … you want this right? You have talked about applying for a year?”

“Yeah … but …” He takes it from her, folds it in half, and tucks it under the keyboard.

… in the beginning again …

A motor runs outside: a constant sound in the silent night until it stops. The new quiet hurts his ears and he awakens, lifting to the window. Why the change? A tree lies on its side; white blossoms reflecting the street light above. The dim figure of his father looks down to the ground. The leaves of the neighbor’s tree blow in the wind over the stone wall. The moonlight shimmers on its green leaves, spilling over the fence, and onto the neighbor’s lone fruit. His father’s arm hangs limp; the motor silent.

His father’s arm pulls back, looking towards the next tree. John pushes his face to the glass, closer, yet he plugs his ears and squeezes his eyes. The motor silent; his father walks back to the house; the second tree still standing.

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Rachael W eber : Looking Forward to the Past

… in the beginning again …

John carries his bike down the steps of the underpass. His weaker ankle aches with each step from the morning fall. The red of the spray paint was still visible in the dimming light, the orange of the sky against the black-grey-brown of the metro steps.

“So we will go after work tomorrow?” Sam asks. A man sits, his arms tattooed and upraised, his chest moving, a hymn flowing out “He was pierced …” His voice echoes off the curses graffitied on the opposite concrete wall and almost rattles the cup face-up before his knees. John nods. The man’s eyes are shut, his face upraised, his lips moving and calling.

“Maybe we can leave early because today …” Sam raises his voice.

John looks to his friend’s moving lips and keeps walking. He sidesteps the water stream running down the concrete steps on the other side. “We are healed …” the voice echoes into the outside air.

… in the beginning again …

Her fingernails dig into his shoulder, pushing him to the left. John’s mom always made him cut his fingernails. But according to the rules, he cannot talk. His foot catches on a root. “Do not drag your feet,” she says. The moisture, humidity of the handkerchief covering his face, makes him feel as though he was suffocating. He steps down, the leafy ground gives and his ankle cracks. “I told you to step over the hole,” she yells. He feels her hand on his shoulder: “Do not touch me.” This game was supposed to be fun. Building trust; but why was he stuck with her? Everyone knew she always lied because of the way her eye twitched. But with the blindfold, he could not watch her eye.

“John, Lydia, be careful!” Ms. Samuels yells. “John, you have to listen to her!”

… in the beginning again …

Squinting and unsquinting, the shadows moving as John bikes past building after building. Two hours till he is watching the movie in bed. Seven and a half more till he wakes up to ride back again. Then dinner with Sam and friends. Why waste the time in between, the going back and forth, back and forth. Why not stay at work? What is the purpose of the in between?

The grocery store is still open. Light shines to the dimmer streets.

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The green post sticks out of the curb. Why? So cars do not run up on the sidewalk. A ball of hair sits against the pole. What is it? A body lays, spread out beyond. Is the boy okay? It is not a boy, it is older.

Its leg is wrinkled and outstretched. A blue vein from far away. A foot twitches. A hand clenches and unclenches, sticking up in the air.

She is mumbling. Is she drunk? Did she have a stroke? He leans over, extending an arm, at least to pull her from edge of the curb. Her hand flies up, striking his face; he inhales her alcoholic breath and jerks his arm away, rushing past. She might not want the help and he wants to go home, only ten hours till work begins again.

… in the beginning again …

“If you could be anything, what would you be when you grow up?”

Liz asks him, her fifth grade braids making her look like Heidi on the movie cover.

He turns from his seat on the ground, on the other side of the apple tree. “Singer,” John says, knowing she knows, “and a songwriter.”

“If not a singer?” she asks, clapping her hands for no reason.

“I will be a singer,” he nods his head, standing as he looks up to the green branches above.

“Wonder if you cannot ... wonder if you lose your voice and cannot even speak?”

“Liz, that is a hypothetical question.”

“What is a hypothetical question?” she asks. He swings, hooking his feet over the lower branches. She cannot get up this high.

“Look,” she says. She has an apple core in her palm. “I am planting it.” She walks to the stump nearby and pulls at the grass. “Promise you will water it.”

“It will not grow there.” He is hanging upside down.

“Promise?”

“But it will not.” He swallows, feeling the blood pooling in his head.

“But I want my own apple tree.”

Another voice yells from inside. “Your mom is calling.” He looks down at her.

“Promise,” she asks from below.

“Go.” He swings down, the bark digging into his hands.

“We can pick apples next year … then this tree will be small and I will reach the branches too,” she calls, running into the house.

