The Neue Zürcher Zeitung recently published an article which asserts that “God is pretty much dead for the Germans.” Here we are informed that, according to a new survey of the Evangelical Church in Germany which “has a broad empirical basis and is representative of the German population,” only 13 percent of Germans describe themselves as holding traditional “church-religious attitudes.” 56 percent of them are “secular”; and among the seculars, many explicitly oppose Christianity because “science” is said to contradict the faith.
The N. Z. Z. further tells us: “While 90 percent of Germans still believed in God in 1949, today only 50 percent do; only 20 percent understand Him in the sense of the Bible. 30 percent believe in some higher power that could just as well be called ‘fate.’”
And on the fortune of this multitude of unbelievers it writes: “Modern men in this post-religious society do not seem to be particularly happy: Never before have so many depressions been diagnosed in Germany as today, never before have there been so many lonely people, never before have there been so many lonely old people.”
Now, this is a mighty failure of the Church. How can it be, that the birthplace of the Reformation should now be one of the most heathenish nations on earth? Or how can it be, that the Church, instead of bringing these wandering sheep (who suffer, though they do not know the reason for it) into the loving arms of Christ, should rather turn its back on the Germans, as though they ought now to be abandoned, and turn to “refugees” instead? And, finally, how is it that the churches in Germany, instead of being a bulwark against the awful things described above, is actually a reed easily shaken by the wind?
Truly, it must be because these bodies, which flatter themselves with the names “church” and “Evangelical” are actually neither. So may these bodies return to the Gospel, which they, along with the rest of Germany, have forsaken. God grant this. Amen.
Altlutheraner 