THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION
or
WIDER DIE FALSCHE GELASSENHEIT.*
By Herbert Deinert, Cornell University.
This contribution was
prompted by events in East Germany that ultimately led to German
unification.
Many forces contributed to the collapse of the GDR as a separate state,
the final and most visible was the mass exodus via Hungary and
Czechoslovakia.
The Communist regime resisted change when change was taking place in
most
of East Germanys neighbors to the east and southeast. But an ever
increasing number of increasingly restless citizens insisted on it and,
not given a chance to change matters by improving the system,
effected
the most radical change of all: they swept away an unresponsive,
cynical
and calcified government.
In this process
the role of one institution stands out, that of the Protestant
Church.
What finally turned into massive, yet peaceful, demonstrations with
hundreds
of thousands participating, began as prayer meetings in
Dresdenís Holy
Cross Church, the Nikolai-Church in Leipzig, the Gethsemane-Church in
Berlin,
and many others. It was here that small "opposition" groups were
formed who began to formulate sets of demands for reform that
were
eventually adopted by regional Church Assemblies, Federation Synods and
Ecumenical Conventions. Isolated units of church-based,
politically
concerned Protestant citizens eventually evolved into a mass movement
endorsed
by the Protestant Church as an institution whose hierarchy gradually
and
reluctantly abandoned the notion of a "Church within Socialism."
The newly inspired Church exhorted the government to be responsive to
the
people, and the people, to demonstrate peacefully but persistently.
This change of official
church position from caution to solidarity is documented in a splendid
book by Gerhard Rein, Die protestantische Revolution, 1987-1990.*
Equally important, it shows the emancipation of a people as they learn
to speak for themselves and outgrow the need for the clergy to act as
mediators.
Even-handed and fair, the book also provides a forum for some who claim
that there was no revolution at all, merely the collapse of a decayed
system,
and for angry voices raised against opportunistic church officials,
Catholic
and Protestant, who did little and joined late.
The book is ingeniously
organized as chronicles of events, followed by documentation relating
to
them, generously supplemented by the authorís commentary and
analysis as
broadcast at the time over the South German Radio in Stuttgart.
It
follows on the heels of another volume which contains "blueprints
for a different kind of socialism," and compiles between two covers the
sometimes conflicting ideas of important reform groups like "New
Forum,"
"Democratic Initiative," "Democracy Now," and others who felt that
East Germany might have a future as a separate state under a "socialism
with a human face" but were swept away in a rush toward unity with West
Germany that no one could and few wanted to stop.
Die protestantische
Revolution, as the title implies, restricts itself to the role of the
Church,
i.e. hierarchy, clergy and prominent laity. The title also
implies,
and the introduction makes it explicit, that this is "the first
Protestant
revolution in Germany." The claim seems extraordinary but is
based
on the fact that Luther abhorred the very idea of a revolution
and
wanted no part of it; he understood his mission as solely religious and
fundamentalist-reformist. In 20th century East Germany, by contrast,
what
began as a reform movement eventually became a political revolution
supported
by the Protestant Church.
In June of l988, each
weekend saw another regional Protestant Church Convention (evangelische
Kirchentage) in Erfurt, Rostock, Goerlitz and, finally and most
importantly, in Halle. Here the assembly adopted twenty
theses,
prepared in Lutherís own Wittenberg, that gave voice to urgent
concerns,
demanding renewal and open discourse; deploring bureaucratic apathy,
tyranny,
and a shackled press; insisting on governmental accountability
and
truth in reporting; demanding the creation of courts to settle
grievances,
since petitioning the government was an exercise in futility. Cut
the claim to socialist superiority, they demanded; cut the propaganda
in
the educational system; open the borders, all of them; establish
a more realistic pricing system for basic food stuff and energy to
eliminate
horrendous waste and pollution.
This defiant resolution
proved to be a catalyst. Since there was always the danger (and
many
real instances) of violent repression, cautious voices had introduced
the
notion of Zumutbarkeit ("reasonableness," gladly adopted by the
SED, the ruling party): What demands will the government find
acceptable?
Paralyzed by so much pragmatism the synod of the Federation of
Protestant
Churches meeting in Goerlitz in September of 1987 could not get
themselves
to act on a resolution calling for open borders.
The regional convention
in Halle in 1988 changed all that. From now on, each
Federation
synod passed similar resolutions with ever greater assurance and
determination,
insisting on comprehensive civil and human rights, including the right
to unrestricted travel, and the right to opposition and to peaceful
demonstrations.
