Church, Know your place!

Her finder De den danske udgave af denne klumme.


In the following I will discuss some issues arising from the case of the deported Iraqis' asylum in Brorsons Church in Copenhagen. I will relate to the Church's relation with the state and the reactions that the case had triggered in wide – or possibly just loud – circles in the Danish opposition.

              One should help people when they are in need. Particularly as a priest, one's conscience says that one should help people as much as possible... It is a balance between conscience and the laws and rules under which we live. A priest should follow the law of the country, that is clear. But we also have a parallel world, or some kind of a different level in the church – the religious and spiritual level, where one talks to the conscience, and there we prioritise people above all.
(Per Ramsdal, children and youth priest in Brorsons Church in Danmarks Radios “Jersild Live”, 15^th of October, 2009)

What does one do then as a state-employed priest? Break the law of the country, which has been adopted by you and me through our representatives in parliament? Break the rules which have been decided by the country's population, the same population that also pays one's salary? Or does one ignore one's conscience?

God's Representatives on Earth are State-Employed

One thing is clear – priest or not, it is everybody's right and duty to follow their conscience. There is no doubt that when the choice is between conscience and obedience, it is one's conscience one should follow. I respect Per Ramsdal for his choice to act conscientious rather than demonstrating blind obedience. I am just not happy with the way chose to do it.

Per Ramsdal runs from responsibility by referring to a parallel, religious level, where other rules than the worldly legislation prevail. The Danish state with its political and judicial systems is, after all, based on Christian values and traditions. There is no “parallel level” in the Church. There are just different interpretations. There is no reason why the Church's interpretations of the values of our society should enjoy a superior status to the secular interpretations. The intense debate Ramsdal triggered within the church, where a large group of Danish priests signed a document arguing against Ramsdal, carrying the title of this very article, comes to show that his acts were not an inevitable consequence of his “parallel plan” and Christian conscience. Moreover, we live in a democracy where the Church is a public institution, a spiritual supplement to the state's other institutions. A democracy where the priests are state-employed. Therefore, priests who can not put up with the morality of the state, should leave the national church and follow their conscience outside the state apparatus. Parallel levels to the state, as those Ramsdal refers to, can not exist within state institutions. If they do, then they are not parallel. Ramsdal himself suggests that these two sets of rules, the law of the country and the spiritual dogmas of the Church, are conflicting – otherwise there will not be a conscience conflict. Without hesitation, Ramsdal uses the terms 'church's dogmas' and 'humanness' as interchangeable and as antonyms to 'the law of the country'. What an insult to the Danish population, which through its representatives in parliament, has discussed and passed these laws.

 

The Church is tired of being a bystander

It is too easy to claim that the Church stands for higher morals than the state. This is exactly the same mantra that opposition parties all over the world delude themselves and their supporters. Funnily enough, the state never seems to stand for any higher values and morals after power changes hands. That is because other rules apply when one is suddenly responsible for a whole population, and not just for those whose support one chooses to mobilise during an populist campaign. That of course does not stop Per Ramsdal from preparing the ground for a power struggle between the Church and the state. He does that during the interview with Jens Olaf Jersild by involving god in a political discussion, while at the same time claiming that politicians must never interfere with matters of the Church.

Ramsdal – long gone are the days where god ruled the people through his churchly representatives on earth. Now it is the people that decide over god through democratically elected politicians that employ priests. It is therefore us, the people, that decide who should represent god here on earth and what kind of values and morals god should stand for.

Any attempt at portraying the Church as an institution of higher morals can be easily brushed off by pointing at the days where the Church actually did have the power to crown and depose kings. The Christian message of those days was in its essence the same as it is today. It was, after all, in the name of Jesus and human compassion that envoys of the Church used violence, public torture and executions and political intrigues to convert Europeans to the new religion. Indeed, the secular leaders of those days, as well as many of our days, used similar methods. That only comes to show that there is no difference between secular leaders and leaders who consider themselves gods messengers. A priest who breaks the law and chooses to place the responsibility for his acts on god's shoulders should do it from a private church and not from one that owes its existence to public funds. So far I agree with Ramsdal. He says him self that the Church should be private and not belong to the state. Nonetheless I would warn against preaching to amendments in the law based on religious references to divine authorities and texts. Acceptance of such ideas is a step in the direction of states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, where the space to follow one's conscience is much more limited.
   

