After rentzing's request for resignation

After rentzing's request for resignation

Bishop Carsten Rentzing © Norbert Neetz (epd)

After the resignation announcement of Saxony's Protestant Bishop Carsten Rentzing begins in the regional church the reappraisal. A Leipzig pastor continues to call for the bishop to distance himself from his past.

Following the announcement of the resignation of Saxony's Protestant Bishop Carsten Rentzing, the Leipzig pastor Frank Martin would like to see an intensive reappraisal of the past. "We have to see as a regional church how we deal with the matter and how we reposition ourselves in the social debate," Martin told the Evangelical Press Service (epd) in Leipzig on Monday. "Especially in view of the right-wing nationalist tendencies in the Saxon state parliament, we would have to take a clearer stand," he said.

Rentzing's past was not reviewed

Martin is one of a group of pastors who, in an online petition at the end of September, had called on Rentzing to distance himself "from all national, anti-democratic and anti-human ideologies" and from the New Right. The background was, among other things, a lecture by Rentzing in the Berlin "Library of Conservatism" in 2013, which is attributed to the environment of the movement. Furthermore, the authors demanded an explanation why Rentzing is still a member of a beating student fraternity today.

Regional church spokesman Matthias Oelke told the epd on Monday that neither Rentzing's past nor that of his three fellow candidates had been separately examined in the course of the 2015 bishop election. Rentzing's curriculum vitae with his theological studies and many years of parish ministry in the Erzgebirge region had not given any reason for this. The application process was "primarily about the present and the future of the church," Oelke said.

Rentzing had surprisingly announced his resignation

Critic Martin said he considers it "very problematic" if it is now being circulated in conservative church circles that Rentzing is "a Paul". "Paul has separated himself from his past. Rentzing has never done that," Martin emphasized. According to biblical tradition, the figure of Saul had changed from a persecutor of the first Christians to the successful missionary and theologian Paul.

On Friday, Bishop Rentzing had surprisingly announced his resignation. He wants to prevent damage to his church, he explained, writing: "Positions that I held 30 years ago, I no longer share today."The next day it became known that as a student from 1989 to 1992 he had written texts in the magazine "Fragmente" and had also co-edited the journal.

"Texts unjustifiable from the point of view of that time and today"

The leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony classified the texts as "elitist, in parts nationalistic and anti-democratic". They were "unjustifiable from the point of view of that time and from the point of view of today". Nothing about a right-wing extremist or nationalistic way of thinking Rentzing had been known in the church public so far, the regional church explained further. All the more "disturbing" are the texts that have now become known.

The bishop is currently on vacation. The church leadership wants to decide on 21. October to decide on further steps. Formally Rentzing remains in office until then. His duties will be taken over by deputy Thilo Daniel. Rentzing has been repeatedly criticized for years. The theologian, who is considered conservative, rejects, among other things, the blessing of homosexual couples and has been repeatedly criticized for not taking a clear position on the rise of the AfD party. In 2015, he had only been elected bishop by a narrow majority by the regional synod.

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Christina Cherry
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