Thekengespräch vom 02.11.2023 mit Dr. Wolfgang Nestvogel

I am very happy, Mr. Dr. Nestvogel, you here at the counter. Welcome. Thank you very much, I am happy to be here. We have already met in the Corona time, at secret meetings, where you had to look where you parked. And who you meet there. Yes, you have to be careful there too. I am very happy that you take the time. I think we also have to talk about the church at the moment. I just have to be careful. You are a really experienced speaker. Do you know that? Yes, we have sat together before. Yes, we have spoken to each other before. Could I say anything there? I remember many exciting, colorful stories from back then. Then I am wrong with my mind. Self-perception and perception. Exactly. Completely different. I would like to bring the topic to the believers. Because I think that is more than necessary. That we address this and then have someone like you, who really knows a lot about it. I am very happy. What was the main reason why you came here? Because you invited me so kindly. And because we have a common concern. In this very unpredictable situation. We really try to convey orientation. I am very happy about the invitation. I did not really perceive the faith in the church as a child. In school there was still religious education. I grew up on the Dutch border. You could see the border stone right at the border from the garden. We only had a stone. No fence or something. But in our village of Caldenkirchen, there was this very large church in the center of the city. On the opposite side there was a house. There was a passage. And behind it there was an evangelical church. In yellow with a very small tower. I grew up Protestant by my parents. But in school my parents asked me, what do you want? Catholic or Evangelical? At that time I thought, Catholic means strict education. I went through the church as a child in clothes. And as a young person, I liked the evangelical confirmation party better. So I stayed with the Protestants. I was baptized and made the confirmation. That's how I got to know the church. As an opposite pole. These great Catholics, these little Protestants. As it was always called to us, these are the rebels. And they are also a rebel. Because the exit from the state church, has it caused a man of God, of the faith, of the evangelical church to say, out of the roof band? It is very important that, according to Christian understanding, Christianity does not belong to the church membership. And of course the church membership is part of it, because Christianity always leads in community and you celebrate the service of God together. This is also substantial for the Christian faith. But the question is, does the community also meet the criteria that belong to being a Christian? And I have been for 10 years with great conviction a pastor in the evangelical church. And I also like to remember back to that time. I still have contacts to many people with whom we worked together back then. But as a pastor you always represent the institution as a whole. And the longer it took, the less I was able to agree with my conscience. Simply because it was becoming more and more clear, according to my perception, that the evangelical state church, i.e. the EKD, moved away from the central points of what their task is and what their profile should be. And there I said, how long can you carry this for this institution? I want to make this clear in a quote from Norbert Bolz, the communications scientist, who then said, I limit this to the EKD, because I come from the evangelical church. He said, the EKD has become an NGO of politics with a second-hand shop for religious things. And he hit the problem quite well. On the one hand, this institution will increasingly become a political preliminary organization, a loudspeaker for positions that emerge from a certain side in the political debate. And on the other hand, it neglects its central task, its core business, namely to speak about faith, about the question of what carries in death, what decides about the meaning of life, about the truth, about the great existential questions that I am dealing with. And there the evangelical church has increasingly moved away from central Jewish-Christian positions in matters of ethics, in matters of life and death. Remember the new explanation of the Council of the EKD that became known a few days ago. The abortion right should be even more averted. And that means even less protection. And all of this put together led me to the point that I said, I can no longer carry this with me out of conviction. And then there is also a real evangelical church outside of this institution. And we then decided for this path. I was grateful that my wife carried it with great conviction. And we have not regretted it since then, I must say. I only got to know the church afterwards when I was a time soldier. Then you have to pay a church tax. And then I went abroad. And then I thought, now I work abroad as a doctor. Where am I going? I didn't know where to go yet. I just turned the globe and put my finger on it. And my finger then pointed to Sumatra in Indonesia. And then I really moved to Pematang Siantar, where I applied for a hospital. An evangelical hospital. I thought, I also pay church tax. Maybe they want me to work for free. Because I worked for free as a doctor. And it was funny that this hospital was very happy that a German doctor was chosen to work with them for a long time. And they don't even have to pay them. But they set the