Christianity is on the decline

Professor Pollack, over the holidays, even under pandemic conditions, the churches in Germany are more full than ever during the year. At the same time, the approval of the hard content of the Christian creed was probably never as low as it is today, has it?

That’s correct. Approval for the dogmatic contents of the Christian faith has been declining for decades. In 1986, more than half of West Germans thought that Jesus was God’s Son, today only a little more than a third. When it comes to belief in the resurrection or the Trinity, approval is similarly low now. Many people differentiate between the ethical statements of Christianity that are still acceptable to them, such as the commandment to love one’s neighbor and the hard dogmatic core.

At least West Germany is not atheist.

No, in the West more than 60 percent still believe in God. However, 50 years ago it was more than 80 percent. And the conceptions of God in terms of content change. Today more people believe in a higher power than in God than a person as proclaimed in the Bible. 35 percent of West Germans imagine God as a higher power, only 27 percent as a personal counterpart. In this respect one can speak of a liquefaction of the ideas of transcendence.

Will the Christmas Christianity also disappear at some point? So the church attendance of members who otherwise never go to church services?

In principle, belief in God is very dependent on social confirmation. It always needs to be renewed through ritual interaction such as church services and prayers. When the social interaction of belief ceases, it flattens and dissolves. However, the practice of what you call Christmas Christianity is still fairly stable right now. In West Germany, attendance at Christmas services has remained almost constant for years, and in the East it is even increasing.

Why is that?

Christian customs are still deeply anchored in the population as cultural variables. Obviously, people do not want to do without these traditions. Christmas is celebrated as a family festival. For many, it’s just part of going to church with your loved ones at Christmas.

Why is it so different during the year? In earlier times of the pandemic there was an increase in religious practice. Need teaches prayer, knew the saying. That no longer seems to apply today. The number of people leaving the church continues.

In the past, the churches dared to interpret social crises theologically, for example as God’s punishment or as a call to repentance. Today the big churches forego – it is different with the small free church communities – to interpret the world as a whole. They provide impetus for everyday reflection and reflection on the way we lead our lives, but no longer see themselves as an authority to convey a worldview or worldview. They no longer direct missionary appeals to people who would not go down well with them, but are content with accompanying people in their lives and being there for them when necessary.

Until when was that different?

Until the 1960s. After the Second World War, for example, the churches interpreted National Socialism and its crimes as the result of apostasy from God and combined this with the call to return to the faith.

2022 could be the year in which, for the first time in the history of Germany, less than half of the people will belong to one of the major churches. Is it only the reunification with the de-Christianized East to blame?

No, but of course it played a role that in 1990 a largely de-churched and de-Christianized part of the country joined the Federal Republic. The old Federal Republic, on the other hand, was shaped by a culture of denominational affiliation until its end. Before reunification, around 83 percent of German citizens still belonged to the church, although in West Germany too, especially in Protestantism, church membership had decreased over the decades. Since reunification, however, the norm of denomination, which was still valid in the West before 1990, has almost disappeared. Dechurchification has now also reached the Catholic Church.

So the west is getting closer to the east?

Yes. Even in the west today only a little more than 60 percent are church members, in the east their share is around 20 percent. We are thus approaching a tipping point in Germany as a whole, from which the secularization of the church is likely to accelerate. We know this effect from many countries, for example from the Netherlands, where the church milieus seemed stable until the 1950s and, with the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the proportion of church members first reduced from 75 to 60 percent and then within a relatively short period of time Time shrunk to 30 percent. Germany could face a similar development.

What does it do to a society from a sociological point of view when the religious landscape changes so fundamentally?

For many people, the increasing secularization of the church is an experience of the loss of cultural homeland. Up until a few decades ago, the two churches shaped the culture across the board in the West. Many experienced them as intact in their childhood. And at least in West Germany you don’t even have to be very old to do this.

The values ​​of a society are not unaffected either, are they?

This has an impact on certain questions such as marriage, the gender order or the affirmation of self-development values. From a sociological point of view, however, you don’t have to worry that the ethical groundwater level will immediately drop with de-Christianization. The ethical contents of Christianity such as love for one’s neighbor or justice still enjoy a very high level of acceptance. They penetrated society and live on today in a secular form, for example as solidarity or fairness.

In a way, Christianity has thus become a victim of its success.

That’s how you can say it. Max Weber, for example, advocates precisely this thesis that modern societies have adopted and transformed religious motifs and now continue to exist without a religious foundation.

Until recently, Angela Merkel, a pastor’s daughter, was at the head of the government. She was followed by Olaf Scholz, who had left the Evangelical Church. He took his oath of office without any religious addition. Is this clash of different religions a coincidence – or is it a turning point with a deeper meaning?

The new chancellor represents around two fifths of the German population who, like him, are non-denominational. Without wanting to overdo it now, that already has a symbolic value. Since religion relies heavily on social confirmation, there are consequences when the highest representatives of our democracy no longer refer to religion. Under Merkel one could still get the impression that the Christian is somehow the normal German case. With the new government, this political resonance space of Christianity has largely disappeared.

Nevertheless, the churches are still very present through their charitable institutions and among Germany’s largest employers. They are also well protected legally, for example through state church treaties and concordats.

Such legal provisions can only be upheld to the extent that they are socially approved. The more fragile the churches in Germany become and the fewer members they have, the less acceptance of certain forms of special status for the Christian churches will be. Of course, I don’t mean religious freedom per se. That will continue to apply. But the fact that the state collects church taxes or the so-called state benefits, with which the churches are compensated for the losses during the period of secularization: there will be less and less understanding for this. This is already shown by the coalition agreement of the “traffic light”, which aims to replace state benefits.

This is a constitutional mandate. But in fact, the coalition agreement of the new German government strikes a much cooler tone towards the churches than that of 2018.

In the new government constellation, social change is also expressed in relation to the churches. For the post-material bourgeoisie, which has apparently found a political home with the Greens, the churches no longer have the significance that they still have in some cases in the Christian Democratic milieu.

Some fear that immigrant Islam will thrust into the vacuum left by the Christian churches. Is it conceivable that Islam in Germany will cross the boundaries of migrant milieus in the future?

The Muslim communities in Germany are undoubtedly more vital than most Christian communities, which are comparatively lukewarm and characterized by habit. In contrast, Islam is a highly dynamic religion that aims at visibility. At the same time, this spiritual dynamic is mainly fed by the demarcation from the German majority society, so it is not very inviting.

Identity is thus gained through difference.

That’s the way it is. If these churches were to reach out, they would lose some of their dynamism. In addition, reservations about Islam are very high among the general population. This, too, speaks against the fact that the Islamization of society, which is feared by some and propagated by Islamic radical groups, poses a real danger. The importance of Islam in Germany will increase and that of Christianity will decrease. But the Islamist overpowering of our society, invoked by some, is already prevented by the Basic Law and the rule of law.

Detlef Pollack is professor for the sociology of religion at the University of Münster. The Protestant theologian was born in Weimar in 1955. His research focuses on religion and the church in the GDR.