East Germany: A Vexing Issue

Recent reports from the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) indicate that tensions in relationships between church and state and between Christians themselves may be mounting.

The most recent round of recriminations and accusations dates from the self-immolation of Lutheran pastor Oskar Brusewitz in the Saxon town of Zeitz near Leipzig in August, 1976, to protest his government’s oppression of young Christians (see September 10, 1976, issue, page 81). A month later, some 4,300 East German Lutheran ministers read from their pulpits a pastoral letter that exhorted believers not to forget Brusewitz’s sacrifice (see November 5, 1976, issue, page 80).

The latest controversy raging in German Christian circles revolves around Wolfgang Defort, an East German refugee who was released recently by GDR prison authorities and permitted to emigrate to West Germany.

Defort, a 35-year-old radio engineer and former employee of the East German police, was arrested in July, 1973, on charges of agitation against the state and attempting to flee the country. He was convicted and sentenced to serve forty-two months in the maximum security prison at Cottbus. Somehow, on January 13, 1975, he managed to escape. He fled to the little town of Forst-Eulo near the Polish border. Late that night he sought refuge in the home of a local Lutheran pastor. Defort told the minister his story and asked for help in fleeing the country. Before the evening was over, the Lutheran pastor and his wife were joined by two other Lutheran ministers whom they had summoned, and by the church’s youth group, which had come to the minister’s home for a meeting.

As the evening wore on, a lively discussion took place among the pastors and Defort concerning the dangers of providing shelter and assistance to an escaped prisoner. The ministers, two of whom themselves had spent time in prison for allegedly agitating against the state and “misusing” the pulpit, urged Defort to give himself up. They argued that his presence endangered innocent lives and that in any case he was too weak to make it to the border. They promised to intercede with the government on his behalf, but he would not be dissuaded. Finally, at about midnight, with a police helicopter hovering overhead and the police and border troops searching nearby, one of the pastors phoned the authorities and turned in the fugitive.

The East German courts added ten more months to Defort’s sentence and returned him to Cottbus. In September, the government without explanation suddenly released him and allowed him to proceed to West Germany. There he immediately called a press conference and denounced as cowards the three pastors who had denied him shelter. More seriously, he accused them of violating their ordination vows in which they pledged to maintain confessional privacy. (East German Lutherans place more emphasis on confession than do most of their American counterparts, some elevating it to the status of a third sacrament.)

East German church officials replied that the three pastors had been forced into the distressing decision not because they feared for themselves but for the safety of the innocent people who were present in the ministerial home that night. They spoke of the “difficult situation” in which the church found itself in the GDR.

This in turn has led to a round of criticism of the East German church leaders by West Germans. Ursula Besser of the West German Christian Democratic Union asserted that it was “the lamest excuse I have ever heard.” The Berliner Massenblatt suggested that servants of God had become tools of the state, and a leading West German union newspaper called for the resignation of the three pastors.

After the initial wave of indignation subsided, a less emotional dialogue over the incident ensued, both within the East German Lutheran community and between East and West German Christians. At a church in East Berlin last month, a Lutheran bishop spent his entire Sunday sermon trying to explain that the action of the three East German pastors was “understandable.” Likewise, cooler heads noted that it is easy to criticize from a comfortable chair in the West but that it is more difficult to make morally correct decisions in a split second when the police are at the door.

The debate has brought to the fore at least two crucial issues in church life in East Germany today. First, there is the continuing problem of sometimes having to choose between the lesser of two evils, a perplexing choice that occasionally Christians almost everywhere must face. Should the three pastors have helped a refugee in need at the risk of endangering others not directly involved?

Second, there is the issue of trust of church leaders in the GDR. Many rank-and-file believers already lack confidence in high church officials and feel that they too often are used by the Communist government for propaganda purposes. Now the Defort affair has raised the question of pastoral trust. Can church members count on their ministers to hold in confidence sensitive matters that are shared with them? Is the pastor’s house any longer a haven of refuge for the needy and helpless?

As this controversy continues to simmer, other developments may portend serious trouble ahead for Christianity in the GDR. For instance, only 14 per cent of all children in the land currently take church instruction. One source reports that things are especially difficult in smaller communities where scrutiny is close and teachers pressure their students to drop their religious training programs. Ridicule and the technique of pointing out that religious people do not “get ahead” in the GDR have been the most effective weapons. In one village recently, 50 per cent of the children reportedly dropped religious instruction in a Lutheran church after such pressure from teachers at school.