requirement that I had to be married. So I said, that's a bit of an effort just to go to work. And then I found a Catholic hospital that wanted to have me. But in the east of Indonesia, on the island of Flores, in the mountains, a church facility belonged to the Steila Missionaren, as I found out when I arrived there. There was a nun in front of me, Sister Regi, in her white-blue dress. And then she greeted me there. And that was the first time I had the memory that she belonged to the Steila Missionaren. I've known Steila Missionaren since I was a child. When I looked out of the garden to Holland, there was a forest and a small church. I thought that I knew the Steila Missionaren post office from my garden at home. But I didn't know what they really do. And now I'm in a hospital with Sister Regi and ask her if I can help her. And she was happy that I didn't get married. So that made me very happy too. And that was the first time I really had to do something with faith. Because when I arrived, there was a welcome service. That was pretty hard for me, because it took three hours. Three hours in the jungle, at those temperatures, I found that pretty hard. But I'm sure you sang lively. Oh yes. It was beautiful. Everyone was enthusiastic, even the children. Everyone was happy. Although the sermon was pretty long. And I don't think anyone understood what he said. But it wasn't that bad. I just noticed the church in a negative way. I would like to mention that. One day, Sister Regi came to me and said, Thomas, there is one of our chiefs, one of our priests, who has this in an area And I said, yes, come in. And then I looked at it and he had a health problem in a pretty genital area. And then as a doctor, I said, I always have to see the opposite pool, because there is always an opposite pool. Then I said, please send the opposite pool here tomorrow. I was not interested in the rest. He was a patient for me, nothing else. And then I said to Sister Regi, Sister Regi, a woman is coming tomorrow. She has something in an area that I don't want to look at. It was interesting. The next morning I was sitting in the doctor's office again and the nurse said, Dr. Thomas, there are three women out there that the priest sent to you. And I said, Sister Regi, there are three women who have something in an area that I don't want to look at. What I want to say with this is that it is common, we have it in religion, we have it in politics, we have it in medicine, we have it everywhere. That's why I address it. Because for me the very important point is that there is always this point when something comes up too high, then you have a power and you like to abuse it. And it has now been abused in the Corona time. I also say not only by politics, because doors were closed. How can you refer a person to the house when he is looking for help? Well, the church not at all. And that was certainly not just a mistake, but a guilt. That the church, which in such a crisis situation has to be quite open, which has to invite and offer refuge, when it says, we have closed doors and won't let you in. Or only under certain conditions that some people could not meet. And that is a guilt. And the problem is that this guilt is not being thematized until today when it comes to the EKD and other parts of the Roman Catholic Church. That it has not yet been recognized as such, I think. It is rather tried to debunk this discussion and to silence it. But that is a matter that you have to blame the ground staff at this point. But there is also a problem that prompted me to leave this institution at that time. The question is ultimately, also for the church first of all, who do I feel obligated to? So who is the institution that I have to justify, that I have to take responsibility for? And the church through the millennia has always known, our institution is God, the Lord of the Church is Jesus Christ and not an institution and not a bishop and not even a foreign control through political committees or regulations. And I think that is the main problem. The question of personal responsibility before the personal God gives the order to carry on his message. And in the moment when God is no longer the first institution in front of which I do my work and in front of which I have to justify it, then I am susceptible to all possible ideological influences for political power systems and then the work of the church can also be manipulated very quickly. It was said that the meetings How did you solve that? So we solved it that we, apart from the very first lockdown, we had also met a little prepared and met unprepared and then we had to sort out first. We sent a live stream Sunday for Sunday. Of course we continued on Sunday. But we also had very responsible doctors who accompanied all the processes critically from the beginning no matter how dangerous this corona may be. We are not allowed to close permanently, but we have to reopen as soon as possible. And we did that at the next opportunity. We then brought a first complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court and there we found that a Muslim faith community had come to us in April 2020. And we said it's a shame for the Christians in Germany if the only ones who, so to speak, complain for the freedom of religion are the Muslims here in the country. And we just tried to achieve something there and in the end the Muslim complaint was treated shortly before ours. But it came to the result that the state is not allowed to strictly prohibit religious services in