What are we to make of the latest squabble over a reference to God in a German legal text?
The dispute erupted when Saarland, a German federal state, added a preamble to its constitution last week. It reads:
Conscious of its responsibility before God and human beings, on the basis of its religious and humanistic heritage, Saarland has given itself this constitution through its freely elected parliament.
The reaction from opponents—members of the Liberal Party, the Green Party, the Humanist Association and others—was swift and unsparing. Outdated. A step back to the 1950s. An affront to the state’s neutrality requirement. “The reference to God contradicts the values of the European Enlightenment and democracy,” reads a protest group statement. “The religious beliefs of a segment of society are not allowed to take precedence over a constitution that applies to everyone.”
To underscore the gravity of their cause, the protesters reached for the most warped comparisons possible: “In the ‘theocracy’ of Iran, thousands are murdered for fighting for their freedom, while the U.S. president sees himself as ‘saved by God’ and his Christian fundamentalist Secretary of Defense frames the war in Iran to his troops as part of God’s plan.”
So much for the quality of this debate.
But the humanists are getting it wrong. The truth is that those supporting the God reference are just as remote from American-style evangelical revivalism—and from any meaningful association with Trump and his populist movement—as their atheist opponents. Indeed, one could argue without much exaggeration that the reference to God is little more than a convenience: a way of burnishing the anti-populist credentials both mainstream parties have been cultivating anyway.
The preamble was adopted by the two establishment parties—the Social Democratic SPD and the CDU—after Saarland, the only German federal state without a constitutional preamble (a legacy of French post-war occupation until 1957), decided it finally needed one. Here is the telling detail: the original SPD-CDU draft very deliberately did not include a God reference, unlike Germany’s Basic Law on which it was otherwise modelled. (The CDU, whose name actually includes the word “Christian,” announced during the first reading of the bill last September that it intended to omit the reference to God as a gesture of goodwill toward the SPD).
The clause was added some weeks ago —quickly, and after a parliamentary hearing at which representatives of the Christian churches, the Jewish community, and Islamic centres proposed a joint formulation. And, as with everything adopted in Germany these days, it was done in the name of that most fashionable of goals: “strengthening democracy” and protecting society from extremism. “The SPD and CDU are strengthening militant democracy in the Saarland State Constitution”, said an SPD press-release.
Every supporter of the clause—even those who profess to be Christians—seemed intent on making clear that this was less about the Christian God than about human rights. “For me, as a Protestant Christian, it has always been absolutely clear that God and human rights are inextricably linked,” said Ulrich Commerçon, head of the SPD parliamentary group in Saarland. “My God also stands for our commitment to human rights.” The head of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland, Dr. Thorsten Latzel, was equally unambiguous: “Referring to God protects the inalienable dignity of all people, the unconditional validity of human rights, and the limitation of state power from arbitrariness.”
None of this would be particularly objectionable—governments amend constitutional drafts after consultations all the time—were it not for the suspicion that one motive overwhelms all others: the fight against the populist opposition. The opponents’ claim that the clause excludes “segments of society” carries an unintended deeper truth. This is not a crusade against atheists, as they make it seem. It is another signal aimed squarely at the populists and their voters. While the AfD may style itself as Christian, the new constitution now gets to decide who is truly on God’s side.
Those who might have hoped the debate would lead somewhere larger—to questions about what our value systems should be grounded in, what role Christianity could and should play, or what a genuinely liberal, enlightened worldview looks like—will have been bitterly disappointed. Rather than lifting us out of our current political trench warfare, the Saarland God reference merely illuminates it.
More serious commentators, like Thomas Jansen of the FAZ, have defended the reference by pointing to its classic function in Germany’s Basic Law. The clause, Jansen argues, was introduced as an expression of humility after the catastrophe of fascist totalitarianism. No government can claim to represent ultimate truth—as the Nazis did. Ultimate truth belongs to the religious sphere.
It is possible that some who voted for the reference had exactly this in mind.
Yet the universal emphasis on human rights and human dignity in public statements tells a different story—not of humility, but of hard-nosed political combat. Few concepts have been weaponised quite so thoroughly. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution justified classifying parts of the AfD as “confirmed right-wing extremist” partly on the grounds that its anti-migration policies violate human dignity. Now the anti-populist camp has gone one step further, conscripting God himself to signal that it occupies the moral high ground.
So what is the right answer—God, or no God in the constitution? The German philosopher Karl Jaspers offers orientation. In his essay “The Becoming of Man in Politics” (“Das Werden des Menschen in der Politik”), published in 1964, he wrote:
God or absolute truth is never in the world. It is always only people who claim authority in the name of God or absolute truth—not God or truth itself.
In the same essay, Jaspers also wrote that only political freedom can allow us to become fully human.
With all their differences, those supporting the God reference and those opposing it do seem united on one point: their contempt for the populists. And that alone reveals that the real political struggle is taking place on an entirely different level than some of those involved in it seem to think.
