In Bavaria, Germany, crosses hang in the classrooms of the public schools - mostly with a carved wooden corpse of the martyred Jesus of Nazareth. Some years ago, this led to a ruling by the German Supreme Court that shook the country. The constitutional judges ruled that the state regulation of hanging crosses in schools and classrooms is not in accordance with the constitutional law of state neutrality in issues of religion and philosophy. Students and their parents who feel that their freedom of religion is thus encroached upon, can therefore demand they not be taught under the cross. A storm of indignation broke out. Above all, politicians whose parties are denominated "Christian," even though one doesn't notice much of this, suddenly came out strongly declaring their belief in the symbol of the crucified One. Many even called for resistance to this decision by the highest German court.

However, the judges' ruling in no way led to a call for removal of all the crosses; the crosses had to be removed only where those of other faiths opposed the connection between the state obligation to attend school and Christian symbols. The Bavarian Parliament even passed a special law to make this clear.

Since then, things calmed down and the "Christian" politicians of Bavaria did not have to continue to get all worked up as good "Christians". Until now, when a teacher again brought up the issue: As he furnished his student's scantily furnished classroom with self-made bookcases, he keep looking at the cross with the corpse, and he thought about what kind of impulses went out from this figure to the students. "It cannot be anything positive," thought teacher Riggemann, as he reported to the Süddeutsche Newspaper. He took the cross down; after some time, he hung it up again at the request of the children, because the religion teacher had told them the cross would help them with their schoolwork. Finally, he took it down again, because he concluded that he should be consistent.

The case finally went to court, where the educator expressed himself clearly: "The cross is an attack on my freedom of religion." With the cross, Christianity has given itself a symbol of "the cruelest form of execution." Since the crucifixion of Jesus, 13 million Jews were murdered under the sign of the cross. The Bavarian Administrative Court, which had to rule this time, ruled in favor of the teacher. The school has to take down the cross in his classroom.

The biography of this man is interesting. At six years of age, he became a ministrant; at ten, he entered a Catholic high school; after his diploma he began theological studies in a seminary. "I was simply looking for a meaning to my life," he says today, but he did not find he there, and finally switched from theology to education.

Konrad Riggemann is not the first to take offence at the dead man on the cross. Didn't the crucified One resurrect long ago? Why does one try to use the crucifix to immortalize His suffering on Good Friday instead of making a symbol of the joy of Easter and the cross of resurrection without a corpse? Do the churches, which pay homage to this crucifix cult, prefer the dead Jesus to the resurrected One? If we had not become accustomed to this cruel symbol long ago, we would have probably turned away in horror.

Because the court ruled in favor of the courageous teacher, the politicians who call themselves Christian again expressed "Christian" outrage. The General Secretary of the Christian Social Union party recommended to the teacher that he leave the state educational system. The Bavarian Minister of Education and the Arts, Monika Hohlmeier, also a member of the Christian Social Union, described the appeal of the teacher to his basic rights "as a negative example" and does not assume "that other Bavarian teachers want to so ruthlessly push through a similar abstruse interpretation of the Christian symbol of the cross as occurred here." The minister seems to think little of the history of the Church, to say nothing of the constitutional rights of her teachers. 

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