this way. And then we worked with the regulations that came there, always interpreted them very offensively. We also got legal support and partially attacked these regulations directly at the courts. And we really tried to celebrate everything Sunday for Sunday, religious services, to accommodate as many people as possible with us and also to convey to the people that we are not giving up this diktat, that we are already dealing responsibly with all those found and that we know that religion is much stronger than all human circumstances, also ultimately than a disease and that we can therefore confidently go through this situation. It was also important to us that the children had the opportunity to have a children's service, especially in the time when they could no longer go to school and are still very lonely. Many young families came to us who said, we would like to meet them. They no longer had a campus, they no longer had joint lectures and then several students met in the community rooms and did their work in their different subjects in front of their laptops and then ate together. And that was really important to us, to make the individual very caring there. And what we also tried was also in the sermons. Through all these topics, your people have also partly become aware of me. In the sermons, to bring a clarification of the situation, that is, to address these inconsistencies and to make it clear that we as a Christian community under all circumstances have the task, especially when people are afraid of death, we preach Jesus Christ, who is known to be risen. And if we keep our mouth shut in that situation, then we basically don't need to open it anymore. Well, I see it from a medical point of view. When I experience that parents are rejected by a hospital door with a sick infant because the mother does not wear a mask, then I really have to ask myself how sick you have to be to do something like that. Even if I am only the caretaker, if a mother comes to the hospital with an infant in the evening and the child coughs, then there is no reason for me to say in an emergency that the doctor has to go outside. But no, they send them away. That something like this could happen, I could never have imagined. Through the Humanitarian Support Center I have been able to experience every day for over 500 days that something like this is possible here in Hanover. The concern for the soul is exactly the same. There is only the fear for the child. Everything went well. But if the fears ... A mother like that also has fears. She would also look for support somewhere. Often they call in the morning and say, I'll come by tomorrow, even if it's not allowed. But in the church it must have been the same. How many calls for help did you get? We got a lot of help in different ways, by phone, by e-mail, also through the people who came to us in the church services and just needed encouragement, also needed concrete advice. And then we did something beyond the church. We founded an organization together with other pastors and employees from the Christian sector. The Working Group Christian Corona Help. And we stood up nationwide and made calls to help , for example in connection with the vaccination obligation. We wrote to all members of the Bundestag and reasoned again why, from the point of view of Christian ethics, a state should never demand a vaccination obligation in this sense and called on the members to vote against it. We offered help and advice to people from the care service and from the medical sector who were under pressure and many were not willing to take this risk and to bow to it. And many also wrote to us and asked what we could do. We tried to get in touch with lawyers and we regularly offered prayer days for all of Germany. That means we collected concerns that were particularly important in this phase in connection with the Corona problem. And we also asked local communities, individual Christian organizations, but also people who just met in their living room at home on the same day to give us support for these concerns. And we are convinced that the fact that the general vaccination obligation could then be prevented is not least a consequence that many people have asked us to prevent. That is our conviction because we believe that the God that the Bible calls a living, personal God who really acts and not just the wishful thinking of pious people. I take this very worldly. When I look at the Basic Law, I already know that a vaccination obligation cannot be enforced. No politician has the right to sacrifice a single life of a citizen. And with a vaccination, we always know that someone can die from any circumstances at the vaccination. We know that if an airplane flies over here and there is a kidnapper in it, he will die. And the same applies to a vaccination. I don't understand why politics could come up with such a thought that doctors say they don't treat people without a mask or that they don't treat unvaccinated people. It's not like the church can't close its doors. They left the doors open. What we are particularly happy about is that after this immediate threat has been swept away, most of the people have stayed. What we get there not only helps in an emergency, but can give our lives a different stability and orientation. It's great that this wasn't a momentary phenomenon and that many stayed. Yes, I have to say that I noticed this effect in the patients I took care of. At the beginning they contacted me and asked me to go to the doctor. And then