Kirchentag

Cologne was hot.  In the first week of June the coolest place in the city was the cathedral.  The thunderstorm that hit town on the Saturday afternoon was a welcome relief.  The Kirchentag was crowded.  The official figure was 104,163 participants, including more than 5,000 who came from outside Germany .  The 450-strong British contingent included not only the nineteen members of the official group from Oxford Diocese but several others from Berks, Bucks and Oxon, who travelled independently.  Their numbers were swelled by a group from congregations in Oxford city who spent Friday at the Kirchentag with their hosts as part of a week-long visit to Oxford ’s twin city, Bonn .

Bishop Desmond Tutu

The Kirchentag programme was full, too, with music and theatre, serious biblical scholarship and equally serious political discussion, much of it focused on the linked themes of world poverty and climate change.  They helped the Kirchentag live up to its slogan, “Living and Active and Sharper” (a reference to the description of God’s word in Hebrews 4:12). Among several speakers from the world of politics was the German Chancellor Angela Merkel who came straight from the G8 summit in Heilgendamm to report to the Kirchentag on what had happened (try to Gordon Brown turning up at Greenbelt to report on such a high-powered political gathering).  Frau Merkel’s session followed a Bible study by Jörg Zink, one of the most popular Christian writers in Germany .  This meant that there was total impasse for several minutes as the crowds trying to get into the hall to hear her found their way blocked by a similar number of his disciples trying to get out.

The Kirchentag was framed by opening and closing services on Poller Wiesen, a huge expanse of grass on the eastern bank of the Rhine, both enriched by the music of Cologne ’s own pop group “The Wise Guys”.  Brightest among the high-lights for English-speakers was what can only be described as “The Desmond Tutu Experience”. The former Archbishop of Capetown led a lively, challenging, and at times hilarious Bible study in one of the biggest halls at the Messegelände ( Cologne ’s huge exhibition centre).  Other pictures that remain vivid in the memory are the sight of the Area Dean of Cowley bopping along to an African worship song in the Iona Community’s centre at Stammheim; the shadows deepening in one of Cologne’s most ancient churches, St Maria im Kapitol, as a choir from Mülheim in the Ruhr sang (most beautifully and prayerfully) 1662 Evensong in German translation; and, at the closing service, a Hansa cog arriving under full sail with the invitation to the 2009 Kirchentag which will be held in the Hansa city of Bremen.

Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz (who has become something of a fixture at the Kirchentag in recent years) always looks as if he has the cares of the world on his shoulders, but in Cologne , the home territory of the arch-conservative Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the frown-lines seemed, if anything, more deeply etched. However, as a senior figure in the German Protestant Church pointed out, for Cardinal Meisner to have taken part at all was a major ecumenical step forward, and his welcome of 100,000 Protestants to his staunchly Catholic city at the opening service seemed genuinely warm.  Much sharper and more painful was the presence of a group of Iraqi Christians at a three-faith seminar on the Middle East, carrying a large cross to remind us that the continued existence of the 2,000-year-old Christian communities in the Middle East is in serious danger – one of the less frequently mentioned consequences of intervention in the region by the “Christian” west.

So what have I brought back from my five days in Cologne ?  An impression of the warm hospitality of the people of Cologne (and the excellence of the city’s beer): a greater awareness of the rich variety of Christian traditions and a consciousness that the word of God is indeed “living and active and sharper” in its impact on our life both inside and outside Church. Above all, I returned with a renewed sense that the Christian Gospel is inclusive of all humanity.  The Bible studies led by Desmond Tutu and Richard Rohr in particular left me in no doubt that, as Fr. Richard put it, “Jesus did not come to create a smug, self-satisfied group of people” but a movement of hope.  God’s hope for the world is universal and his gift is as available and accessible as the air we breathe.  That is a message we need to take urgently to heart in this time of growing division within and between faith communities.

Tony Dickinson