Un marco jurídico institucional eficiente y predecible es clave para el

Statement of the EKD Church Office (1999)

Introduction

The day-to-day business of the Council, the Synod and the Church Conference is conducted by the EKD Church Office. For certain areas which require constant guidance and support, such as education, envi- ronmental issues, sport, prison chaplaincy, television, films, unemploy- ment etc., special commissioners are appointed by the Council. In order to draw up statements, memoranda etc. the Council has set up advisory commissions and boards made up of experts from church and public life (such as the Advisory Group for Public Responsibility, Social Order, Theology and Issues of Faith, Young People, and Education). In this statement the EKD office deals with a contested issue of religious educa- tion in schools.

Keywords: Islamic religious education, state-religion relationship, Muslim communities, Basic Law, religious freedom

1. Today’s student body is more diverse than ever in terms of the cultural and religious experiences they bring to their schools. More and more schools in turn recognise their tasks as facilitators of inte- gration: German schools must on the one hand familiarise their students with the decisive currents and traditions of their own cul- ture and history while at the same time foster the peaceful coopera- tion of people from diverse countries, cultures and religions. Beyond the academic transmission of knowledge, schools must do their best to guide the young generation practically and realistically into the future tasks they will have to master in their coming role as adults

and responsible citizens. To do this, they need to expand the horizon of social perception and responsibility and foster public spirit and the capacity for dialogue. At this juncture, the stakeholders and decision makers in public education are more and more coming to realise the importance of the ethical and religious dimension in the educational mission of the school and the consequences this realisa- tion has for religious education.

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has addressed these tasks and further aspects of religious education and the relationship between church, state and school in its memorandum “Identity and Dialogue – The Place and Perspectives of Religious Education in a Plural Society” (1994) and in the resolution of the Synod of the EKD on religious education in schools (1997). This position paper is based on the fundamental statements of the above-mentioned documents and the vote of the EKD Council “On the Education of Muslim Children and Youths” of 1983.

2. The structure of religious education in Germany is governed by Article 7 of the Basic Law which constitutes it as a regular school subject. According to Article 7, Paragraph 3, it must be taught “in accordance with the tenets of the religious communities,” where the term ‘religious community’ does not exclusively refer to the estab- lished Catholic and Evangelical Churches. Organising and teaching religious education are the responsibility of the state. It is subject to the regular supervisory organs and must be provided as a mandatory subject by all educational authorities. Yet at the same time, the Churches and religious communities share in the responsibility for religious education. They co-determine the aims and contents of religious education in accordance with their tenets, taking account the overarching educational aims of the public school system and the structure and organisation of the school in question.

From the perspective of Article 4 of the German Basic Law, the purpose of religious education as per Article 7 is to secure the use of the right to religious freedom by the individual. Individual chil-

dren, youths and young adults are to be enabled to make informed, independent religious choices. It is in the interest of the state itself that the young generation actively engages with its fundamental values and their cultural, religious and ideological backgrounds, critically questions and positively reinterprets them. In this process, religious education has a central role for which, above all, Christian RE offers itself as a natural partner, given that the values and norms of our society, our understanding of law and democracy and our conceptions of freedom, justice and solidarity are strongly rooted in Christianity. Yet the constitutional freedom of religion is not limited to the Western Christian traditions. The Federal Republic of Germany guarantees this right to all citizens, no matter their faith and culture. It is a telling illustration of the Christian human- ist ideal of tolerance that this right also applies to citizens from countries where a reciprocal toleration for example of Christian Churches is not a given. Understanding and dialogue are indispen- sable for the peaceful coexistence of people of different religions in a democracy.

Freedom of religion also extends to the right of the religious com- munity to participate in providing religious education where this community, though the number of its adherents and the certainty of a lasting presence, can justify the financial and administrative efforts this entails. It is not always possible to apply practices and provisions historically developed in cooperation with established churches to foreign religious communities, but this does not dimin- ish their rights according to Articles 4 and 7 of the Basic Law. Reli- gious education in school does not, for example, require the status of a publicly incorporated quasi-governmental body (Körperschaft

öffentlichen Rechts) enjoyed by the Churches.

