Every year grand speeches are held at Christmas and New Year, which the press in attendance then reports when made by speakers whom it considers important. Aside from dignitaries and politicians in office, this honor is also granted to the leaders of the Church. Their houses of God may very well be practically empty during the year, but on Dec. 24th, many attempt to improve their Christmas spirit by going to the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The spiritual leaders suddenly see people gathered around them again and use the opportunity to raise noble words.

They like to talk about the glad tidings of Jesus. These are even "irreplaceable," proclaimed Cardinal Lehmann of Mainz, Germany, who also serves as chairman of the German Bishops' Conference. He is right. But what did he do when a few weeks ago the talk revolved around war and peace? One must also have understanding for the use of the force of arms, said the highest Catholic in Germany. And some of his colleagues added that force of arms is even morally called for. What would these bishops say if they were to suddenly discover Jesus of Nazareth among their listeners? Would they also still pompously proclaim from their pulpits that the message of Jesus is irreplaceable, but when things don't work out otherwise, then even bombs are allowed!?

The chairman of the German Lutheran Church, Manfred Kock, mourned that everything has gone back to the same old rut and instead of fighting for justice and conquering misery, people have become used to thinking that short-term success attained with targeted military force "is sufficient." He is right. But what did the Synod of the German Luther Church decide at the beginning of the war? A lukewarm "the one as well as the other" - of course, we are for peace, but also for the force of arms. What one should think of this kind of Christianity can also be read in the Revelation of John: "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." (Rev. 3:16)

What occurred to the arch-Catholic Lehmann during a dialogue between the religions was also interesting. This dialogue will attain "spice and strength," as he said, only when each community contributes all its wealth. Often in non-Christian religions"uniquely beautiful and absurdly cruel" are linked with each other all the way to killing in the name of God, said Lehmann. Did we hear that right - from "killing in the name of God" in non-Christian religions? Has the theologian meanwhile totally put aside his own Bible, the so-called Old Testament, which in the Roman-Catholic Catechism is viewed as an irrevocable part of their faith and directly inspired by God? Does not one find again and again passages there in which God supposedly called upon His people or one or the other messenger of God to kill, to even carry out whole massacres against neighboring nations? In its bloodthirstiness, no one can surpass the Bible, upon which the Church Christians swear.

How comforting it is that Bishop Käßmann of Hannover called for reducing concepts of enemies. She is right. But what would she do when the so-called sect-watch agents of her Church were to year in and year out defame in the worst way those of different faiths in her own country? It is a good thing that heckling is not allowed during worship services. 

In the Christmas edition of the newspaper Zeit, her fellow Bishop Jepsen of Hamburg advised that God should be conveyed to the youth like drugs. The All-Highest as a drug and religion as opium for the people? - as Karl Marx already mocked. Pharmacy instead of theology? Perhaps "high" will become merely another word for "holy."

The helpless God-seeker turns away. Perhaps with such confusion from the spiritual leaders, he will finally come to the conclusion that God is found neither in Karl Lehmann's tabernacle nor in Maria Jepsen's pharmacy, but in his own inner being, in his divine self, in the very bottom of his immortal soul, as the light that streams through him and the whole world, invisibly, but inextinguishable, and at all times attainable for the one who is aware of the presence of God. 

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