Berkley Center

I feel about religion like vegetarians feel about meat. I understand that it's perfectly normal for a person to desire to have some in their life. I would never deny there aren't benefits that result because it exists. Additionally, children, especially as they're growing, might require some so that they're healthy later. Nonetheless, it's not for me. I'll admit that my personal stances probably make little, if any net difference, but, if no one played the skeptic, there would be even bigger problems.

On the liberal American East Coast metropolis, one is never too far from a purebred secularist, but, having landed in a city where nuns and saints are painted onto subway cars, the skyline is defined by cross-capped cathedral domes, and where the dominant political party is the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), religion is a very obvious force in all aspects of Bavarian life.

At my local pharmacy, a massive carved wooden cross hangs over my head at the cash register. The public Catholic university—an impossibility in the states—at which I study is adorned with mosaic-style Byzantine portraits of saints. In the hallways, one encounters lecture towers, the kind found in old churches and traditionally used to give sermons. In one hallway, I even encountered what appeared to be a baptismal font attached to a wall, accompanied by a sign encouraging the passerby to "cleanse." The word for cleanse, in this case, being one I've only ever heard in the context of cleansing oneself spiritually. The evidence of Munich and the greater Bavarian state’s spirituality goes on, and statistics support my conceived impression of Bavaria as heavily Christian.

Without coming across as sarcastic or overly sensitive, I have to insist that simply responding to a traditional "Grüß Gott" (Praise God), the traditional greeting in Bavaria, with a "Hallo" has raised eyebrows in more than a few public situations, including in line at the bakery and at the grocery store. The Bavarian culture, including its language, is obviously interwoven with religious ideals and infused with Christian (mainly Catholic) influence.

What I find so compelling, and at times maddeningly confusing, is how this devout quality affects the way Bavarians view culture. The tricky thing about religion is that by formally subscribing to such a specific system of belief, the subscriber seems to imply that people who have other spiritual preferences have made an inferior decision. Culture, by contrast, is theoretically completely subjective. So what happens when your religion is, virtually, your culture?

In history books, it is almost impossible to write about Germany's history objectively. Sure, we all know about the Holocaust, but there's also Germany's roles in the Crusades, the Reformation, the Cold War, and the European Union‘'s growth and expansion.

One cannot deny that, in each of these historical time instances, a tradition of German spirituality has played an immensely significant role. The Reformation saw the split of the Catholic Church at the hands of Protestant Germans, who sought a closer and more direct relationship with God than the philosophy of Rome provided. At the end of the Cold War, East Germans were still a religious population stuck behind the Iron Curtain, even after the influence of secularist reforms from Moscow took hold. The Russian decision to allow Germans to congregate in churches would prove to be a fatal mistake, which played a huge role in allowing East Germans to organize resistance movements behind closed doors. With regards to the European Union, leaders of the CDU, one of the most prominent and powerful political parties in Germany, are quick to openly cite the Muslim identity of Turkey as a top reason it should not be more formally integrated into the European community.

Just last week, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, declared that multiculturalism in Germany had failed, and, in a speech criticizing the interaction between Germans and the German-Turkish community, the implication was that examples of successful integration were hard to come by.

While Merkel emphasized the language barrier as a problem challenging successful integration, a huge number of Germans sitting at home on their couches were agreeing with her. My question would be, however, as follows: Were they agreeing with Merkel that Turkish is the problem, or, if you asked a few of them, would they cite Arabic, the language of the Qur'an, as the underlying, unspoken, and politically-very-incorrect problem?

It's completely unfair to say the Germans are in any way less tolerant than citizens of the United States, in which, only recently, President Barack Obama was compelled to discourage a Qur'an burning ceremony. But I will say that, unlike the United States, the traditional German identity is unquestionably Christian.

What I find compelling is that the future of Germany depends on its ability to harness the potential positive potential of the millions living in Germany who have failed to integrate because of Turkish heritage. Germany needs to convince these people that learning the language is not signing away one'’s ancestry, while emphasizing Muslims can play a positive role in a Christian society without scarring compromises.

So how do I see Germany in 20 years? Will it rise to the challenges I have described? I'm an optimist, but it will be a very long road. Religion does not compromise. When a culture is highly influenced by a religion, the culture is not relative. To be truly “Bavarian,” one must be comfortable with the thousands of embellished crosses, cathedrals, and statues of saints that dot the landscape. Even the famous Oktoberfest drinking songs require one to chant about a God, who is distinctly Christian. There's abundant peer pressure to greet the neighbors with "Grüß Gott!" The Bavarians mean “praise God”—and, yes, the implication is that he's Christian.

Germany's challenge is not so much multiculturalism, but, instead, the age old problem of dealing with multiple faiths. As an uncommitted secularist, I'm used to hearing people refuse to compromise regarding religion and the associated culture. Here's hoping that such a stubbornness does not prejudice this brilliant nation’'s chances of success in the twenty-first century.