 Copenhagen, Denmark, feb 23 - ”Religion takes up too much space in public life”, declared the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, when he was interviewed by TV on the occasion of the Moslem demonstrations against Denmark.
The premier said: ”I want to stress that I deeply respect each person’s religious conviction, and we must have a society with tolerance, religious freedom, and respect for everyone’s religious conviction, but we should be aware of getting a split society where religion takes up too much space in public life. I would like to have a society where we judge the individual person by that person’s qualities, will, and abilities and not by whether he is a Christian, a Jew or a Moslem. That is the society I would like to have.”
Replying to the interviewer’s question concerning the importance of religion in many people’s life, Anders Fogh Rasmussen added: ”I will warn against that it (religion) becomes, let us say, so dominating in the public debate as it now has been for some time, for then I am afraid we are going to split the community-feeling that is the strength in the Danish society. This point of view will, undoubtedly, be controversial in certain circles, also in Christian circles, but I have to say seriously that if we want to secure that Denmark coheres in the future, then it is necessary to adhere to the Danish tradition that we distinguish clearly between politics and religion, and that religion as a starting point is a personal matter and not something we should make into a question for the society.”
Theologians Contradict Premier
Several theologians have commented on the Prime Minister’s statement. The leader of the Soeren Kierkegaard Research Centre, Niels Joergen Kappeloern says to the Christian Daily: ”Religion touches the whole person, also the part that moves in the public space. You cannot, therefore, reserve religious belief to your private life only. It is impossible to divide them because it is the nature of religion that it comes to expression in your way of life.” Bishop Jan Lindhardt, Roskilde, points out that the Prime Minister’s wish for less religion in the publicity ”is difficult to fulfil as the whole arrangement of our society is imbued with Christianity….our society is a Christian one throughout.” Religion is not like visiting the zoo and watch the animals. Religion has been let out, and you cannot in Denmark take a holiday from Christianity. The Prime Minister’s declaration is a vain attempt of repression of the kind we have been exposed to since the Age of Enlightenment.”
The editor of the net-review Catholica and former chairman of The Ethical Council, Erling Tiedemann, has analysed the declaration and finds that it rather shows ”that religion fills far too little. There is much more on religion we in Denmark need to discuss with each other while the crisis, so we hope, is lessening and there will be strength and space – also public room – to the dialogue which until now has had bad conditions. With his words in Profilen (the TV-program; ed.) the Prime Minister has not prepared better conditions for that dialogue. He is hit by his own concern that the end might be a split society and a shattered community. Such a development cannot be precluded by keeping religion out of the public life, but only by giving room for the necessary dialogue and – where also that is required – for a struggle with spiritual weapons.” But Others Agree
Different comments are heard from researcher in religion, Michael Rothstein, the University of Copenhagen, and Hans Hauge, PhD, the University of Aarhus. Michael Rothstein says: ”It is paradoxical but all seems to show that religion is thriving best in a secular society. The better the public room is kept free of religion the easier it is for all groups to find foothold. Secularisation secures all groups the same rights.”
Hans Hauge thinks that the Prime Minister is right. ”I quite agree with Anders Fogh Rasmussen”, he says, ”that religion is beginning to fill too much in the publicity. We see an enormous need for coming into view, not only from Moslems but also from Christians, and that is due to the opposite tendency that religion fills less and less in the debate owing to the constantly strengthened secularisation.”
Church News from Denmark - www.interchurch.dk
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
Be first to comment this article