they called me and said, what do you think? And I said, believe me. Do you want to open a practice? That's not my opinion. But the important question is that more and more people come to you for help. Which is great, because it's a proof of trust. But what is the situation in Germany right now? We have such an extreme migration rate that I, in relation to security in the Federal Republic, contacted a friend and said, if I imagine that someone from outside of Germany approaches these young migrants, they could take over Germany in one day. The police and the Bundeswehr couldn't do anything just because of the number of people there. And they come from East Indonesia. Indonesia is the largest Islamic country. In the center of the island there were always the Catholics, on the coast the Muslims. We were up on the mountain in the middle of the island. We were only able to provide emergency assistance when there were really serious problems. At the same time, we had a children's home for disabled children who were left behind at night. We took care of these serious cases. Once or twice a year we had a team from Australia where we could treat the most extreme cases. People from all over the region came to us. It was a Catholic hospital. There were Muslims and Protestants. They came there and thought, well, it's a different faith. I don't know if everything is okay. The Christians have the mission of doing good to everyone. As Paulus writes, we as Christians have a genuine responsibility for everyone, regardless of their faith, origin, age, illness, health status, because we see a creation of God in them. That's why we as Christians are sent to all people who need help in need. Just like we doctors do. They were small rice farmers. They didn't have a lot of education. They only had their small communities. They were afraid if everything was okay. But the good thing was, when I arrived in the jungle I met Jansche. I like to tell the story of Jansche. Jansche was a cute little boy. He was 6 or 7 years old. Jansche had one finger on each hand and one toe on each foot. Just to look at each other. A very cute guy. Jansche, those are his fingers, I went to greet him and I thought, as a good German, what do I bring to the kids when I arrive in the jungle? I brought rubber bears and air balloons. The rubber bears arrived perfectly. They didn't take a small bag and just sniffed in it. I thought, they still smell. But they did. They kept the bags for over 2 months. The rubber bears not so long. But they licked the rubber bears for hours. And then I had the air balloons. I had to explain to them what air balloons are. Those are kids in the jungle who have never seen an air balloon. So I pumped up the air balloons and let them fly. Everyone had a lot of fun. Then I had to tie Jansche with his two fingers. Jansche took the air balloon and went away happily. How old was Jansche? 6 or 7 years old. I thought, Thomas, you made a mistake. How can he do that? Totally wrong. 15 minutes later I saw that Jansche helped other kids with the air balloons. In this society Jansche was the one who always took care of arriving kids. Polio, leprosy, tuberculosis, tumors. When they came to us, we were a bit scared. I have to say, racism is different in Indonesia. In Indonesia they used the descriptive aspect. The man who is there is big. I was big for those people. I was big. Next to me I had a lighter skin. And I had a longer nose than them. So the name for a European who was walking around was either Hidung Panjang. Hidung is the nose, Panjang is the long nose. Or he was called Ayam Putih. Ayam is the chicken, and Putih is white. So purely descriptive. Exactly. And that's how it was always done. Even when Sumatra starts in Indonesia, the people there are still relatively light-skinned. But if we go over Java, they get darker. Then comes Flores, and the people there are even darker. Where I was, they were already dark and small. But the people from Papua New Guinea, they were black. A lot is done there. I brought a child from Indonesia to Hanover in the end. I was not yet safe with the treatment. But I can't drop the child now. Just because I'm leaving, I can't say that the child has to fall back into the disease. So I took her to Germany for six months. I got on the subway. We sat across from each other and a black African man sat next to us. Her name was Juliane. She looked at me and said to me in Indonesian, Thomas, look, there's a black nigger. And the word nigger also means a nigger. And then I called this gentleman and said, excuse me, I've never seen someone like you on the street before. And he said, give me your finger. And he rubbed it over his skin and said, don't take it off. And the situation was completely perfect. So it all works together. But the point here is, we have different faith communities, we have different ideas of the people. People are afraid. And Jantje was the one who always went there and said, look, the white doctor, the big one, he doesn't believe in God. And I don't think he believes in Allah. But he's nice. And then the situation was caught and that's what such a little boy did. But still, you risked inviting a pastor here. Yes, of course. But you really have to say, how do you get to the point that you can overcome these bridges, which worked with the child in the street. In the jungle, little Jantje managed it. Here you have to manage it. Yes, I think the bridges can only be broken by individual people. That means we have to approach the individual Muslims in this