Politics and faith

German Protestants tackled a number of controversial political issues at their biannual convention in Dresden on Friday, including Germany's phaseout of nuclear energy and the sexual abuse scandals that have turned many away from the church.

The 33rd Kirchentag ("Church Day") runs from June 1-5.

About 1,000 participants in a forum on nuclear energy on Friday passed a resolution calling for a transition out of nuclear power by 2017 - five years earlier than the government plans.

"The Kirchentag has a clear message for the government: transition out of nuclear power as fast as possible and without loopholes," said Pastor Klaus Breyer, the environment commissioner for the Protestant Church in Westphalia.

Over five days, the Kirchentag offers a number of events on issues of social justice, politics and spirituality. Germany's commissioner for victims of sexual abuse, Christine Bergmann, participated in a panel on the scandals, and German President Christian Wulff spoke to participants on the integration of immigrants.

Unlikely host

Dresden is an unlikely place to take in so many Christians at once - only about 20 percent of city residents are registered church members. But the city was the one to invite the Kirchentag there, said Silke Lechner, the Kirchentag director of studies.

"What we're particularly excited about is that so many people in Dresden are actively participating in this event, even though there are not that many who are active church members," she told Deutsche Welle. "Just to give an example, there are 12,000 people who live here who are hosting someone, one of the visitors that they didn't know before."

Lechner said ever since the founding of the Kirchentag in 1949, the idea behind it was that Christians should be taking an active role in making society more just.

"It was always the case that faith and politics belong together," she said. "So in a way, the Christians at the Kirchentag have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other."

Gays and the church

One issue that the Kirchentag is tackling this year as never before is homosexuality. While gays and lesbians are tolerated by many Protestant churches in Germany, they still often experience exclusion and discrimination.

Kerstin Söderblom is a theologian and pastor, and a lesbian. She is participating in two events at the Kirchentag to do with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and has been going to the Kirchentag for many years.

She said while gay men and lesbians have long had an official place at the Kirchentag, it was always pushed to the sidelines.

"I started off in small, safe spaces in the Women's Center of the Kirchentag - very hidden and very small corners where I dared to say that I'm a lesbian myself," she said.

"And many like me did it that way. And we would never be visible, and we would never take part in the real big church political discussions because we wouldn't dare to do that."

Breaking new ground

Only recently has the Kirchentag begun to treat homosexuality in an open and actively accepting way. On Saturday, Söderblom is sitting on a panel to discuss gays and the church, taking place in Dresden's enormous concert hall, the Kulturpalast.

Her angle in the discussion is what she calls the theology of diversity. Church activism is often split into compartments - by race, sexuality, gender or class, she said. But if those groups who are victimized by society - or the church itself - come together, they can be a much more effective agent for change.

"My hope is that those experiences, those best practice examples in the Kirchentag will then shine also beyond the Kirchentag, back home to the Christian parishes and congregations somewhere in Germany, and even beyond," she said.

Author: Andrew Bowen
Editor: Martin Kuebler