The call of salvation E-Book

Georg Kaufmann

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 185

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Since time immemorial, the arrival of strangers has always aroused a certain suspicion. Who are these strangers? Why are they here? Do they endanger something that we have worked for? But this is not a phenomenon of our time. There have always been new things and changes, and a willingness and appreciation on both sides is needed for a happy coexistence. We must see every stranger first of all as what he or she is: a human being! "In every human being, without exception, there is a light of God that wants to be appreciated. It is a crime against the will of God to want to limit this light or to dictate how and where it should shine. This is nothing more than human small-mindedness and human arrogance!"

Leseprobe

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my true friends and to all those who have always stood by me. In particular, I dedicate it to my parents. Without them, I wouldn't exist. Without them, I would have fallen into the abyss. Even though everyone pointed the finger at me, prejudice or belief in supposed worldly wisdom was never an issue for them. That made me stand up again.

Thank you

Contents

In order to live together in a multicultural society, people need to understand each other and not just try to dictate to each other from their own internal sphere. This book is written with a German view but it is valid allover the world. It ist everywhere the same: There must be an inner core of common will. Without this, people will always resent or even fight each other. The guideline for such a common inner "core of will" must be fed by sources that are accessible to all people across the board. On the one hand, nature itself lends itself to this, as every human being is a part of nature, regardless of origin, culture or religion. In this way, looking at nature provides us all with accessible insights and guidance. A second starting point for such an overarching common core of will is the "call of salvation" that we all carry in our souls. Everyone longs for salvation and at the core of this longing we humans are no different. Both offer us approaches to finding ways to each other beyond our own ethnic, religious or national spheres. All those who live in our society must be involved and represented on an equal footing in such a necessarily open and correct discovery process. When people from other countries come to us, for example, they are not simply an enrichment for our labor market or a burden on our social system. They are first and foremost people like you and me. With their endearing qualities and cultural backgrounds, they are like a mirror for all of us. As such, they are also an opportunity for us to develop to a higher level together. That is what this book is about.

I. What prompted me to write this thought-provoking article

I have been a committed Roman Catholic Christian and pastor for over 30 years. In very different places of life and work, I have perceived and appreciated a very deep and honest searching, hoping and questioning both inside and outside my church, among Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and also among many esteemed contemporaries who see themselves without a fixed confession or even call themselves "atheists". Countless open encounters and deep conversations form the basis of the food for thought written down here.

The honest seekers and questioners of my own sphere of origin, the Roman Catholic sphere, are of course the basis and the foil for my own perception, searching and questioning. In my Roman Catholic Church, I have met an incredible number of people of all ages who, after difficult experiences with themselves, in their life biography or in our common church, have been able to make fantastic small and large breakthroughs, to which I bow my head in admiration and humility - impressive and a real presence of God! Despite all the prophecies of doom, despite all the scandals and all the spiteful gossip, I have experienced a truly "holy" spirit in many places in my church.

However, in addition to the modest contribution I was able to make there, it was always important for me to maintain contact with those who are not at home in the internal sphere of my church, who feel marginalized or ignored, who have indignantly turned away from my church because they have been personally hurt or because they have found it liberating to no longer belong to my church. I have respect and esteem for each of these personal decisions. But there were also many who came backafter they were able to make peace with their hurts and their turning away from the form of faith as it was shaped in my church.

I have always had a special bond with people of other religions and denominations. From a religiously divergent perspective and way of feeling, they have contributed a great deal to making me more and more aware of the innermost core of my religiosity. Their critical view of my own blind spots has always inspired me and helped me move forward. I am very grateful for that.

I have always consciously sought closeness to those "outside". Over the years, I have come into close contact with many of them and long-term friendships have developed as a result. I would also like to highlight the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist people I have had the privilege of meeting. Their ways of thinking, seeing and feeling, their simple devotion and openness as human beings have touched me deeply. This also applies to many people who I deeply appreciate and who are highly intelligent and who describe themselves as "non-believers". In my work as a pastor, I have been able to spend many hours with them in mutual respect. They have inspired me greatly and touched me as a person. One thing is very clear to me: they too are honest questioners and seekers, they too feel a "call of salvation" within themselves, they too are people like you and me, who at their core strive for nothing else and want nothing else than we "religious" people do. They may use different words and mental constructs for this - but the "lure of salvation" at the core of their soul is the same.

I am grateful for all these encounters, the sacred moments in these meetings, the joint searching and "stretching the soul upwards". I have come to the clear realization that this act binds us together in the deepestway that external forms of organization or political-legal action never can. This connection goes much deeper. It is perhaps even the very reason that really brings us humans together.

As a religious person, this is explained to me by the fact that we all come from what I call a "divine" origin. However, this is not intended to devalue or exclude people who prefer secular-profane approaches to the world and life. On the contrary: I have often had the appreciative feeling that secular-profane approaches and religious perspectives are often not just two sides of the same coin, but actually need each other, correct each other and can usually only grow together rather than against each other. We have an incredible number of positive approaches and contributions to this in our own religious faith and traditions. We just need to think some things through concretely and consistently instead of stopping halfway. This book also aims to be an impetus for this. This does not mean that everything has to be the same. It is precisely the diversity of different approaches that is often the prerequisite for real development to take place.