God or No God in Our Constitution?
State Parliament of Saarland in Saarbrücken
Flicka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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What are we to make of the latest squabble over a reference to God in a German legal text?
The dispute erupted when Saarland, a German federal state, added a preamble to its constitution last week. It reads:
The reaction from opponents—members of the Liberal Party, the Green Party, the Humanist Association and others—was swift and unsparing. Outdated. A step back to the 1950s. An affront to the state’s neutrality requirement. “The reference to God contradicts the values of the European Enlightenment and democracy,” reads a protest group statement. “The religious beliefs of a segment of society are not allowed to take precedence over a constitution that applies to everyone.”
To underscore the gravity of their cause, the protesters reached for the most warped comparisons possible: “In the ‘theocracy’ of Iran, thousands are murdered for fighting for their freedom, while the U.S. president sees himself as ‘saved by God’ and his Christian fundamentalist Secretary of Defense frames the war in Iran to his troops as part of God’s plan.”
So much for the quality of this debate.
But the humanists are getting it wrong. The truth is that those supporting the God reference are just as remote from American-style evangelical revivalism—and from any meaningful association with Trump and his populist movement—as their atheist opponents. Indeed, one could argue without much exaggeration that the reference to God is little more than a convenience: a way of burnishing the anti-populist credentials both mainstream parties have been cultivating anyway.
The preamble was adopted by the two establishment parties—the Social Democratic SPD and the CDU—after Saarland, the only German federal state without a constitutional preamble (a legacy of French post-war occupation until 1957), decided it finally needed one. Here is the telling detail: the original SPD-CDU draft very deliberately did not include a God reference, unlike Germany’s Basic Law on which it was otherwise modelled. (The CDU, whose name actually includes the word “Christian,” announced during the first reading of the bill last September that it intended to omit the reference to God as a gesture of goodwill toward the SPD).
The clause was added some weeks ago —quickly, and after a parliamentary hearing at which representatives of the Christian churches, the Jewish community, and Islamic centres proposed a joint formulation. And, as with everything adopted in Germany these days, it was done in the name of that most fashionable of goals: “strengthening democracy” and protecting society from extremism. “The SPD and CDU are strengthening militant democracy in the Saarland State Constitution”, said an SPD press-release.
Every supporter of the clause—even those who profess to be Christians—seemed intent on making clear that this was less about the Christian God than about human rights. “For me, as a Protestant Christian, it has always been absolutely clear that God and human rights are inextricably linked,” said Ulrich Commerçon, head of the SPD parliamentary group in Saarland. “My God also stands for our commitment to human rights.” The head of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland, Dr. Thorsten Latzel, was equally unambiguous: “Referring to God protects the inalienable dignity of all people, the unconditional validity of human rights, and the limitation of state power from arbitrariness.”
None of this would be particularly objectionable—governments amend constitutional drafts after consultations all the time—were it not for the suspicion that one motive overwhelms all others: the fight against the populist opposition. The opponents’ claim that the clause excludes “segments of society” carries an unintended deeper truth. This is not a crusade against atheists, as they make it seem. It is another signal aimed squarely at the populists and their voters. While the AfD may style itself as Christian, the new constitution now gets to decide who is truly on God’s side.
Those who might have hoped the debate would lead somewhere larger—to questions about what our value systems should be grounded in, what role Christianity could and should play, or what a genuinely liberal, enlightened worldview looks like—will have been bitterly disappointed. Rather than lifting us out of our current political trench warfare, the Saarland God reference merely illuminates it.
More serious commentators, like Thomas Jansen of the FAZ, have defended the reference by pointing to its classic function in Germany’s Basic Law. The clause, Jansen argues, was introduced as an expression of humility after the catastrophe of fascist totalitarianism. No government can claim to represent ultimate truth—as the Nazis did. Ultimate truth belongs to the religious sphere.
It is possible that some who voted for the reference had exactly this in mind.
Yet the universal emphasis on human rights and human dignity in public statements tells a different story—not of humility, but of hard-nosed political combat. Few concepts have been weaponised quite so thoroughly. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution justified classifying parts of the AfD as “confirmed right-wing extremist” partly on the grounds that its anti-migration policies violate human dignity. Now the anti-populist camp has gone one step further, conscripting God himself to signal that it occupies the moral high ground.
So what is the right answer—God, or no God in the constitution? The German philosopher Karl Jaspers offers orientation. In his essay “The Becoming of Man in Politics” (“Das Werden des Menschen in der Politik”), published in 1964, he wrote:
In the same essay, Jaspers also wrote that only political freedom can allow us to become fully human.
With all their differences, those supporting the God reference and those opposing it do seem united on one point: their contempt for the populists. And that alone reveals that the real political struggle is taking place on an entirely different level than some of those involved in it seem to think.
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