Who is behind the AfD? What does the AfD want? Is she an electable alternative for Christians? The two major churches in Germany are concerned about the debate on this ie, especially after the predicted entry of the AfD into the Bundestag.
"We want to permanently preserve human dignity, the family with children, our occidental Christian culture, our language and tradition in a peaceful, democratic and sovereign nation-state of the German people," it already says in the preamble of the AfD party program. Without a doubt, the AfD attaches importance to a closeness to Christianity and its values.
In their party program, AfD politicians rail against an "egalitarianism of the sexes" and an alleged "sexualization of society". The traditional family is to be strengthened, while abortion and homosexual marriage are clearly rejected. These are positions that are not so far from those of the churches. "With us (in the party), Christian values are lived, represented and are also anchored programmatically," emphasizes AfD politician Beatrix von Storch on our site interview. It is hardly surprising that a federal association of "Christians in the AfD" (Chrafd) has been formed in the AfD.
Clear demarcation on the part of the churches
Other positions of the party, however, are difficult to reconcile with basic Christian values. Refugees are a major bogeyman and are vilified across the board, Islam – contrary to the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council – is not accepted as an equal religious community, there is no differentiation from radical Islam and the European idea is massively questioned. The delimiting nation-state is at the center of attention. Climate protection does not exist, because climate change is not taken seriously. These are all AfD positions that are incompatible with the world view of the Christian churches.
It is therefore hardly surprising that the churches are drawing a line under the AfD – as the chairman of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, did at the end of the spring plenary meeting of the bishops in Bergisch Gladbach: "It is not a matter of naming a party and then condemning all members of this party equally. That's not possible and as a bishop I'm not allowed to do that at all. Must look at content. Where xenophobia is propagated, for example, or when an entire world religion is condemned across the board, then a Christian does not belong there. To put one's own nation above the others, all these are things that do not belong in our Christian universalistic view."
Not only the archbishop of Munich sees it that way. Cologne Archbishop Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki is particularly disturbed by the AfD's rejection of Islam: "You have to let that roll off your tongue. An entire world religion is being pilloried," Cardinal Woelki emphasized to our site. There was and is also massive criticism of the AfD and its ideas from the Protestant side.
Margot Kabmann, the former chairwoman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), is even more explicit: "I cannot understand why someone who calls himself a Christian votes for the AfD when a party excludes others in such a way because of their origin. The crisis of the refugees, the racism that arises, nationalism. These are ies on which the church has something to say, because we know no national borders for our churches. But Christians live in all nations."
How to deal with the AfD? – Catholic side
But how do the lay movements of the two large churches deal with the AfD?? The position of the "Central Committee of German Catholics" (ZdK) is unambiguous in this respect. Like the Catholic bishops and a large number of Catholic associations, the ZdK also distances itself from the AfD in clear words. No AfD official was invited to a podium at the 2016 Katholikentag in Leipzig. A decision that brought both praise and criticism to the ZdK at the time.
For example, political scientist Werner Patzelt of the Technical University in Dresden criticizes the non-invitation of the AfD and the anti-AfD stance of the churches as a whole. He refers to the biblical parable of the good shepherd and the lost sheep. "It would be a task of churches to run after the lost sheep and to catch them again instead of saying, they are gone anyway, we will give them a kick behind. It seems to me that the churches have not always shown the right reaction patterns here," analyzes the political scientist in an interview with our site the behavior of the Catholic lay representation ZDK.
But dialogue with the AfD instead of exclusion? This is an attitude that the journalist and religion expert Christiane Florin can not understand. She heads the "Religion and Society" editorial department at Deutschlandfunk radio station in Cologne and has been working intensively on the topic for years. Florin doesn't think churches should "take this pastoral course" and say, 'Oh the poor, the outcasts, we must have understanding for that'. Florin: " No, there are limits, which are completely justified. And if you don't accept them, you don't have to talk to them," the DLF editor told our site. Dialogue from the official side she does not consider appropriate. And yet, the AfD would have been better invited to the Catholics' Day for tactical reasons, the journalist believes: "In my opinion, the AfD benefited from its exclusion from the Catholics' Day. It could fall back into its typical victim attitude, i.e. to say, nobody wants to talk to us, we are already excluded before we are even on a podium."
How to deal with the AfD? – Evangelical page
The Evangelical Church in Germany took a different line from the Catholics. Although the EKD also officially distanced itself from the right-wing populists. But at the Protestant Kirchentag 2017, the AfD was allowed to make its presence felt. Anette Schultner, chairwoman of the 'Bundesvereinigung Christen in der AfD' made it to a joint panel with Berlin Bishop Markus Droge.
Kirchentag president Christina Aus der Au justifies this by saying that "we always enter into dialogue. After all, the Kirchentag is the confrontation of Christians with social and political developments, and I believe that we cannot avoid dialogue," says the Kirchentag president in conversation with our site. She receives applause from DLF church expert Florin: "The Protestant Church Congress handled it better. I think it's better to take the bull by the horns and say, 'So, that's the question now and we're going to make that an ie'."The priority here is not to reinforce the AFD in its role as a victim. Officially, however, it will have to keep its distance as long as the AFD is not prepared to accept certain recognized social rules, such as dealing with Germany's National Socialist past.
Make the AfD a topic? Offer it a podium? Engaging in discourse with her? The debate on this ie is likely to continue to concern the two large churches in Germany – all the more so after the predicted entry of the right-wing populists into the Bundestag.