case and try to make them clear. But we can't solve the migration problem. That's another question. You really have to ask the mayors and the municipal politicians but I don't think that's our topic to discuss this. They specifically address the question of religious diversity. And what is the task of the church in this context? I think at least twice. First of all, yes, we really have to practice this bridge-breaking on a personal level. By really helping everyone who is in need, as far as we can. That we are friendly to them. But if that is what we are standing for as a church, then we have more to offer than just social support. We also have to show the Muslims what our hope is in life and in death. My experience in talking to Muslims is that a convinced Muslim only takes a convinced Christian seriously as a conversation partner. A Christian from the front line says, well, it's all the same God and we are all brothers and only have a few external forms in which we differ. Such a person is not taken seriously by a real Muslim at all. But the question is, are we convinced that Jesus Christ can really solve what he claims that he said, I am the way and the truth and the life. That is the exciting question. First of all, I am convinced that this is true. Secondly, we have the courage to convince a Muslim that we have to distinguish between matter and person. I respect you as a human being. I want to help you wherever it goes. But I am convinced that the way you try to solve the main problems of your life is not the way that ultimately leads you to the goal. And then we are in the middle of a conversation. Do you believe that Allah is not the same as the God of the Bible? What distinguishes Jesus Christ from Mohammed? And then we have to stand up and talk and answer. And then it gets exciting. We will not solve the big integration problem with that, but I say first of all that this is the main task that we have as a Christian church. That is, we have to help society to classify Islam, to understand it theologically. And it is not just that other names are used for the same content. It is a completely different belief that also leads to very different consequences in practical behavior. If you just think about how Islam represents the image of women and what that means for the individual Muslims. It's just an example. And I think the biggest task is to explain in a friendly, convincing, plausible, understandable way what the core of it is, what we believe in, and what the big difference is between Jesus and Mohammed. I have spoken with Muslims and I have found out that they were amazed and that many of them were very willing to ask these questions. The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead is that he is the only one who has really overcome death if the texts of the New Testament are true. And I am convinced that they are true. I have been studying these texts for decades and I have to say the longer I do this, the more convinced I am that they are true, that it was not a fake, that it was not a lazy imagination of some religious that the Christian message says there is forgiveness also between people, because God wants to forgive us. And God can forgive us not because God is inconsequential and sees through the fingers and lets everything run, but because God has provided for justice by sending Jesus to this world to solve the problem of guilt. You know, in every church there is a cross, and that is the sign that the cross is a central point of our faith, that Jesus died on the cross that he did not defend himself, he could have escaped if he wanted to, to finally take the punishment upon himself that we as humans deserved for our guilt before God. That is basically the core of the Christian message. God loves people, he wants to put aside what is between us and him. Because God is holy, he can't just look away and say, you can't do it any better. He has to solve the problem of guilt. He solves it by sending Christ to this world, that he dies on this cross and proves his authority that he really conquers death and rises again. And that is the basis of forgiveness. Now we can say, if God forgives us, who are we that we do not want to forgive each other? Yes, but I think you have to look at what the degree of forgiveness looks like. You are someone who stands up and says, I go into the conversation, I look for the conversation, I stand up. Many of my colleagues, no, a few of my colleagues did the same in the Corona time. As I went there, I said, I also doubted in the beginning. I didn't say, after all this is nonsense. I said, stop, take a breath. That is my knowledge so far. I have to work through it slowly. And then I worked through it. And then I said at some point, I have to step outside with it. It's such a nonsense that's going on there. That was also a question of conscience for you. Yes, especially at the beginning, when I said the first words. And then you get the impression that your daughter is being kidnapped. Then you say, then do your shit alone. But I didn't do that. But the point here is, all the doctors did that too. And they are obviously not willing to talk. I am willing to talk. I also invited them. I said, sit down, let's talk about the topic. You can take my website, work through the studies and then take your pile of studies and come and don't kidnap us. Fortunately, a few students from Hanover did that, who approached me and said, yes, but can you do all this? I said, listen, if you take my website, take your professor and say to