"It is depressingly clear...a federal state and a city...has overwhelmingly voted for a far right wing party...[but] I'm not giving up".

A reflection from Mission Partner and Partnership Coordinator for Europe, Revd Barry Sloan. Barry serves on the launch team of INSPIRE, a fresh expression initiative of church in Chemnitz, Germany.

Praise and Protest in Challenging Times.

I’m writing this near midnight on election day in Germany. The first exit polls depress me. The far right AFD party is getting about one third of the total votes in Chemnitz, the city in Saxony that has been my mission field and home for the past 25 years. And in the rural places around Chemnitz the AFD is poling as high as 55% of the vote! Extraordinary! Now with over 37% of the votes the AFD is by far the largest party in Saxony, even though nationally it averages 20% (and is much lower in places in the west and south Germany, like Stuttgart ca. 8%).

It is depressingly clear. I now live in a federal state and a city that has overwhelmingly voted for a far right wing party. I have so many emotions, uneasy feelings. And questions. Even though I know at an intellectual level that this is the democratic wishes of the citizens. Protest vote, or not. No matter what the political views are, we have to accept the democratic process. But still - I have so many unanswered questions.

This morning at church - elections in Germany are always held on a Sunday - I read a Bonhoeffer quote that was printed in the hymnbook.

Loosely translated: "It could be that tomorrow will be the last day, the end of the world, the LORD‘s return. If that is so, we will stop working for a better future. But not before then.“

But not before then. Praise the LORD for timely words of protest from a man who knew exactly what fighting fascism looks like.

Thus, inspired by Bonhoeffer’s words, if I wake up tomorrow and the world has not ended, I will endeavour to continue working for a better future.

But what does that even mean? What would that look like? Working for a better future? People of differing political persuasions will have differing answers. And the posts on our social media timelines will also reflect that…and the echo chambers that we virtually live in.

I guess one of my fears is that a political party in Germany will start to behave like the party currently governing the USA. For weeks now I have seen the incredulity, frustration, anger, and helplessness of many of my US friends, as they try to respond to what seems to me to be the deliberate dismantling of democratic and constitutional processes and protections.

I have seen hundreds of social media posts, highlighting injustice, questioning alleged illegal practices, advocating for the weak and defenseless, and condemning Trump and Musk in every way possible.

And I get it. Every little helps. But what else can the Church do, besides social media posts? What does working for a better future look like, over and above the Facebook posts? What else can we do? And yes, I know that there is a lot that we, the church, are doing. But tonight, watching the results of the German elections come in, I can’t help thinking we need to be doing more. Are you like me and think - and hope and pray - that there are some folk way smarter than us that are getting their heads together to come up with some world-changing answers? I mean, surely I can’t be the only one saying, ”We need to do more.”? But I don’t know what.

I do however know this: what we, the church, do will be based on who we are. We are the church. We are called to love not just our neighbour, but also our enemy. We are called to work for justice. For the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalised, and the oppressed. That’s why I was so proud of a young lady in our INSPIRE team here in Chemnitz who told me that she could not attend our Sunday gathering last week because she was attending a protest march to fight for a just and inclusive society.

This young lady swapped praise for protest. And in so doing, I would say she actually was at worship that day ...as she marched in protest. Maybe she was even a worship leader that day! Not the kind that helps us sing those great praise songs, but one who leads us into worship on the streets of a divided society, where the theology of those songs must be lived out. Courageously. Prophetically. Faithfully. If you ask me, I think we need a lot more of those kinds of worship leader! Praise and protest. Protest is praise.

So, with God‘s grace I‘m not giving up. We can’t stop working for a better world! And I do pray to God that we never have to give what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was tragically forced to give. Or have to make the choices that he felt forced to choose.

But our giving and doing surely has got to be more than just Facebook posts, for God‘s sake!

I know what I am going to do. Besides this blog post. And you?

Barry Sloan, 23rd February 2025