PDF Version

It’s been a while …

19th December, 2011 - Posted by Wolf Paul -

… because of a new job responsibility, which while only short-term is nevertheless challenging, and together with other responsibilities leaves me little time and energy for blogging.

But there are a number of current issues which warrant comment:

Vaclav Havel R.I.P. I have no idea where the man stood spiritually, but his personal integrity and his perseverance in opposing the communist regime in Czechoslovakia for which he paid with a ban on the performance of his plays and with several spells in prison, his role as one of the leaders of the “velvet revolution” which toppled the communist regime and resulted in a democratic Czechoslovakia, and finally as president of his country, when he refused to be drawn into the swamp of corrupt politics but insisted on “living in the truth” as a politician, deserve our respect.

 

A Debt Limit as a constitutional amendment at first glance seems like a good idea — until one observes the similarity between the current debate in the Austrian parliament and the debate in the US congress (the US has had such a law for a while) about emergency legislation to keep the government running, since it has exhausted the debt limit which was already raised once this fall. An emergency spending bill had to be passed by this past Friday to keep the government from defaulting on payments and sending home thousands of federal employees.

Here in Austria the coalition parties are saying that the constitutional debt limit is absolutely necessary for the wellbeing of the country, and that the “rational” opposition parties (“Greens” and BZOe) ought to vote for it without demanding concessions for their vote. The opposition parties reply that if this constitutional amendment is that important, the coalition parties should be prepared to meet them halfway and in return pass some of their favorite legislative projects.

Neither side, even though they concede the necessity of the debt limit, are willing to compromise even in the slightest in order to pass this amendment. We won’t even discuss the “irrational” opposition (the FPOe) which in return for a vote in support of the debt limit wants to be given the tools to torpedo the European agreement on salvaging the Euro currency .

Similar scenes were reported from the US congress where both parties know that they will have to pass a spending bill, and yet the Republicans insisted on passing  unrelated payroll tax legislation in return for their support for the spending bill. The majority of Democrat legislators also support the payroll legislation but resisted linking these votes.

The American situation also demonstrates that a debt limit law or amendment is not a panacea — even if the government has exhausted the debt limit, shutting down goverment and sending home police, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. is not an alternative, and emergency legislation has to be passed increasing the debt limit.

 

Helmut Schüller, Roman Catholic pastor of a small village east of Vienna, should be of little interest to me as a Baptist and Evangelical; however during his time as the president of Caritas Austria (Catholic Charities, 1991-1995) he earned national respect and influence.

He’s been known as a dissident who wants to change many things in his church, from the way re-marries divorcees are treated, to obligatory  priestly celibacy or the ordination of women.

Five years ago he and other dissidents presented the “Pastors’ Initiative” as a reform movement, which this summer published a “Call to Disobedience”. I personally found that choice of words questionable, even though others in Protestant circles saw it as hearkening back to Luther and his 95 theses.

Yesterday (Sunday, Dec 18) Helmut Schüller was the guest of honor in an Austrian radio Sunday morning talkshow, which allowed me to get a bit more of the measure of the man. He came across as a very nice person, and rejected the host’s praise for his courage (as a dissident). He presented a very nuanced definition of the “obedience” which he promised his bishop on the occasion of his ordination, as well as a very effective defense of the necessity of ethics in economic life, and yet …

And yet I feel strongly that he is going down the wrong way:

  • when he argues for a change of the Church’s moral values primarily on the basis of a changed societal consensus;
  • when, in everything he says, he hardly mentions God or Jesus — even his explanation that the church is fundamentally different from a political party or a sports club didn’t require mentioning God or Jesus, nor did his comments on sin and confession 1.  In 1993, as president of Caritas and a vociferous advocate for the rights of foreigners in Austria he was the target of a letter bomb attack, which fortunately failed; asked by the host whether as a result of this he was worried about his safety he did not mention God’s protection but rather the preventive carefulness he has learned in the wake of the failed attack. Asked about his hope for the future he listed human reason, human conscience and the human capacity for change . His personal system of values, as well as his vision of his priestly ministry seem to be dominated by humanism rather than a vision of or relationship with God. As a result he does not seem to have much use for the self-revelation of God in the Scripures, demonstrated by the fact that he had no comment on a segment from Austrian stand-up comic Gunkl’s latest program played during the talk show which mocks religion and sacred writings.
  • At the end of the show host Oliver Bayer asked this question: “All of us will die. When you have died, if you should encounter a nice man who says to you, ‘Allah is waiting for you in the next room’, will you regret having chosen the path you have chosen?” and Schüller answered, “No, I view the other religions as moving caravans to whom one can wave from a distance, knowing that somehow they all are going the same direction. And I have so many Moslem friends that I hope that over there we will not only meet our own kind.”

Why is all this of  interest to me as an Evangelical?

Because, as I have argued many times, all the average Austrian knows about God and the church is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, and if charismatic representatives of this church convey the idea that all that matters is becoming more human then many Austrians will be confirmed in their godlessness and their conviction that they don’t really need a savior; and because all these same tendencies which we see at work in Helmut Schüller will sooner or later also influcence Evangelical circles — as we can observe on the international scene.

For these reasons we have to be aware of these tendencies and learn to deal with them.


1. He mentioned God once, in the context of the Genesis creation account, and once mentioned Jesus, saying that Jesus had not specified what the church should look like. Once he used the term “theology” which also hides the word God.↑

g4b

December 20th, 2011 at 00:39    


I do not know if the conclusion is the one I see Austria suffering from (becoming more ignorant by thinking human things can be done without god). Becoming human, finding human worth, is extremely important, and I see a lack of it in our time more than 10 years ago. Not mentioning Jesus all over the place, especially if people are listening who want to actually “stop” listening to you because they just wait for some christian vocabulary which says them “whatever” is also not the way. telling them the insights in your own words, telling them to trust in what most people call “human”, is actually telling them to love jesus in the next person, because most things which make us humaine are actually our godliest, like care, hope, faith, love. Sin actually makes humans more inhumain, not by making them evil, but by eating up their will and time and freedom. While I do understand christian vocabulary, and do understand what is meant with protection of god, what it means to walk with the lord, i wished we would talk even less in such terms, because sometimes it only needs to not understanding our people around us. Explaining how we talk about experience with god is actually a theme not very often talked about in our churches. And we all know, holy talk sometimes is just a bunch of lies, because we sometimes lie to ourselves. And some of our offworldly talk frightens our children. The Lord never wanted me to witness, where I was not called to. He also never wanted me to be a witness for something, I did not really witness. But sometimes I did forget that, and I was not really spreading the message to them thru it. Maybe, a catholic believer is even more haunted by his own religion, than somebody like me, who took a step away from it. For him to talk about the importance of relationships in a time where relationships get more and more “commercially used”, is more important than ever.

I did not know Vaclav is dead. That’s just sad. Why was that not in the news.

Peter Torskyj

December 20th, 2011 at 12:58    


Very clear and precise thanks and have a blessed Christmas

Peter

Leave a reply

Name *

Mail *

Website