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… in the beginning again …

His finger is pinched between his heel and the fake leather sole of his sandal. Just a little farther and the rock will be out. John licks his finger, blood from his heel mixed with the dust of the road; Sam is motioning him from ahead. The flavor of the cut lingers on his tongue and his mind clears.

“That is it,” John yells.

“Hmmm? Hurry up. We will miss the next bus ahead,” Sam says, turning around in front of him.

“That’s it ...” John gets up, jogging forward, the pebble bouncing down the street.

“What?” Sam asks, walking faster, the bus is rounding the corner.

“That guy talking … the violence of love …” John calls, reaching to secure his sandal strap again.

“Hurry … You’re thinking about the metro guy?” Sam jogs to the street edge. “The bus is almost here.”

“But don’t you see …” A car blocks his speech.

“Nonsense. But he will be there again tomorrow if you want to talk to him,” Sam calls, jogging to the other side of the road.

“Just wait … let me explain …” John follows.

A brush of wind; his hands digging into the gravel. Stones in his head. “John,” a voice yells. “John.”

Feet stop.

“Are you okay?”

Hands pull. He slides. There is a weight in his head. “I am fine.”

“But … walking in the road … one second earlier and …”

Papers, never-ending, piled on his desk. He cannot go back and stare at the computer or find the almost finished application underneath the keyboard. Something else, somewhere. His car is packed full; borders of boxes and bags impinge on the view in his rearview window. John rolls down the window, letting the wind buffet his hair, penetrating through the bandage around the gash on his head and blowing back to the bags behind him. The alignment on this car is much better than that on his old one. He could take his hands off the wheel and this car would fly along, staying straight between the yellow lines and the roads edge. He does not constantly have to adjust the wheel, but straight means straight, not even a slight ten degree variance in the steering. What would happen, if he stayed straight, never placing his hand on the wheel to turn? Where would he end up, if he kept going straight, straight, regardless of roads and

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fences and houses and rivers? Wonder if he could just keep going and going and going? Gliding over and over and over? Was that a hypothetical question?

‌ in the beginning again ‌

The lions silent, the lambs cry not (in the beginning again) when the air smelled of green and the sky glint as citrus when two interplayed in the singing of crickets and cleanliness of soil when understanding was a clear cold pool and listening was eternal before plot and mishap, murder and consequence before trees had rings and lights extended the day before jealousy and fruit, envy and sacrifice before the power of one took the lives of others before the only way to discern right was to win war over the wrong when the day was light and the night was dark without interruption when one tongue was intelligible to another ear before the story is known and the end has been written In the beginning again death unreal with the cry of an infant a simple phrase, but the inability of expression.

How to start over?

When is the beginning again?

Rachael Weber currently lives in Budapest, Hungary where she works as a publications intern for the WSCF Europe region and as the CESR coordinator. She is from Virginia, USA and she graduated in 2006 from James Madison University with a degree in English Language and Literature. Her email address is weberrl@gmail. com.

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On Eucharistic Sharing: A Statement of the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF) (Approved by the General Assembly in Písek, July 2007) (Edited by Nagypál Szabolcs and Rudolf Weth)

I. Steps towards the Visible Unity of the Church 1. The International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF) was founded

through the powerful mission and vision of the Fribourg Statement (1967): “By prayer, study and action, the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF) seeks to serve the movement towards the visible unity of the Church according to the expressed will of Jesus Christ by the means He wills.”

2. We, as members of IEF, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of our foundation, remain very grateful for the enriching and blessed decades of special experiences of unity in the Spirit. Step by step, IEF has developed from an ecumenical movement into an ecumenical fellowship, recognising each other as sisters and brothers in the Body of Jesus Christ, on the basis of one baptism.

3. Since its conception, by discovering and practising oneness in Jesus Christ, we as Christians from different denominations have striven to live today the Church of tomorrow with joy, hope and love.

4. We live this unity in IEF by means of the annual international conferences, in meetings of the national regions and smaller local

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groups, through ecumenical contacts and activity between laity and clergy, in cooperation with national ecumenical structures and other ecumenical organisations, and particularly through common prayer and worship. All of these events are opportunities to show true Christian love for each other.

5. Common prayer and worship together is at the core of IEF: this is where we become one with God and with each other, experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in healing and liberating actions, and in community building.

6. Beside these positive aspects, we also share the pain that the full communion of churches and worship is not yet given, because human sin and limitations in our churches hinder the converting and transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

7. Cheap ecumenism is not for us; neither is cheap common faith, which costs nothing. On the contrary, we believe in and live out a costly ecumenism, where – true to the words of Jesus Christ to His Father, “that they all may be one” (John 17,21) – we risk challenging and being challenged.

