Goutham Ganesan
While driving east through central Germany, our party came upon a small town in Saxony-Anhalt called Eisleben. The city, like most in Germany, has an old center surrounded by newer suburbs. Because it is located in the former communist German Democratic Republic, known to America as East Germany, one felt a sense of decay and hopelessness (surely somewhat psychosomatic) not present in the western part of the country. Eisleben’s historical significance revolves around the life of Martin Luther; one can see there the sites of his birth, baptism, final sermons and death. Among the aforementioned sites, we paid a visit first to the house where the celebrated reformer spent his last days. It has been converted into a sparse, somber museum that showcases mainly Luther’s seminal German translations of theological works.
Directly across the street from the death house stands the St. Andreas Church of Eisleben, where Luther delivered his last sermons. Erected in the 15th century, it is easy to imagine it being the center of village life for many generations of village citizens. The interior houses busts of Luther and Philip Melanchthon, as well as some historic plaques and commemorations. More interesting, however, is the information sheet near the donation box. It claims that in this era when religiosity is on the decline nearly everywhere in Germany, St. Andreas Church has had success in bringing people back to the Gospels. More specifically, while churchgoers make up only 10 percent of the regional population, the number of annual baptisms recently caught up to the number of funerals held.
I was shocked this statistic could be taken as a positive sign; I had no idea secularization had gone so far and deeply. Granted, the 50 years of official atheist rule were anything but friendly to religion, but I would have thought a Christian heritage that preceded Charlemagne would survive, especially in a town that was one of the crucibles of Protestantism. Although I am not a Christian myself, I see nothing positive coming out of such a sheer decline in interest in the traditional religion and culture, especially because there exists nothing else of the similar history and substance to fill such a vacuum.
So what is the lesson? I think it is that our traditions’ fragility is something of which we all ought to be mindful. If it only takes three generations of Germans to reduce the impact of Christianity in one of its centers, then no other tradition can claim immunity to decay. This is especially true in the United States, where so many of our ancestral cultures have origins elsewhere in the world. Personally, I have only recently begun to even take an interest in truly understanding the religious practices of my ancestors in India. I fear that regardless of any effort on my part, much will inevitably be lost in the tempest of modern life.
Of course, there are aspects of every tradition and religion that are in need of modification in order to survive in harmony with the world. Such changes ought to happen in the spirit of knowledge and humility, never in that of ignorance or disrespect. And it certainly does not mean the customs of our grandparents should be abandoned wholesale in favor of anything else.
Another 100 meters or so from the St. Andreas Church stands a statue of Luther, his eyes gazing over a cheap market full of trinkets for tourists. When he set out to correct abuses by the Church, it was in the humble spirit of returning to the traditional core latent in Christianity. Let us hope that Luther’s spirit can be embraced more faithfully by all of us than it has been by those in his hometown.
Goutham Ganesan is a junior chemistry and biochemistry major. He can be reached at gganesan@umd.edu.