your professor, Mr. Professor, Lee lists it down, he does it all, we want to dismantle it now. They did that here at the Medical University. And then the students contacted me and said, Mr. Lee, we have to apologize to our professors. They couldn't refuse. And I said, yes, what are they going to change now? Nothing. And now I come to the point, A, we have such doctors. We just had the topic, treatments have been rejected. How should the forgiveness look like? I mean, forgiveness always requires that someone admits his guilt and asks for forgiveness. That means that you have to try to convince the other person that he needs forgiveness. But you can't force that. You can force that as a Christian, that someone else recognizes his guilt before God and he recognizes it. And you can't force it as a doctor that your colleague admits that he acted wrongly. You can only try to convince. You can show the contentual connections and hope that the person can be convinced. Yes, then comes a very important question. How do you deal with it in the church when all these doctors sit with you in the service of God and say, everything went well, I'm here now and I'll enjoy life. These people have a guilt on them. And it's not small. That's right. You have to remind yourself of that and say, whoever did something wrong must also ask for forgiveness. And there are several levels. A doctor basically has to ask his patients for forgiveness. And he also has to ask society for forgiveness for giving him a completely wrong orientation to all these questions. But in the end, everyone stands before God. And that's the main instance where we need forgiveness. You know, that's where I start. That's my topic as a pastor or as a Christian. That I say, we are all standing with a guilt before God and we all need forgiveness. But we also have to recognize where we have become guilty. And then there is the guilt of God that we ignore God. Luther said very well that the main problem of man is that he himself wants to be God and does not want God to be God. And basically refuses to recognize God as God. But we also have a guilt problem, of course, towards our neighbor. And forgiveness always puts insight and knowledge first. And my attempt to lead people to insight and knowledge is to confront them with what the Bible shows us as the will of God. The Reformers called it to hold the mirror. And to say, this is the will of God. You shall love your neighbor. You shall serve the truth. You shall stand by the one who is in misery. And what have you done? And then I am, as a pastor, dependent that the person concerned sees this. Otherwise, I can only continue to remind him of these criteria. Yes, but then ... And we as a church have to say it to society. But that's why it's all the more problematic when representatives who claim to speak in the name of the church in retrospect say it was all right. Because they hang in there themselves when it was time, they forced themselves into the state horn. But they can all still hide behind these masses. I now see the guilt of a doctor who has not treated individual patients. That is unforgivable. But these are just individual patients. But if I am someone who has been vaccinated. I take the example, I come to visit you next week, go into your living room and hit a vase. That is so obvious that I say sorry. But while I walked through your garden, I also stepped on a rose. And now I have to tell you that this is a rose for the doctors who recommended the vaccine. They gave it to hundreds of people. So I don't have to apologize to one person for something that is actually inexcusable because I have negatively affected the health of this person. Or maybe even damaged it. That means there is such a anger. As I said, the inhibition threshold to apologize is already there with a flower in your garden. But how is it supposed to be overcome? Basically, the problem cannot be solved in a human way. It cannot be developed on the press of a button that society takes the blame. It is an individual question. Just as every single doctor has to ask himself, every single pastor has to ask himself how he reacted in this situation. Guilt cannot be forgiven collectively and the guilt problem cannot be solved collectively. It is always the individual in his responsibility who stands before God and then also stands before his neighbor. And that's why there is no patent answer to it. You need one. There is only one answer. But you can't force this answer on anyone. This is the essence of Christian faith that there is an individual, personal, oral decision of the individual out of conviction. This is the only chance. And that's why the Reformation also spoke of the priesthood of all believers. That is, that every person stands before the holy God in a personal responsibility. And our task is to remind people of this responsibility, that God is a holy God who takes guilt and sin seriously, but also a God who wants to forgive out of love. And then we can't make the decision for the individual how he behaves. We have to warn him of the consequences of his decision. We have to remind him of his responsibility. But it is then in the hands of the individual what he does with it. And just as I have to live with pastors who do not see it to this day and refuse to take into account that they may have acted wrongly, so you have to do the same with your colleagues. What remains for us? We have to try to name the content again and again and to draw clear lines. I think that's why parts of the EKD defend