Austria the Paradoxical

Ideology is suspect, sharp distinctions disliked.

If you really must fall sick,” says an old Austrian piece of advice, “then do it in Vienna.” On a visit I did just that, slipping on some cobblestones while in a state of cold sobriety. This involved a taxi (even a Scot bows to an emergency), friendly chats with other walking wounded in the gloomiest Krankenhaus I’ve ever known, X-rays, excellent treatment, and an impressive plaster with German hieroglyphics that utterly mystified my own doctor. Checking in at Vienna airport en route home, I heard the clerk say to a pretty West Indian girl behind me, “Are you with this Plaster Man?” The theological implications of that description still make me feel uncomfortable.

Another kind of pitfall awaits any visitor who attempts a slick assessment of Austria and its 7.5 million people determined to hang on to their permanently neutral status. The historical significance of Austria as part of a once great empire is memorable, but its contributions to culture are scarcely less so. Vienna and music, for example, were for a time virtually synonymous because of the associations with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Bruckner. There was also the Strauss who conned the world into thinking the Danube was blue, and of course there is the Vienna Boys’ Choir.

From a religious standpoint, Austria is a country of paradoxes. The church is widely regarded as an indispensable national institution, but in the same category as fire, police, and ambulance, answering calls when required, but with no necessary relevance to everyday living. Nearly 88 per cent Roman Catholic, Austria nonetheless has one of the world’s highest suicide rates—this though there is an inordinate preoccupation with and fear of death. Huge, ornate tombstones bear testimony to this obsession.

Only about one out of four Catholics goes to Mass, yet the overwhelming majority continue to pay church taxes. They could opt out of the latter (many have done so in recent years), but this is considered a serious step, not merely for religious reasons, but just as much because it would place the individual in a minority group. Austrians imperfectly understand minorities, for they imply a strong stand about something, and it is said that the Austrian way of life consists of avoiding looking at life. The Austrian does not want to become involved, a trait coupled oddly with a propensity for grumbling and doubting everything.

Ideology is suspect, sharp distinctions disliked: “We all believe in God. If one has too many principles, one is disliked.” Thus in this German-speaking country German ways of thinking are distrusted. The New Theology would get short shrift in Austria, where pastoralia is stressed more than exegesis.

Much of the above came from Austrian friends who not only admit their idiosyncrasies but are positively proud of them. Professor Wilhelm Zauner sees in his fellow countrymen an attitude he calls “minimalism” and summarizes in four stages: One, there is no conflict. Two, if there is, it’s not as bad as you say. Three, if it is, then let the authorities make the decisions. Four, anyway, it will work itself out in the end. Referring to the “a-religious religiosity of the Austrians,” he regards this as bound up with the maintenance of the status quo. This tendency toward inactivity was perhaps seen in a poll wherein 89 per cent of Austrians voted that religion was something private, concerned with the individual only.

Another pointer toward understanding Austria is that church and state are historically bound together. Since the Counter Reformation the national religion has been enforced by the secular authority: a religion measured by its aesthetic value, with beauty in danger of taking precedence over truth. This applies particularly to Lower Austria with its traditional emphasis on Mariolatry—decreasing before the ecumenical climate encouraged by Vatican II, but now reviving as certain members of the hierarchy have become alarmed at the swing from old modes of thinking.

New ideas, however, filter only slowly into the more rural areas, but the Bible Society is here and there finding a readiness on the part of Catholics to share in the work of Bible distribution—a breakthrough indeed in a land where many more homes have prayer books than have Bibles.

The 12.3 per cent non-Catholic segment of the population is sadly fragmented, a statement applicable to many other countries. As the president of the European Evangelical Alliance, A. Morgan Derham, said recently on hearing similar statistics about another European country: “Almost thou persuadest me to join the World Council of Churches.” (A solution of such delicious bizarreness that it provoked gales of laughter from his listeners, including a representative of the country thus assailed.)

Almost half of the non-Catholics (5.7 per cent of all Austrians) are attached to the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church that, despite its name, is not manifestly committed to a strong evangelistic approach. A further 4.3 per cent positively state that they have no church affiliations. The remaining 2.3 per cent include indigenous Reformed (Calvinist), Old Catholic, and Jewish communities, as well as several groups arising from missionary work: Baptists, Methodists, Plymouth Brethren, the Salvation Army, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It was heart-warming, then, to hear the Austrian representative at the recent European Evangelical Alliance council meeting in London tell of rejuvenated congregations, newly formed house churches, and a numerical growth of evangelicals. The evangelistic thrust formerly carried out by foreign groups and individual missionaries is being replaced by what Helmut Funck called “a greater evangelistic activity sustained by local congregations and the joyful involvement of young Austrians.” The importance of training workers is now recognized, with notable contributions made by schools in Salzburg and Traun. A nationwide evangelistic campaign is being considered for 1981, the bicentenary of the Edict of Toleration.

Meanwhile, workers from a number of countries and interdenominational societies carry on a growing ministry of meetings, camps, and personal work, both among Vienna’s 1.6 million and in provincial towns and villages of what Robert Evans once described as “one of Europe’s neediest mission fields.” The Christian visitor, concerned for truth as well as beauty, is not likely to deny that this description is still relevant.

J.D. Douglas is a writer and editor living in St. Andrews, Scotland.

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