8. In common prayer and worship together, we enjoy the rich diversity of liturgical traditions of other denominations and of the Church as a whole, in the unity that exists already among us. But it

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is precisely through this experience that we come to recognize our division, specifically when invited to the Lord’s Table.

9. The Eucharist, instituted by Jesus Christ Himself, is the most powerful expression of unity in the Body of Christ, and the source and summit of all Christian life. Division is most painful at this point, where we have to feel and recognize the scandal of fragmented Christianity and our failure to live out fully the words of Jesus Christ: “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many” (Matthew 26,28).

10. Therefore, searching, finding and developing new solutions to overcome the scandal of division at the Eucharist has to be a clear priority for the mission and vision of IEF, in order to witness authentically as a movement towards the visible unity of the Church.

II. Spiritual and Pastoral Recommendations on Eucharistic Sharing A. Spiritual and Pastoral Recommendations 11. The churches we belong to take different positions with respect to Eucharistic sharing, which are based on various theological approaches (see paras. 26−36). Taking these denominational stances into consideration, we are aware that a responsible approach of Eucharistic Sharing requires a clearer understanding of the core of our faith, not leaving aside the questions of ministry, ordination, episcopal and synodal structure, apostolic tradition and succession.

12. Considering all these, our spiritual and pastoral recommendation concerning Eucharistic Sharing is the following: Whether one accepts the invitation of Jesus Christ to share in His Body and Blood in a given celebration is principally a responsible and personal decision of conscience, to be taken in respect of the disciplines and regulations of one’s own church and those of the others.

B. Tradition, Communion and Decision of Conscience 13. We stand in the Tradition and Communion of our respective churches. We are faithful to their current regulations, which we are called to respect, consider and follow.

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14. Among the main Protestant and Anglican denominations there are important agreements concerning Eucharistic celebrations, with recommendations for intercommunion and Eucharistic hospitality.

These are open to all baptised members who are entitled to take part in the Eucharist in their own churches.

15. These Eucharistic celebrations at international conferences are not only an expression of the faith and liturgy of different churches, but they are also a mirror of the evolving gifts of unity, love, joy and communion in the Holy Spirit.

16. Eucharistic Sharing always requires a responsible and personal decision of conscience, since the voice of our conscience must be followed by each of us. In this case our conscience must be well informed, taking into account the rules and regulations of our own church.

17. At international conferences, apart from the denominational Eucharistic services, it is suggested to have a Eucharistic celebration according to the ecumenical Lima Liturgy.

C. Spiritual and Pastoral Care 18. The responsible and personal decision of conscience must be respected. Furthermore, we, whether laity or clergy, must be provided, if wished, with the spiritual and pastoral care and support of the community, following our decision of conscience.

19. We are called to use our wisdom, discernment and sense of faith in all cases, regarding whether there is a serious spiritual and ecumenical need to share the Eucharist. When the decision of conscience results in following the discipline of our own church, we should never be labelled unecumenical. On the other hand, when it results in following the invitation of Eucharistic hospitality, we should never be considered as less faithful towards our own church.

D. Eucharistic Hospitality 20. In the Roman Catholic Eucharist at IEF international conferences, as a principle, there is no open invitation expressed for non-Catholic participants to receive the Eucharist, unless the local bishop decides otherwise. Neither, however, is there a prohibition expressed; but rather permission should be practised, based on the rules of the Ecumenical Directory (ED, 1993). This is the usual practice of many Roman Catholic dioceses and communities.

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21. According to the Second Vatican Council (1962−1965), there are different intermediate degrees of (partial) church communion, between full church separation and full church communion. This gives rise to the question whether intermediate forms between refusal of the Eucharist and full Eucharist communion might be possible, advisable, and even necessary, in accordance with the agreements in the understanding of the Eucharist reached in the official church dialogues and corresponding to the already existing rapprochement of the churches.

22. The expression Eucharistic hospitality conveys the view that, although full church communion has not yet been reached, such a degree of agreement in faith has been obtained that an admission to the Eucharist can be justified.

23. When the Second Vatican Council affirms that “worship in common (communicatio in sacris) is not to be considered as a means to be used indiscriminately for the restoration of Christian unity”, it recognises that at least in certain circumstances it might be properly used as a means for the restoration of Christian unity. It even states that “with due regard to all the circumstances of time, place, and persons, it is to be decided prudently by local episcopal authority” (Unitatis Redintegratio 8.). Hence we humbly wish that the local Roman Catholic bishop makes use of his power to decide with prudence whether the circumstances are appropriate to consider the Roman Catholic Eucharist, celebrated on the exceptional occasion of an IEF Conference, as a means for the restoration of Christian unity, inviting our sisters and brothers from other churches to the Eucharistic table.