Over the last few years, I have also gained another experience. I have come into very close contact with people from completely different cultural and religious backgrounds. I have made many surprising changes of perspective that have made my own arrogance visible to me or that have shown me old patterns of feeling learned in my culture, such as an old colonial arrogance towards the "poor little Negroes", whom we only want to help. I would never have thought it possible to find such old patterns in myself! But I am grateful for it, because it happened in concrete encounters and prompted me to write down this food for thought.

Originally, only the chapter on the perception of nature as a moral and ethical authority was planned in the form of a theological article. But then it became a book. This makes it clearer and less convoluted. I can explain what I am talking about here without any pressure of space. My food for thought is not "only" aimed at a specialist theological audience, but also at society at large, where I want to build bridges and awaken understanding. For this reason, some contexts are explained in more detail than would be necessary for a purely theological specialist audience. For the sake of simplicity, the text is written in the masculine form. However, men, women,... are always meant equally!

Special thanks go to all those who have supported me with their expertise and content. I have gladly taken on board their suggestions and corrections. I would like to thank my sister-in-law Vera Kaufmann, the professional support of Dr. Mahesh Rawat, Andreas Kamphausen and Guido Helbig, and the friendly and inspiring input of Sebastian and Kristina Horstmann, Ralf Sieben, Gisela Schippel and Gabriela Grotke. I would also like to thank the encounters and open hearts of Mohammad Hashimi, Mohammad Tebori, Alisina Sharifi, Sahand Naseri ... Without them, this book would not have been able to take its present form.

I would also like to thank the artist SOHEYLA B. FAHIMI. She repeatedly expresses in her works that only love can heal the world in a comprehensive sense. And so much needs to be healed! She has enriched this book with her works. The copyright remains with her and her works can be purchased at the address given at the back.

Reading this, some of you may be outraged here and there. I ask that this indignation be understood as an impetus forreflection. I do not claim to have the truth, but I see myself as a seeker and questioner who is open to the impulses of other approaches to the world and religion. It is entirely in my spirit that what I have written here can also be discussed in a very controversial manner. What I have written is intended to provoke, but not to polemicize or divide. I am neither interested in hurting others nor in throwing overboard what is personal and valuable to us. Rather, I would like to make a contribution to ensuring that we open ourselves up to debate and find ways of approaching each other.

Others always hold a mirror up to us that makes our own and our personal blind spots clearer. We should use this without fear and without devaluing other power structures. All sides can always benefit from a mutually appreciative and inspiring search and discovery!

II. What it is about

We all live together in a society here and now. Each of us carries within us a hope and a striving for salvation. Everyone imagines what this looks like for them in different ways and chooses their own ways to realize it. However, none of us lives on an island. From the beginning of our lives to the end of our earthly journey, we are always involved in relationships and in freedom from and dependence on other people. This includes our physical family as well as the specific society, the specific state and the specific world in which we live.

Here in Germany, our society has changed considerably compared to the time when it was legally established over 70 years ago. This change has not only come from within. It has also been brought about, for example, by the fact that the reunification of the temporarily separated German states has significantly shifted the relationship between people with profane (= secular) and religious approaches to explaining the world. Another factor is that for many years people have been coming to us who we have called because we need them for our labor market. We are currently very concerned about the shortage of skilled workers. However, an ever-increasing number of people have been coming to us for years who can no longer or no longer want to live in their home country. They see no prospects for a free or economic life there. Their lives are threatened there for political, religious or identity reasons. We all live together here and now in this society. It is the task of politics and jurisdiction to organize and balance this.

However, they can only do this if their actions are based on an overarching common will. In a society that understands itself as free and multicultural, the search for and implementation of such a common will can only ever be a joint and mutually appreciative process. This is also the subject of the contribution to the discussion presented in this book. The process of creating and implementing such a common will does not only concern the externally "set" framework, nor does it begin there. Within this framework, which is formulated in "laws", there are countless small everyday areas of life that cannot possibly all be laid down in laws. This would also undermine our own claim to freedom. Defining everything in laws and issuing orders from above would eventually lead to a situation where no one would ask what is good, sensible or right. The overriding question would then only be what is allowed and what is not. There are indeed tendencies towards this in our society, which is very much dependent on authority.

This means that people lose their own way of thinking and therefore also their own freedom, their own responsibility and their willingness to commit to this society. This applies to many areas of public life. In order to maintain a free and responsible will, it must ask itself self-critically at what point, for example, a culture of prohibition, which is supposedly only ever invoked for "our own good" and to "protect" us, degenerates into a culture of incapacitation. Only if we ourselves are involved and represented in our society will we also become involved in it. Only then will we not simply withdraw into our own four walls or, in the worst case, develop hatred of this society and fight against it.