The synods had become a substitute parliament or, if you wish, an
extra-parliamentary
opposition, East German style. In June of 1989, commenting on
the fraudulent May elections, the Federation hierarchy expressed
sympathy
with an angry populace but still rejected "overreactions and
demonstrations"
as inappropriate for the church. However, the statement was
immediately challenged by other prominent clergy. The month of
October
saw one more concerted police action against dissidents and
demonstrators,
but an unstoppable momentum had been generated and the mass protests
continued
until a repressive system collapsed, ironically as it was
celebrating
its 40th anniversary.
Well, what is so special
here? To understand the enormity of this Church-supported
activism
one has to remember the stifling tradition, in Germany, of Martin
Lutherís
political doctrine, particularly his guidelines addressing the
relationship
between government and the governed, the bulk of it formulated shortly
before and during the German Peasantsí Revolt in the 1520s.
Here we encounter but one of many occasions where legitimate but
misplaced
religious concepts get in the way of common sense and social
progress.
I will briefly deal with one of the most potent, namely Gelassenheit
(detachment, serenity, repose) and its conceptual field.
Within the
mystical
experience, Gelassenheit is the final state the Self must
achieve
before it can experience the mystical union. It is a state
reached
by eliminating, or "purging," all that stands in the way of progress
toward
God; by renouncing all that is material, sensual, transitory; by
renouncing
oneís own, individual will; in short by giving up all claims to
autonomy:
reversing, as it were, the process of individuation. In a
Christian
context the point of reference is usually a sentence from the
Scriptures
to the effect that no one can hear the word of Jesus and be his
disciple
unless he has renounced himself first (e.g. Matt. 16,24).
German mystics and theosophers from Meister Eckehart to Jacob Boehme
have elaborated on it. In their writings, Gelassenheit
is a state of pure contemplation, of illumination in the presence of
the
divine: the Self "desires nothing, asks nothing, is utterly passive and
is thus prepared for the Union, the true goal of the mystic quest"
(Evelyn
Underhill).
This idea of a
contemplation
that desires nothing and is utterly passive resurfaces, centuries later
and filtered through the process of secularization, as "disinterested
contemplation" (interesseloses Anschauen) in Kantís
aesthetics.
My colleague M.H. Abrams who traces both the classical and Christian
prototypes
of this "impersonal and absorbed contemplation" in his essay "Kant and
the Theology of Art" [Notre Dame English Journal, XIII, 1981] comes
within
a hair of identifying the mystical concept of Gelassenheit as the chief
Christian influence on Kantís formula.
As early as the
beginning
of the l5th century the classical stoic tradition, although never quite
extinct, reemerged forcefully. Hence the term that is still with
us today: stoische Gelassenheit, stoic detachment, equanimity, with its
chief advice not to form a strong attachment to what is transitory lest
a loss of possessions or persons be experienced as a crushing
blow.
It is one of the main lessons Death teaches the bereaved husband in the
Ackermann
aus Boehmen, written around 1400; it is a contemptuous
remark the Grand Inquisitor hurls at King Philip in Schiller's
Don Carlos,
written 400 years later. It forms the simple basis for the very
complex
issue of Entsagung/renunciation in many German classics: namely
the mature yet painful decision to reduce one's agenda, to justify a
gradual
slowdown and the prudent preservation of energy. 17th century
Protestants,
already familiar with the topos of vanity, embraced stoic detachment,
discovered,
as had Meister Eckehart before them, detachment's proximity to such
other
virtues as constancy and fortitude, and produced some beautiful poetry
on the subject; many of their religious hymns are still found in church
hymnals the world over. Of course there were pedants among them
in
whose hands the merged traditions yielded but pious insensitivity. Opitz'
lengthy and stultifying Consolation in the Adversities of War is an
example.
The lack of human warmth
associated with our term finds its extreme expression in the sublimely
indifferent attitude of Rilke's Angel, "der es gelassen
verschmäht,
uns zu zerstören." There is an echo here both of Nietzsche's
rare use of the word: "Mit einer ungeheuren und stolzen Gelassenheit
leben;
immer jenseits-," Jenseits von Gut und Böse, that is, from which
this
sentence is taken, and Goethe's Faust raging at Mephisto: "Du
grinsest
gelassen über das Schicksal von Tausenden hin." In a secular
context, it is best reflected in the fatalistic, yet courageous
attitude
of protagonists like Goethe's Egmont who are determined to
exercise
what limited control they have over a life that is compared to a
chariot
drawn by horses running wild.