III. The Prophetic Responsibility of IEF 24. Many of us come from interdenominational and interchurch families, which try to live their vocation in a consciously ecumenical way. We share with other ecumenical organisations a deep social and spiritual commitment.

25. As an ecumenical movement, the International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF) has a special prophetic responsibility in reminding, calling on and even challenging our churches to work more effectively for the visible unity of the Church, and to live already today the Church of tomorrow, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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IV. Summary of Current Denominational Stances and Ecumenical Agreements 26. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there have been many bilateral and multilateral dialogues between churches and denominations, which resulted in, among other things, an epochmaking turn from closed Communion towards open or partially open Communion. Let us look at the related developments in the three main branches of Christianity.

A. Intercommunion and Intercelebration: Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic Churches 27. Among major Protestant denominations (Lutheran, Reformed, and United), full altar and pulpit fellowship was established in Europe by the Leuenberg Concord (1973), overcoming and transcending previous separations.

28. A similarly important achievement is the Meissen Declaration (1988), and above all the Porvoo Agreement (1994), between many Anglican and Lutheran churches.

29. There has been an opening up in the field of intercommunion, by allowing members of other churches, who are baptised and entitled to take part in the Eucharist in their own church, to participate in each other’s celebration of the Eucharist.

30. Together with this, there has been a continuous opening up of the Eucharistic Communion by intercelebration, by welcoming ministers of other churches to lead the Eucharistic celebration. This has existed between Anglicans and the Old Catholics since the Bonn Agreement (1931).

31. Following the Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM) document (Lima, 1982) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), there have been various bilateral and multilateral dialogues and documents between Old Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Reformed and others, resulting in a gradual opening up of intercommunion.

B. The Blessed Bread of Friendship: Orthodox Churches 32. In most of the Orthodox traditions the participation of nonOrthodox in the Eucharist is not allowed in principle, because the Eucharist normally implies full ecclesial communion. Everyone is invited, however, to take part in the Divine Liturgy, and at the end of

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the celebration to receive the blessed bread of friendship (antidoron) from the hands of the priest.

C. Worship in Common (communicatio in sacris): Roman Catholic Church 33. The Roman Catholic church shares with other churches the basic notion that Eucharistic Communion requires full Church communion.

With the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio, 1964) of the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic church opened herself up more than ever before for communion with Christians of other churches, and the desire, hope and prospect of Eucharistic Communion has been awakened. The argumentation of the document is the following: 34. Persons “who believe in Jesus Christ and have been truly baptized, are in communion with the Roman Catholic church, even though this communion is imperfect“ (UR 3).

35. “Baptism establishes a sacramental bond of unity which links all who have been reborn by it. But of itself baptism is only a beginning, an inauguration wholly directed toward the fullness of life in Jesus Christ. Baptism, therefore, envisages a complete profession of faith, a complete incorporation in the system of salvation such as Jesus Christ willed it to be, and finally a complete engrafting in eucharistic communion” (UR 22).

36. The principles of the UR are developed further in the Ecumenical Directory (1993) in the following way: “The sharing of spiritual activities and resources must reflect the double fact: first, the real communion in the life of the Holy Spirit, which already exists among Christians and is expressed in their prayer and liturgical worship; and second, the incomplete character of this communion because of differences of faith and understanding, which are incompatible with an unrestricted mutual sharing of spiritual endowments. Fidelity to this complex reality makes it necessary to establish norms for spiritual sharing, which take into account the diverse ecclesial situations of the churches and ecclesial communities involved, so that, as Christians esteem and rejoice in the spiritual riches they have in common, they are also made more aware of the necessity of overcoming and transcending the separations, which still exist” (ED 104).

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Worship for Overcoming Nationalism, Xenophobia and Populism (Edited by Rebecca Blocksome) I. Invocation Leader: We gather in the name of God, the Creator, the Liberator and the Sustainer.

All: Amen.

II. Call to Worship and Act of Praise How good and how lovely it is,

To live together in unity.

If the Lord’s disciples keep silent,

These stones would shout aloud.

Surely it is God, Who saves me,

I will trust in God and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense,

And God will be my Saviour.

Make God’s deeds known among the peoples;

See that they remember that God’s Name is exalted.

Sing praises of the Lord, for God has done great things and is known in all the world.