3. Although there has been a general receptivity towards introducing Islamic RE as a regular subject for years, so far it has not come to pass. The Muslim community in Germany has found it difficult to designate the authority required by law to act as a partner in coop- eration with the state. This is partly rooted in the tradition of Islam

which does not know a structure analogous to that of the Church. However, several Islamic umbrella organisations are currently emerg- ing to represent large numbers of German Muslims. They could act as the partner the state requires for religious education once their status as religious communities is confirmed in law.

That Islamic RE remained under consideration as an increasingly urgent desideratum in spite of these abiding difficulties has other reasons as well:

According to recent structural data on public education and the

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findings of the Conference of Education Ministers, the percent- age of foreign-born students in West German schools approaches 11.5 % (1.16 million). This survey does not record religious af- filiation. Other data suggest that in West Germany, about 39 % of students are Evangelical, 41 % Catholic and 6 % Muslim. Among the latter, young Turks are in the majority with about 80 %.

It is important to bear in mind that the distribution of religious groups is not uniform. In urban areas, some classes – especially in primary and lower secondary schools – count a proportion of more than 50 % Muslims.

In the former East German Länder, only about 30% of students report any religious affiliation – mostly Protestant. The small proportion of foreign-born students (less than 0.5%, except in Berlin) means a very small number of children, youths and young adults of Muslim faith.

It is important for Muslim students to become familiar with their

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ancestral tradition in this country in such a way as to open a re- ligious perspective to them while at the same time fostering un- derstanding for other religious views. In the long run, they cannot be abandoned to a religious no-man’s-land.

Muslim parents in Germany find themselves in the position of a

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religious minority or diaspora. Under these circumstances, they often develop an acute awareness of their Islamic identity and look for ways to transmit it to their children. Many regard a

public, regular, continual religious education in the public school as an integrating religious and traditional counterweight (or at least countering influence) to a secularised environment seen as antagonistic to tradition and a danger to their children.

Fears are often voiced that Muslim parents might leave the reli-

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gious education of their children to privately organised religious communities and organisations (‘Qur’an schools’), leading to a strengthening of radical influences opposed to the democratic order of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, the state hopes to further the integration of Muslim students by providing an open, academically well-founded, discursive Islamic RE in its schools following the Christian model. Some Islamic communi- ties consequently do not show any interest in this ‘secularised’ school religious education.

Many of the pedagogical and theological reasons (forwarded in

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the EKD-memorandum on religious education) for a broadly cooperative, but clearly confessional religious education format also can be advanced in support of Islamic RE as per Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law.

4. For the reasons named above, most federal Länder have intro- duced the option of religious instruction for Islamic students in remedial Turkish-language classes for non-native German speakers in the early 1980s. Responsibility for this instruction is partly borne by the state education ministries, partly by the consular or diplo- matic representations of Turkey. On behalf of the federal states it is taught by Turkish teachers, usually nominated and detailed for the duration of five years by the Turkish authorities. Some, but not all of these take the opportunity to provide religious instruction in their classes.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia has taken a unique approach to developing curricula for Islamic instruction or religious education in accordance with the tenets of that faith. A commission was cre- ated consisting of Turkish teachers, Islamic scholars and two Prot- estant religious educators under the oversight of a school supervisory

official. The first drafts prepared by this commission were then dis- cussed with representatives of Islamic communities and organisa- tions. Later versions were also discussed with Islamic faculties of universities in Turkey and Cairo as well as the Turkish Office of Religious Affairs and the German representation of the World Mus- lim Congress. The current curricula meet broad acceptance espe- cially in the Islamic academic community.

With all due recognition of these efforts to ensure religious educa- tion for Islamic students on the part of the state, some critical questions must be raised. Religious instruction integrated into Turkish-language remedial classes in no way can be regarded as religious education according to Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the basic law:

The assistance of individual representatives of the religion in ques-

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tion and academic institutions abroad cannot substitute for hav- ing a legally constituted religious community in Germany as a partner.

The secular state goes beyond its competencies in trying to en-

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sure compatibility with the tenets of a religious community itself. The understanding of what constitutes a religion or belief is de- termined above all by the religious community in question it- self.

Most federal states have no binding rules for attendance or, in

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the event of non-attendance, for participation in a nonreligious ethics education class.