A survey this year in Brandenburg, the area surrounding Berlin, revealed that there are 116 villages in that province without a single church member. Official census statistics—disputed by some church leaders—show that out of a fairly stable population of about 17 million the number of Protestants in East Germany declined from 15 million in 1950 to 8.5 million in 1975.

Moreover, most of the money for new church construction comes from the West. The church in East Germany is an increasingly poor institution. Some call it a “ghetto church.” For example, in 1976 West Berlin Lutherans budgeted and spent 106 million marks while their Lutheran brethren in all of Brandenburg could raise only 10.5 million marks for their work.

The outlook for Christianity in East Germany, however, is not all bleak. The American Bible Society reports that supplies and distribution outlets for Bibles in East Germany are now considered adequate. Between 100,000 and 300,000 copies of either the entire Bible or the New Testament have been sold or given away annually since 1973, when the new German common-language translation of the New Testament first became available. Outlets for sales of Scriptures now include thirteen Bible societies and more than twenty Protestant bookstores.

Also, Christians of several denominations (Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, and occasionally even Roman Catholics) have recently joined together in common evangelistic efforts in many towns and cities. One Lutheran minister who travels all over the country holding evangelistic meetings reports crowds of from 300 to 3,000 nightly. The government, though, forbids these services to be held outside church buildings, and this limits opportunities to reach people who have negative feelings toward organized religion but who might otherwise be open to the Gospel message in a “neutral” setting.

One Lutheran pastor who is heavily involved in evangelistic work notes that the greatest success is enjoyed among young people from 15 to 25 years of age. Thousands of individuals in this age range have made decisions for Christ in the last five years, says the pastor. He explains that the schools effectively deflect most younger children from the churches through a variety of means. Even Christian parents find it difficult to compete with the state schools for the religious loyalty of their children, he states. East German teen-agers, however, often become restless and bored with the system and seek meaning for life elsewhere, he says. “Increasing numbers of them are finding that meaning in Christ,” he adds.

The average Lutheran church is still comfortably filled on Sunday mornings, but mostly with the elderly and with young people. Much less frequently in attendance are middle-aged adults and young children. Baptists, Methodists, and Mennonites are smaller groups but tend to attract wider age groups.

So, Christians in the GDR preserve the testimony of the Gospel despite many difficulties. Since the Socialist Unity Party, the Communist body that governs East Germany under a one-party dictatorship, regards the Christian Church as a kind of fifth column or Trojan horse in the midst, tensions between church and state are likely to continue for the forseeable future. Communist goals call for the eventual liquidation of religion.

Meanwhile, the continuing presence of the Church in the GDR and elsewhere in Eastern Europe often provides a handy propaganda tool in Communist dealings with the West. Dietrich Strothmann of the respected Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit feels that the present church struggle in the GDR is “one to sustain itself more than anything else.” However, he also notes that a vital Christianity easily could become an attractive alternative for large numbers of East Germans in the future. Should that be true, then some kind of major confrontation between church and state in East Germany may loom ahead.

Hard-Cover Blasphemy

Despite all the opposition, Danish filmmaker Jens Jorgen Thorsen is still determined to produce a movie on Christ that depicts him as a homosexual. The proposed film had been eligible for Danish and Swedish subsidies, but these were declared off limits to Thorsen after a barrage of protests, and a number of countries denied him shooting access. He now hopes to make the movie in America next year with a budget of $1.2 million.

British producer David Grant, who has joined Thorsen in the project (see August 12 issue, page 34), claims that $500,000 has been guaranteed by Danish millionaire Hans Schmidt, and that an unnamed Canadian distributor will put $200,000 into it. Grant also says that an American publishing firm—which he declines to name—has agreed to pay $600,000 in advance royalties for a hard-cover book based on the script.

Plans call for the book to make its appearance ahead of the film, but negotiations reportedly were still bogged down last month over the book’s title. Thorsen, says Grant, wants the book to have the same title as the film—“The Sex Life of Jesus.” The publisher, however, is holding out for something less sensational.