Is the Danish government really worse than the Nazis?

In the case of the deported Iraqis, the Church, hijacked by Per Ramsdal, used a clear strategy of presenting itself as humanity's guardian as opposed to the government and the police, which it presented as guardians of a cold legal system. The strategy worked. The case was highly profiled in the Danish media as long as it lasted. Demonstrations at the town hall square in Copenhagen attracted scores of people who were entertained by singers, comedians and other celebrities. The Church has hereby reinvented populism.

As no secular government may ever bow to any infringement of the law which is grounded in references to “parallel levels”, the consequences of the church asylum were predictable. Indeed, the Danish government took action, and the police entered the church and removed the refugees from there by force. That act cost the Danish government a lot of popularity. A contempt to the government spread among all circles of the opposition, among all those who were not responsible to implementation of the rule of law and could therefore allow themselves to relate to symbols and chosen fractions of reality without taking the wider context into consideration.

The focus of the discussion shifted to general Danish values and respect for the Church. Some mentioned that even the Nazis did not storm churches in Denmark. The very same people who set humanity and legality against each other without explicating the connection between individual episodes and the general rule of law in the country which has been moulded during the years to ensure human rights in the country, ripped yet again facts out of their context and interpreted them to suit their believes. Even the Nazis never stormed churches. What is exactly the message people were trying to convey by this statement? That the Nazis, the very same people who planned and carried out one of the most cold-blooded and extensive genocides in human history, those for whom human lives did not mean a thing, actually respected the church? That they were bad, but at least they did not storm churches, so they were not that bad after all? I hope that the absurdity in that claim in clear. If it is not, if it is actually possible to believe that one can lead a genocide and still nourish respect for the church, then I have just lost all respect for the church. Let's get one thing clear – it was not respect for the church that kept the Nazis from storming churches, but cold political considerations.  The fact that they should enjoy any moral credit for “respecting the church” is first of all absurd and secondly a stain on the church. And, by the way, it also undermines Ramsdal's own description of the church as the guardian of humane morality.

The very set-up of human compassion and democratic legality as dichotomous is dangerous. It is not always wrong, but it should be administered with caution. The law of the country should always represent the human conscience. When it doesn't, it is our responsibility as citizens to take action and face the consequences. And we may not do that while hiding behind big words such as priest, church or god. We are allowed, as thinking individuals, to think for ourselves and determine how far we are willing to be played with. We do not have to place the responsibility on gods wide imaginary shoulders.

These basic rules for civil disobedience I have just outlined were all broken by Ramsdal when he created a situation where the presence of uniformed and armed state representatives in a church was unavoidable. It was thus neither the government, nor the police that desecrated the church, but Per Ramsdal himself.

     
Was it wrong to help refugees in need?

At the moment I am afraid that the Danish state is undergoing an unfortunate process, where the government disenfranchises the citizens, ignorance and xenophobia dictate the national agenda, national control increases day by day, and legal rights are violated. The case of the deported Iraqis is a good example of the wretched conditions we have created for our fellow human beings. It was essential that someone took action and tried to help. It showed that we are still not entirely deprived of human compassion. Per Ramsdal may have done the right thing when he helped refugees on the run. He just shouldn't have done it while wearing the hat of a priest in the state-church. The role of the church should only be to inspire and offer moral support. Not to acquire political power. Once it goes after political power it stops being a spiritual body and becomes a political party. History has taught us, or at the very least shown us, that it often ends tragically when so called spiritual or religious bodies come to power. We have seen it with Christianity in Europe, and we can see it in the Middle-East and Asia, where different fractions try to acquire or retain political power by presenting themselves as the messengers of some divine entity. So please, Ramsdal, be careful. You might one day discover that the power you have in your hands, due to the trust people have in you as a priest, is much greater then you realise. I would not like to be here when it happens. And on a personal note, Ramsdal – I respect you enough to assume that you would not like to be here when it happens either.