Non-Turkish Muslims are excluded from the classes which, after

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all, are not taught in German. Further, it only reaches an average of 20 % of the Turkish Muslims at a given school and thus an even lower percentage of the total of Muslim students.

The strong dependence of the Islamic instruction upon Turkey

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and its religious authorities and diplomatic representations ap- pears at the very least problematic. It must especially be taken into consideration that the Turkish Office for Religious Affairs controls Islam in Turkey and the state does not permit independ-

ent Islamic organisations. The Turkish state certainly does not represent the entire Islamic faith community.

5. With a view to introducing an Islamic religious education for Muslim students, we can state the following results:

As an official partner to the state authorities in providing Islamic

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religious education, only a formally incorporated, lasting religious community can be considered to have the legitimacy required to fill its the constitutional role.

It is incumbent on the Muslims in Germany to agree on a man-

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ner of meeting the requirements for religious education as per Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law and to meet the state as representatives of a religious community. It is then incumbent on the state to establish Islamic religious education as a regular school subject meeting the formal and qualitative standards thereof. The provisions of Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law are

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designed in service to freedom of religion as per Article 4 and to the integration of students of foreign extraction into German society. The framers of the constitution did not intend a fractur- ing of religious education into a myriad of splinter groups. Just as Evangelical religious education encompasses different Protes- tant confessions (Lutheran, Unitarian, Reformed and some Prot- estant free churches) in co-responsibility, the different Islamic groups, too, will face the task of organising themselves in bodies of relevant size and agree on the contents and the appointment of teachers for religious education for Muslim students in the various federal states. As a flip side to claiming the right to reli- gious education in a separate school subject, this effort provides the test case for the corresponding duty to reach consensus with people of different beliefs and views in a plural, democratic soci- ety.

In this sense the Evangelical Church supports religious education

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for Muslim students as a regular school subject as per Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law. The introduction of a separate,

solely state-run religious instruction for Muslim students is to be rejected. Any solely state-run class on religious matters is contrary to the liberal democratic principles of the Federal Republic of Germany and irresponsibly curtails the educational mission of the public school.

A religious community must be allowed to define its tenets for

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the purposes of religious education on its own, without interfer- ence by the secular state which is bound to strict neutrality. The curricula and suggestions designed from these must then be sub- ject to the usual approbation procedures of the state education authorities.

All religious education must be given in German and, the co-

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responsibility of the religious communities notwithstanding, be subject to the German educational authorities’ supervision. Teaching in German is a necessary precondition for open com- munication between the students (e.g. for Muslims who are not part of the religious community organisation sharing responsibil- ity for the classes).

A regular Islamic religious education also needs sufficiently qual-

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ified, state-certified and -supervised Muslim teachers or clerics. It further requires Islamic theology courses at German universities and a regular teacher training qualification in the subject.

In introducing religious education for Muslim students, the high

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academic and pedagogical standards of established Christian con- fessional religious education must be regarded as the goal to be aspired to, even though it may not be possible to realise them from the beginning.

Finally – and we must proceed from this basic assumption – the

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Islamic associations or organisations in Germany, the Central Council of Muslims, Islamic Council, or other institutions to be established, like the Christian Churches, must agree to support a constitutional religious education that is anchored in the peda- gogical environment and mission of the state school, dedicated to dialogue, and aims to foster the students’ capability to make independent and informed religious decisions.

The Evangelical Church is ready to take part in the public debate

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on the establishment of religious education for Muslim students as it touches on the fundamental preconditions for any religious education as per Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law.

We must further state:

Muslim students are welcome to take part in Protestant religious

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education if they or their guardians so desire and the legal and administrative preconditions are in place.

Where Muslim students take part in ethics or philosophy classes

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because Islamic religious education as per Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law does not yet exist, particular care must be taken to ensure that the religious studies element of these classes ade- quately and truthfully address Islam.

The Evangelical Church in Germany has been supporting the

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establishment of a formal subject group or religious and ethical education in public schools since 1994 (see EKD-memorandum “Identity and Dialogue,” p. 73 ff.). In the interest of the educa- tional mission of the public school, this subject group would formally comprise and synergistically combine the regular sub- jects on whom the task of fostering the ability and willingness of the young generation to enter into dialogue is particularly incum- bent. This necessarily includes interreligious learning and inter- religious dialogue.