themselves against our criticism of the approach of the church in a way ... Maybe I can tell you this briefly that it is not only in the field of medicine, but also in the field of theology. The Evangelical Center for World Viewing Questions. This is an area of work of the EKD. In the last issue of their magazine, they attacked our circle of work in an article. This circle of work is called Christian Corona Help. They accused us of the following. This is so outrageous, I even have to look at my notes. They said the following. There are indeed people in this ACCH and in its environment who practiced criticism of the constitutional restrictions of Corona at the time and who explained it wrongly that the state tried to intervene in the design of the church. They argued that the state wanted to ban churches from singing. They argued to formulate state conditions that people have to meet in order to even be allowed into the service of God. And they basically did what? They framed our theological ethical concern to a political position, if you will. A political motive. What you preach there. And that you also point out the danger in the civil religion that is emerging. Civil religion means that political demands are dogmatized, are built up to religious dogmas. You have to have a certain position on the climate issue. That's a dogma. If you don't believe that, you're evil. You have to advocate genderism. That's a dogma. And that determines whether you are good or evil. And we call that civil religion. Which is of course dangerous for any democracy. What you do there are conspiracy-theoretical motives. They are susceptible to conspiracy theories. And what lies in the background? You also suspect the accusation of anti-Semitism. That's what you say in this paragraph of the Evangelische Zentralstelle for World Viewing Issues. And then the whole thing ends with an interesting note. I would like to read it to you. Where it is said that the whole thing contains so much conflict potential. In any case, this conflict potential seems to be so significant that it should be looked into in more detail. It is so unimaginable. The well-known Christians have always known themselves very clearly about Israel. And we do that regularly. Also the tradition in which we stand, the well-known church of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer said, only those who shout for the Jews may also sing Gregorian. We also have an employee who has Jewish ancestors who have been kidnapped, who have experienced the worst in our working group. Christian Corona Hilfe is one of my colleagues, a pastor from Hamburg, who is also a member of the Federal Board of Sinti and Roma. And Sinti and Roma have also made their experience in German history. What it means when you put it all together, then you can say that it is unheard of, that we are so close or at least this association is being created and we are currently checking whether it is legal to act against it. But what is striking is that it seems to be a diversionary maneuver according to the motto who dares to articulate that he has to expect to be brought close to anti-Semitism at some point. Probably there is hope that such critical voices could be intimidated with it. But we will certainly not be intimidated by it. And it's just absurd from A to Z. I think two points are very important. A. You express it clearly according to the motto We look at it. And the second point if you read alone or in the environment there are some. It is not according to the motto he lives in the city of Hannover but in the surrounding area of Hannover there are also a few very bad people. And there is a connection ability. It is always such a key term. And yes, it is really shocking. But we will conduct this discussion very openly and we will not exceed anyone. And I think that has to be said clearly in public again and again. Yes, that is also one of the reasons why I said at some point next to the website according to the motto We looked at it. And look at the date so that you can't say we didn't know it back then. The studies are from before 2000 and you could never The second point that I also said No, you just have to talk openly about it, just like we do. There must also be a smile with it. It doesn't always have to be so bitterly serious. There must be solutions. And we also have to deal pragmatically with things. And at the same time, if the politicians make such a nonsense. We now have this migration problem because the borders are completely open. When I traveled in the Corona time if I don't know what kind of forms but everyone else is welcome. Only not the unvaccinated German Lee. We don't want him here. That surprised me a bit. But they also give me like in the previous meetings. They always gave me such a positive boost. But we need it now in the pre-Christmas time very special. People have become poorer. They are getting poorer and poorer. The fear of poverty is growing. The rents are going up. The energy prices in the supermarkets you can already see how everything is changing. How can we give people now for this Christmas time first of all such a positive boost? I think it offers a huge chance. The Christmas time is my experience from the years that many people are particularly open at this time to think about fundamental questions. This time is a sensual time. Certain childhood memories are awakened and now this external emergency situation that she described is added. I think this is also a special chance. And our task as Christians, as a