TM Grounded

It was called, officially, “Science of Creative Intelligence for Secondary Education—First Year Course—Dawn of the First Year of the Age of Enlightenment.” A grant from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare subsidized its teaching in four New Jersey high schools. Opponents of the instruction called it Hinduism. Last month, in a seventy-eight-page decision, a judge in federal district court ruled the government-funded teaching of Transcendental Meditation (TM) unconstitutional.

The ruling by Judge H. Curtis Meanor in Newark was the first on the use of public funds for such instruction, the New York Times reported. While his decision affects only New Jersey schools, it is expected to be cited if cases arise in other jurisdictions. Public schools in Florida, Kentucky, New York, and California have also offered TM courses. (See December 21, 1973, issue, page 9.)

At the heart of the judge’s decision was the finding that “defendants have failed to raise the slightest doubt as to the facts or as to the religious nature of the teachings.” The plaintiffs had built their case largely on the contention that students were actually being initiated into a particular sect as well as being taught its doctrines. Meanor’s ruling agreed, taking issue with both the textbook and the “puja” ceremony when students enter barefoot into “incense-filled rooms” to pay obeisance to the memory of a departed TM guru. Some TM recruiting literature insists that it is not a religion.

The current guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, brought the practice to the United States in 1959. He is said to have hundreds of thousands of American followers.

TM introduced another teaching this year—the art of flying. For a price students will be taught levitation, and foam rubber mats are being installed in TM centers to cushion their landings. Reporters who have asked for a demonstration have received instead only a picture of a Canadian woman a few inches off the floor, and she was said to be overseas—unavailable for interviews.

Disciples Decide

More than 5,500 voting delegates and thousands of observers gathered in Kansas City last month for the biennial General Assembly of the 1.2-million-member Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In recent years, the church’s conventions have been relatively quiet, but a number of proposed resolutions on homosexuality were circulated in the grass roots and generated sharp interest in the convention long before the participants hit town.

Nearly one-fourth of the time consumed by debate was spent on issues concerning the relationship of the church to homosexuals. The delegates eventually adopted by a two-to-one margin an 8,000-word document on homosexuality for study by the denomination’s 4,400-plus congregations. They also adopted by a vote of 2,541 to 1,312 a resolution supporting laws to protect the civil liberties of homosexuals. They rejected by a vote of 2,304 to 1,538 a bitterly debated measure that condemned homosexuality as an alternate life-style for Christians. A fourth resolution, calling for a clear statement against the ordination of homosexuals, was referred to a blue-ribbon committee for study and recommendation.

The study document attracted much controversy because of the relaxed view it takes toward homosexuality. It sees no reason for barring homosexuals from church membership, it finds no evidence that homosexuals constitute any greater threat to society than others, it questions many “historical assumptions,” and it states that much Christian thinking on the subject is built on “questionable interpretations of Scripture.”

Although the document specified that it was “not to be construed as an official statement of the attitude or policies” of the denomination, some delegates insisted that it was in reality a position paper.

During the emotion-laden debate on the life-style resolution, Mrs. Carol Blakley of Caldwell, Idaho, a member of the denomination’s policy-making general board, read a long letter from her oldest son. In it, he explained his homosexuality and asked that his parents react non-judgmentally and without guilt. A morality “that would condemn me for something over which I have no control must itself be without humaneness,” read Mrs. Blakley, her voice cracking at times.

During the course of debate the delegates defeated a move to refer the measure to committee. After the final vote was taken, Pastor Lonnie Q. Johnson of First Christian Church in Ridgeway, Missouri, took the microphone and declared that his church had voted the previous day to break from the denomination if the resolution condemning homosexual life-style was not approved. “Christians should be fighting sin and not approving it, and therefore we withdraw,” he said.

Kenneth L. Teegarden, the denomination’s general minister and president, offered to meet with the congregation, and he implored it not to leave. Choked with emotion, he was unable to finish, and the assembly came to his support with a standing ovation.

Teegarden was instructed to write a pastoral letter explaining to Disciples congregations the meaning of the actions taken concerning homosexuality. The letter was approved with few negative votes. In it, Teegarden emphasized that the actions do not represent a position on homosexuality. Defeat of the resolution opposing homosexuality as an alternate life-style, he said, “does not mean the General Assembly endorsed such a style. It does mean the assembly felt the matter should be studied thoroughly before any pronouncements are made.”

