The Indifferent Man, Part II

UPI via Cyberbretheren ^ | 30 Dec., 2004 | Uwe Siemon-Netto

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Part II of Dr. Netto's "The Indifferent Man"

Commentary: The indifferent man -- part 2

By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor

PARIS, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Editor's note: This is the second installment of the United Press International's series on the religiously indifferent man. This new species is incapable of dealing with theological issues raised by catastrophes such as the tsunami disaster in Asia, which underscores the call for strong pastors as substitutes for parents in the upbringing of children.

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How can postmodern man -- a doctrinally indifferent species, as Cardinal Paul Poupard defines him -- react adequately to the deadliest natural calamity in recorded history?

Almost mindlessly, television anchormen in Europe speak of the tsunami disaster's "apocalyptical proportions," although they seem to know little of the Book of Revelation or the Old and New Testaments' "little apocalypses," such as the one in the Gospel of Luke:

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken." (Luke 21:25-26),

Only Pope John Paul II, so close to the grave himself, seems to have found the appropriate words when he commended the victims -- at least 120,000 as we speak -- and their next of kin to the love of God.

What else is there to say, unless of course the brightest lights in Protestant theology knocked at the doors of the world's television studios demanding to be allowed to explain to the perplexed what should be Protestantism's greatest asset?

Words like these might be fitting: What you have been witnessing in the last days circumscribes the chasm between a grotesque contortion of God's face and the "Deus revelatus" -- the true God revealed in Christ.

The ex-Christian "homo indifferens," of whom Cardinal Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, spoke recently in Belorussia, is in reality a religious ignoramus. He knows nothing of the faith of his ancestors, a faith that made them build cathedrals and write stirring oratorios

He is therefore unequipped to dialogue with other faiths at a time when this has become indispensable due to the massive influx of Muslims into Europe. For as Michael Weninger, a senior Austrian diplomat and religious affairs adviser to the European Commission, insists: "Between religious illiterates no dialogue is possible."

The same applies even more urgently to the task of explaining God's presence in the light of the tsunami tragedy. Theodicy, the defense of God against the charge that he either wills evil in this world or is powerless against it, has always been one of the most difficult undertakings for people of faith.

But unless theologians return to the very core of Christian doctrine -- that precisely by being weak and nailed to a tree God prevails in his cosmic struggle against evil -- they will never succeed in this endeavor.

That this cosmic struggle is well underway seems evident to most lay people observing current events, though not to modernist theologians denying the existence of Satan. And of those, there are plenty especially in Germany where batch after batch of new theologians keeps crawling out of the Black Forest, as the saying goes.

Klaus Berger, Heidelberg University's primary New Testament scholar, estimates that a mere 2 percent of his colleagues consider biblical texts true. Why does Berger belong to that tiny minority? Because, he says, the Gospel writers were willing to be martyred for their stories. "You don't accept martyrdom for something you yourself have invented."

The cross -- or rather, the crucifix -- is the most powerful antidote against evil, natural or otherwise, which supports the position of the defenders of icons in the perennial iconoclast controversies throughout church history.

The Rev. Rolf Sauerzapf, until recently dean of chaplains of Germany's paramilitary border guards, used to take his troopers in the formerly communist East, to Catholic or Lutheran churches featuring the crucified Christ, in contrast to the starker sanctuaries of other denominations, which only display the empty cross.

"What is this?" the soldiers raised in an atheist environment asked. "This is our God," Sauerzapf answered. "Instinctively, they understood that this was the Immanuel, the God with us -- suffering with us," he later related.

A special breed of pastors is needed at a time when Europeans have been deprived of any knowledge of God for two or even three generations and when, at the same time, "people are filled with longing (for God)," according to the European Commission's Weninger.

The destruction of the family, where 90 percent of all education takes place, has led to the prevailing ignorance of and indifference to religious matters, writes Peter Hahne, Germany's most popular television anchorman.

"This is why faithful clergymen have become so eminently necessary," says the Rev. Michael Stollwerk, senior Lutheran pastor of the Protestant and Catholic cathedral of Wetzlar near Frankfurt, whose Christmas services were better attended this year than any in his memory: "On Christmas Eve there were 1,800. On Christmas Day there were another 1,800, and on the following day there were still 600. I have never seen this before."

An astounding number of these worshipers were young. "Many were kids to whom I had become a substitute father or grandfather in confirmation class. Then they joined -- or will join -- our youth groups," Stollwerk says. "And then we'll have them hooked; then they will no longer be indifferent to God."

Then they will also grasp the Biblical answer to the God question raised by horrific events such as the tsunami catastrophe: "And he (God) will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4).