church, is, I don't think, so to speak, to warm up the emotional nozzle a bit, to frame a bit Christianly, to blow a bit of church sensuality into this tired glow of the rest of the religion. But we have something much better to offer. The Christmas message of the New Testament is a message of joy. Many still have this sentence in the ear from the Christmas story, I declare great joy to you, which will be experienced by all the people. So it's a message that doesn't just be kind, that doesn't just somehow try to pour a religious sugarcane over problems so that you feel it less for a few days, but it's a joy and the joy is also justified. I declare great joy to you, says the messenger, on Bethlehem's field, which will be experienced by all the people, because today the Savior was born in you. And Luther translated that as the healer. That is, the healer. The one who can really heal something in your life. Then you ask yourself, what is he supposed to do? And then comes this statement, which is central, that Christmas means that God has come near to us, that God has come into this world for us. The reason for this is that God wants to come to our lives, that he speaks to us, that he says, hey, I'm here, you can ask me for help, for salvation and comfort. And that is my conviction, that is the biggest reason for joy and hope that we are not alone when the situation is still so dramatic. And people, especially at this time, also notice when they are lonely, when they have lost their loved ones. Christmas always comes again with special force, also emotionally, to the people. That we can tell people this truth. God has come near to you. He really wants to be there. And you can call on him. He is not far away as a prayer. And the healer really wants to bring your life back to God. And you will also notice that this is not a consolation, but a blessing, which also helps you to get through the really dramatic problems of your life. At that time in the jungle I really noticed that the children always prayed in the evening. They knelt down on their bed and then they prayed really intently and then went to bed completely calm. And they were also active. And if you have noticed such a volcano rumbling when it starts, you notice that. I once stood at the Merapi in Indonesia and followed the eruption. Because I said, you can't tell me that science is so stupid. We can already predict volcanic eruptions. And then I went to Java on time and then the camera was set up and then the cloud comes. Water came in, Merapi erupted and then we ran away because we were standing where everything was destroyed. But on this island of the Volcanoes earthquakes have always been there. There was poverty there. There was always a wave from Tollwood that went over the island. And yet the children slept very quietly and blissfully. It was always something beautiful for them, that they could also pray. As a non-believer, active Christian, I find that ... That can still change. Yes, they can still do it. But yes, I really have to say that I admire this strength. You are fighting against the church in this Corona time. You have already practiced fighting against the church. Against the institution. But within the Corona time you fight for your community and go to the highest courts. It all takes strength. You see what bad things are happening around us with the societies and you still smile and bring out the happy message. You look ahead and say, Christmas will be all right. Yes, it is an offer. It is not just gone over the misery. It is real hope. And whoever wants this hope, will get it. Yes, and this strength that you express with it, I also admire the colleague Martin Hadditsch. He writes a lot all the time. I really admire this strength that all the people bring up. But I'm afraid of your roominess. Because if you now see the Hannover Connection, there is even a community for the preparation of the Corona time. A lot of people could say, I'll go there. Do you still have tents? Yes, our motto is we don't send anyone away. That would be the same during the Corona time. And it is quite well filled. But we will still find ways to accommodate someone, to add a few more chairs. So a warm invitation, normally at 10.30 on Sundays. We are happy about everyone getting a cup of coffee and the opportunity to have a conversation. We would be happy. We basically experience new faces every Sunday that we didn't know until then. And maybe I can express one last thought. Christmas is really challenging in this way that it is not just comfort, but that it is also a statement of God's power. Advent means that Christ came into this world at that time in the baby Jesus Christ, from whom the Lord is risen. But the Bible has a second Christmas message, if you will, and the Church has continued and emphasized it over the centuries. And that teaches the Christian testimony, the Bible says that Jesus Christ will return once. That is a great comfort for me. That he will return to bring justice. And it also means in the apostolic confession that he will come to judge the living and the dead. And that is a comfort for me, that I know all the evil, against which I often do not respond and about which you sometimes despair, what happens. There will be a last justice. There will be a last judgment. And according to Christian conviction, it is the one who will speak to judge the living and the dead. And that is a great comfort for me. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for having me. You are always welcome. Thank you.