Then there is detachment
as serenity, the heitere Gelassenheit of people who have aged
gracefully
like Philemon and Baucis in Goethe's Faust II. Or the two old men
at the end of Hesse's Siddhartha whose serenity appears as the idiot
grin
of senility to some, but to others is radiant with energy and
non-verbal
eloquence. Or people who are content with their place and
state
in life, settled and fulfilled and at peace with themselves and their
environment,
quite often women like Lotte, Gretchen, Ottilie, Diotima, until some
unsettled
("unbehaust") and unsettling men enter their lives. Or the
serenity
that comes from unselfconsciousness until vanity or curiosity effect a
change that leads to self-consciousness and the loss of paradise:
romantic
literature is full of versions of the fall from grace.
Selig is an
intimately
related term, "blissful" in modern German, but it means self-sufficient
and self-contained in earlier usage and is applied to gods, human
emotions,
and beautiful objects alike. (Makarie and her world).
The magic power of Janus-faced
music belongs in this context, with its ability to cause states of
mind from extreme agitation to serenity: "Which passions cannot music
raise
& quell" (John Dryden). So does the question of whether to
resist
the lure of gravity or give in to it, that is posed in much of
"decadent"
literature, works by Thomas Mann and Rilke among them.
"Stoic repose" with
its related attitude of Ergebenheit (servitude, submissiveness)
appears to be the sole association for Joseph Goerres.
The
first volume of his multi-volume study Die christliche Mystik has a
chapter
called "Starkmuth und Gelassenheit in jeder Art des Ungluecks" which
tells
the stories of women (!) who suffer gladly and vicariously, very much
in
the spirit of Genovefa as French legend and the German Volksbuch depict
her.
Early on, that aspect
of Gelassenheit that signaled acceptance of prevailing conditions was
linked
to obedience. And this becomes the corner stone of
Lutherís
political beliefs. They were drawn from and confirmed by
multitudes
of Christian authorities from St. Paul to a semi-mystical tract of the
late 14th century called "A German Theology" which he edited partially
in 1516, two years later in its entirety.
All government, he
taught,
is divinely ordained. The ruler's legitimacy is derived not from
the will of the people but from the grace of God who installed secular
government to be his arm and instrument. More than 400
years
later, in Hitler's Germany, the prominent Protestant theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, echoing Paul's Letter to the Romans and Luther's
Catechism, reiterates the archaic doctrine in his Ethics: "Government
is
divinely ordained authority to exercise worldly dominion by divine
right.
Government is deputyship for God on earth. It can be understood
only
[as emanating] from above. It does not proceed from society, but
orders society from above."
Luther believed in order
more than he believed in justice and had no interest in destabilizing
secular
authority. On the contrary, by appointing the individual
Protestant
rulers heads of their regional churches, he made the Protestant Church
a pillar of the state. If you have grievances, he taught,
petition
the government. If you are not heard or receive no redress, go
home
and go quietly about your business. Under no circumstances
whatever
do you have a right to rebel. If your government is good, praise
the Lord for an undeserved gift. If it is bad, remember that you
deserve worse than they can hand you. It is only in matters of
faith
(the right faith) that secular government has no authority and must be
resisted if necessary.
Luther believed in
government
for the people, and never mind the of and by. Man was fallible,
constantly
tempted to abuse his free will, and had to be kept in line.
Needless
to say, regicide, including the assassination of even the most
odious
tyrant, was out of the question, because even in his villainy he was an
arm of God. Stability headed the list of social priorities.
It is hard to imagine now what shock waves rocked Europe when the Puritans
executed Charles Stuart on January 30, l649 after he had gotten
himself
into a needless (Churchill) conflict with Parliament. The
Protestant
German playwright Gryphius composed a tragedy (Carolus
Stuardus)
that raises Charles I to the level of a Christian stoic martyr,
reflecting
Charles' self-image as recorded in his final words: that he died
a good Christian and a martyr to the people. Luther was convinced
of the imminent second coming of Christ and wanted his people to
concentrate
on one thing alone: finding and keeping the right faith to escape
eternal
damnation. The 17th century English Puritans, by contrast, also
certain
that the millennium was at hand, proposed to prepare for it by doing
everything
within their power to return mind, body and the land to their original,
pre-lapsarian state: hence their emphasis on education, medicine and
agriculture.
Eschatological anxiety
was one of the forces moving Luther. Horror of rebellion and fear
of being branded a rebel himself was another. The reason is
simple.
In Christian lore it was rebellion that brought evil into the world. Lucifer
who would not accept his place in the order of things became the
original
rebel in Judeo-Christian myth, his rebellion generating a momentum that
caused the disobedience of Adam and Eve and the
corruption
of all creation. Jacob Boehme describes the fall of the
"beautiful
morning star," as he and the Old Testament call him, with great awe and
genuine grief; it is a tumultuous upheaval at the dawn of time in a
universe
of pure energy, still devoid of matter.