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, for the Great One in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

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III. Confession and Promise of Forgiveness

What shall we say in Your presence, You, Who dwell on high? What shall we declare to You, Who are in Heaven beyond? For You know things secret as well as revealed. You know the mysteries of the Universe and the unconscious thoughts of everyone alive.

You search the innermost parts, You watch our motives and our passions. Nothing is concealed from You. Nothing is hidden from Your gaze.

For sins which we ourselves have committed and for sins of omission, for sins of our hands and sins of our hearts, for the hurt we have caused you and our neighbours through ignorance or indifference, O God of Abraham,

Have mercy on us.

For failure to see your image in someone who is different, O God of Sarah,

Have mercy on us.

For putting our own welfare and social comfort above the basic needs of others, O God of Jacob,

Have mercy on us.

For our reluctance to get involved, O God of Rachel,

Have mercy on us.

For being grateful that we are in some way superior to another, O God of Leah,

Have mercy on us.

For teaching that it is better to receive than to give, O God of Sinai,

Have mercy on us.

For the failure of Your Church to be light in the darkness, O God of Calvary,

Have mercy on us.

Amen.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for the Lord’s compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for the Lord.” (Lamentations 3,22–24)

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IV. In the Lord I’ll be ever Thankful (Song) V. Confession of Faith (Hispanic Creed by Justo González) We believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Creator of peoples and cultures, Creator of languages and races.

We believe in Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord, God made flesh in a human being for all human beings, God made flesh in a moment for all ages, God made flesh in a culture for all cultures, God made flesh in love and grace for all creation.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, Through which God incarnated in Jesus Christ, Is present in our people and in our culture, For which God the Creator of all that exists, Empowers us to be new creatures, Who with infinite gifts makes us one people, The body of Jesus Christ.

We believe in the Church, Universal as a sign of the coming Kingdom, More faithful as more colourful she appears, Where all colours paint one landscape, Where all languages sing one praise.

We believe in the coming Kingdom, joyful day, Where all the colours of creation Will be united in a rainbow of harmony, When all the peoples on Earth Will be united in a banquet of joy, When all languages in the Universe Will be united in a choir of praise.

And because we believe, we commit ourselves To believe for those who do not believe, To love for those who do not love, To dream for those who do not dream, Until what we expect becomes a reality. Amen.

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VI. Scripture Reading Genesis 17,1–8

/ Acts 2,1–12

VII. O Lord Hear My Prayer (Intercessions) IIX. Dedication

We thank you, Father, for the encounter, which lies before us, and which we now begin in Your Name. Give us quiet in our minds and seriousness in the depths of our hearts; be near to us every day in the word and in the Spirit. Bless our speaking and our listening, that our hearts may be ready for Your Word. Bless our fellowship, that we may help each other into the truth and on to You, in the common unity of the Spirit. Come, O Lord, and visit us. Be in the midst of us, living and saving.

Lord, let us accept calmly all that this week might bring us and let us devote ourselves completely to Your sacred will. Direct us and help us each hour of this day and week. Control our thoughts and feelings in all our deeds and words. When unpredictable circumstances arise, do not let us forget that everything comes from You. Teach us to be just towards our sisters and brothers, never to provoke wrath or cause sorrow. Control our will and teach us to pray, to believe, to hope, to suffer, to forgive and to love.

Lord, let us be an instrument of Your peace; where there is hatred, let us spread love; where there are insults, forgiveness; where there is discord, unity; hope, where there is despair; light, where there is darkness; joy, where there is sadness.

O, Divine Teacher, let us give, rather than receive, consolation, let us understand others, rather than be understood, let us love others, rather than be loved. For when we forgive, we are forgiven, when we give, we receive, and when we die, we are born into eternal life.

Holy Spirit, help us to dedicate this week to our Lord and Saviour.

Give us courage to serve You worthily, to place justice above profit, to realise noble deeds above momentary pleasures, to put others before ourselves, and to fulfil Your commandment of love. Let the light of Your beauty, goodness and love shine in us.

Lord Jesus, Son of God, it is better not to live than to live without You. We thank You, God, for the gift of this day and for all the blessings You have bestowed on us and through us. Let none of us escape Your call or miss Your peace. Into Your hands we commit ourselves. Bless our going out and our coming in, from this time forth and forever more. Amen.

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Introduction

IX. Lord’s Prayer X. Here I Am, Lord (Song) IX. Blessing May the blessing of the God of peace and justice be with us; May the blessing of the Son who weeps the tears of the world’s suffering be with us; And may the blessing of the Spirit who inspires us to reconciliation and hope be with us; From now unto eternity.

Amen.

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