In other actions the assembly:

• approved in a near-unanimous vote a call for two years of discussion with the 1.8-million-member United Church of Christ with a view toward possible union.

• approved by a close voice vote a resolution calling for normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China.

• supported ratification of the Panama Canal treaties.

• urged “aggressive pursuit” of human rights around the world and expressed “dismay” at violations of religious freedom and human rights in Communist-dominated countries.

Adventist Views

The Pacific Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church announced it has paid $650,000 to settle federal government charges that it discriminated against women teachers in its schools. At the same time, however, the conference said it refuses to acknowledge that the government had any right to be involved in the case in the first place.

The U.S. Labor Department filed a complaint in 1975, charging that the Adventist unit in California did not pay men and women teachers and administrators equally for equal work. The government suit referred to wages at the California schools from 1972 to 1974. A one-track pay scale was implemented by the denomination in 1974, putting it in compliance with government regulations.

The government will use the $650,000 to pay personnel in the California schools for the 1972 to 1974 period; anything left over will revert to the U.S. Treasury.

Church officials contended that the government’s intrusion into church-school affairs was unconstitutional, but they said that they agreed to a settlement because they wanted to avoid long, costly litigation.

Just after the settlement was announced, the Adventists held their Annual Council Meeting in Washington, D.C. The 317 delegates adopted a 1978 budget of $114.5 million for the 2.8-million-member denomination’s educational, medical, and evangelistic work. (The church maintains 4,200 elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools around the world with a total enrollment of about 442,000. It also operates 135 hospitals and sanitariums, fifty of them in the United States and Canada. Last year these institutions treated more than five million patients, according to Adventist sources.)

For the third year in a row, the council turned aside a proposal to ordain women.

The delegates also took a strong stand against homosexuality. They said that homosexual behavior of a marriage partner is to be considered a form of adultery and thus be grounds for divorce. In a statement on the ministry, the delegates decreed that “violations involving sexual perversions” would make void a pastor’s ordination to the ministry. An offending clergyman could never again serve as a minister or teacher in the church, even though he might repent of his offense and be rebaptized as a church member, the statement said.

Booted Out

The United Bible Societies (UBS), a global alliance of national Bible societies, voted recently to withdraw recognition from one of its affiliates, the Philippine Bible Society (PBS). Cited by the UBS executive committee were “irregularities” in the 1975 and 1976 PBS audits, inadequate supplies and distribution of Scriptures, questionable administrative practices, and lack of trust in the PBS by its constituency. The UBS in September, 1976, gave the PBS one year to get its house in order; a review this September failed to show significant progress, and the severance took effect last month.

This means that most of the PBS’s outside support, which averaged between $150,000 and $200,000 annually in past years, will cease. It may also give critics of the PBS in the Philippines more leverage in their campaign for reform. The PBS’s board, however, is self-perpetuating (Bishop Estanislao Abainza of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines is its chairman), so change may be slow in coming. A source familiar with the situation said that the administrative inadequacies have existed since about 1970 and the financial problems since 1973.

Religion in Transit

David R. Berkowitz, the accused “Son of Sam” murderer in New York, contends that not he but evil demons commanding his body had carried out the six killings with which he has been charged. In a taped psychiatric interview introduced at a competency hearing in court, Berkowitz pleaded for a trial so that he could tell his story of demonic possession and “at last have peace of mind.” In 1973, he professed faith in Christ and became active in a Baptist church in Louisville, Kentucky, then dropped out a year later (see September 23 issue, page 45).

A regional meeting of the Roman Catholic charismatic movement attracted nearly 40,000 to Atlantic City for a three-day conference last month. Nearly forty bishops, including four cardinals, endorsed the conference, and about a dozen participated. “Nothing is more necessary to this secularized world than the witness of this spiritual renewal,” declared Archbishop Peter L. Gerety of Newark. “God’s grace is being poured out all over the church, and you are part of it.”

The California Court of Appeal ruled that a lower court has the power to place limits on the Hare Krishna sect’s religious activities at San Francisco’s International Airport, including the dissemination of literature and talking to the public.

The Israeli government announced late last month that it was prepared to release Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of a Middle East uniate Catholic church if a formal request were received from Pope Paul VI. The archbishop has served nearly three years of a twelve-year sentence for smuggling arms to Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories.

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