But the violent act
of disobedience that bears the name of Lucifer produced a
reaction
of equal magnitude whose name is St. Michael. In this
instant,
two principal protagonists are born: the rebel and the loyalist; the
outlaw
and the law enforcer; Achilles the aggressor, Hector the
defender;
the courtly knight on a quest, the feudal hero of the heroic epic;
Prometheus
and Ganymede as Goethe sees them. The types remain the same while
standards of judgment change. Faust who will not recognize the
limitations
placed upon humans deserves hell in the Faustbook and in Marlowe, while
he finds favor with Goethe's God for the very same reasons. It is
he, Faust, not Mephisto, who lives by the spirit of Boehme's Lucifer.
But to Luther any rebel
was a follower of Satan and himself a devil. This is how he
inveighed
against the rebellious peasants of his time who had ignored his
passionate
pleas for calm and order:
Let everyone who can do so, smite, slay
and stab them,
secretly or openly, remembering that
nothing
is more
poisonous, injurious and devilish, than
a rebel. ... If a
prince or governor can punish them and
does not, then he is
guilty of all the murder and evil
these brutes commit. ...
The men in power may destroy them in good
conscience,
remembering that rebellion must not be
tolerated, and that
the destruction of the world is to be
expected every hour.
Ignoring a long
tradition
of church sponsored civil obedience the East German citizens did not
"go
home quietly to mind their own business" once their petitions were
denied.
Show them how many you are, pleads the radical priest Roux in Peter
Weiss' Marat/Sade. They showed them. They came back,
ever
more numerous, non-violent, and they succeeded stunningly. And,
improbably,
the German Protestant Church had been part of the solution, had finally
(if ever so slowly and reluctantly, like wading through molasses,
pestered
and pushed by an impatient people) adopted a political voice. The
Church resolved at last to identify with and participate in the
struggle
against intolerable conditions, and to oppose the rulers responsible
for
them. That, too, was a "Protestant Revolution." The
question
of Zumutbarkeit ("What will the government find
acceptable?")
got turned around to stand on its feet instead of its head and became a
question of legitimacy: "Do We, the People, find this an
acceptable
government?"
After the failed
uprising
of 1953 the East German regime declared that it had lost faith
in
the people, and that the people must work hard to restore it. Luther
would have applauded this breathtaking display of mandarin arrogance
and
political analphabetism. Brecht asked slyly at the
time:
"Why doesn't the government dismiss the people and elect
another?"
Some thirty-five years later Luther's paralyzing rules of conduct were
quietly modified. Even Edmund Burke would have approved: "...a
revolution
will always be the very last resource of the thinking and the
good."
It was the last resort. The revolution of 1989
coincided
with and overshadowed the 200th anniversary of the French
Revolution.
But the strategies employed now, lest things get out of hand, were
those
of Mahatma Gandhi and the other Martin Luther, Martin
Luther
King.
Select publications from the time in question, 1989-1991
Gerhard Rein, Die protestantische Revolution
1987-1990.
Wichern-Verlag. Berlin 1990
Gerhard Rein, ed. Die Opposition in der DDR.
Wichern-Verlag. Berlin 1989
Rolf Henrich, Der vormundschaftliche Staat. Vom
Versagen des real existierenden Sozialismus. rororo 1989
Marlies Menge, "Ohne uns laeuft nichts mehr"
Die Revolution in der DDR. DVA 1990
Neues Forum Leipzig, 1989 Forum Verlag Leipzig,
1990 Bertelsmann
Wolfgang Rueddenklau, Stoerenfried.
ddr-opposition
1986-1989. Berlin 1992
Edelbert Richter, Christentum und Demokratie
in Deutschland. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig & Weimar 1990
Friedrich Schorlemmer, Traeume und Alptraeume.
Verlag der Nation Berlin 1990
Jan Priewe / Rudolf Hickel, Der Preis cder
Einheit,
Fischer TB 1991
Ulrich K. Preuss, Revolution, Fortschritt und
Verfassung. Wagenbach 1990
Lothar Baier, Volk ohne Zeit. Essay ueber das
eilige Vaterland. Wagenbach 1990
Lienhard Wawrzyn, Der Blaue. Das Spitzelsystem
der DDR. Wagenbach 1990
Vertraege zur deutschen Einheit. Bundeszentrale
fuer politische Bildung. Bonn 1990
Deutscher Bundestag. 12. Wahlperiode 1990. NDV
1991
Berlin / Bonn. Die Debatte. Alle Bundestagsreden
vom 20. Juni 1991. KiWi Koeln 1991
* This is a revised version of a piece that appeared in Dimensions. A. Leslie Willson &
Contemporary German Arts and Letters, ed. Peter Pabisch &
Ingo R. Stoehr. Verlag van Acken, Krefeld. 1993.