If there is no common will and search and no collective inner consensus that includes all people living in our society not as objects but as subjects, there can be no social peace in the long term. As soon as one group only wants to dictate to all other groups which individual private decisions they have to make or which rules they have to obey, this creates social discord in the long term, which nobody can seriously want. The feeling of "being determined by others", of "not being involved in decisions that affect me", of "being disadvantaged" when looking for work or housing or of generally being "looked down upon and excluded" creates social tensions that can lead to isolation, anger, frustration, rage or aggression, whether we like it or not. Sometimes this is unleashed on certain occasions and everyone rubs their eyes in amazement as to how this could have happened. What hypocrisy!

People of different origins, religions and cultures live together here and now. They often bring with them dogmatic "backwardness" (at least that's what we call it) that we can only shake our heads at - for example: "a true Muslim showers with underpants" (what bullshit: where on earth is that supposed to be in the Koran?). The fact is, however, that we cannot stop the increasing migration flows unless we no longer adhere to inviolable human rights that apply to everyone without exception. It is also a fact that it must be honestly described as an illusion that we could change the situation in some of the countries of origin globally, even in the medium term, in such a way that people would no longer want to leave. More on this later. As long as people can no longer or no longer want to live in their countries of origin, they will continue to leave. That has always been the case and we would do the same! In our own German history, we have also experienced for ourselves what it means for people who have already settled and for those who have arrived to leaveand want or have to find a new home. All those who came from Silesia, Transylvania or Kazakhstan, for example, must still remember this very vividly!

However, today's migration flows also bring new challenges because large numbers of people from cultures and religions that are very different from our own are coming to us. This is linked to global climate change, which we can at best slow down, but not prevent, no matter how many resources we have. It is also linked to the economic or politically corrupt and criminal structures of some countries of origin, which we cannot influence at all or only to a very limited extent. Of course, efforts in this direction are always necessary and right - butwewill not solve the problems there. In any case,as long as people see no hope for themselves in their home country, they will continue to set off.Whether it is a "vote with their feet" in the form of flight or emigration, whether it is a lack of economic prospects or danger to life and limb - they arenowsetting off, we cannot prevent thisnowand we mustnowfind ways to each other and with each other.

Of course, we have to manage migration flows and see what can be achieved in terms of successful integration. Of course, people who want to come to us to work are not "refugees" in the sense of our asylum law. We can demand that they use the routes provided for with visas and work permits - if realistically possible - instead of wanting to be recognized as asylum seekers because they can collect more money in the process. Of course, we need regulatory mechanisms such as a binding immigration law and overarching coordination, for example at European level. And yet our own principles simply do not give us the right to tellother people: "Stay where you are and die!" And if we offer them asylum and protection when they are in danger, if we are looking for and need them as workers or if we offer them a home in the form of citizenship, then we must also be prepared to rebalance the forms and legal framework of our coexistence together, to involve them in the process and to agree the framework of our coexistence with them.

"In God We Trust - Three folds, III/2024"

Shared challenges are never just a one-way street! This applies to legal regulations such as the ban on bigamy or polygamy enshrined in our law. It also applies to many other areas within the current legal framework for the necessary cooperation between the various social groups instead of their opposition to each other. For this to succeed, a common will is necessary. However, this can only be based on a common inner core of will, which can then be expressed in different ways by individuals. Otherwise, we are fighting sham battles and talking past each other. Only when it becomes clear to each other what is really important and "sacred" to us and to each other can we come together.

Of course, increasing migration awakens fears of alienation and self-doubt. Unfortunately, they all too often draw their irreconcilable energy from the patterns of our childhood. Of course we have to say: "Hey - we're here too! You can't just come into a nest you've made and then demand that everything has to be the same for us as it is for you. Why did you come here in the first place?" Of course, we can't take in an entire continent or the whole world. But who actually says that? First of all, it is only specific people who come to us.

We must, of course, protect ourselves from criminal structures or religious fanaticism in the countries of origin becoming established here. Equally, we must not jeopardize or reverse achievements that we are rightly proud of and value because of a misunderstood liberalism. Nobody can seriously want us to end up with the same conditions as in some of the countries of origin. People from there come to usbecausethey are looking for something different. - Even if it is "only"in economic terms, which is interwoven into a social whole.

All of this is completely undisputed. And yet we must recognize the signs of the times. Otherwise, at some point we will no longer hear the impacts because we don't want to hear them. As already written, this is not about polarization. But we can only come together here and now and live together peacefully in this society if we approach each other in concrete encounters instead of remaining segregated and ghettoized. Only then can we understand each other's fears, wishes and hopes, appreciate them and find a common path together. Otherwise, we delegate the problem away from us into a parliamentary debate or violent excesses on the street. So it's all about concrete encounters in which we first perceive each other as human beings.

And this is where we religions and churches can make an important contribution. Not only can we organize encounters, but above all we can make the "sacred" visible and plausible in our own way. In its inner essence, this "sacred" connects all people across the board, because we all come from the same source that we call "divine". In essence, not only monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam say this, but also all polytheistic or cosmotheistic religions. We religions in particular can therefore demonstrate and point out that unavoidable migration does not have to be a threat after all - at least not if it is handled and managed responsibly in the spirit of peaceful coexistence. Throughout the history of mankind, migration and mixing have helped us to move forward if we are able to be open towards others and open towards ourselves in order to learn from