"Church's rapprochement with 'Last Generation' is strange and shameful"

The support of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) for the climate activists of the "Last Generation" caused violent counter-reactions among church-related CDU politicians. According to information from WELT, the Evangelical Working Group of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia, and thus the party's largest regional association, is launching a petition against the President of the EKD Synod, Anna-Nicole Heinrich. The draft entitled “We will not quit. We disagree," says WELT.

"We consider the support of violent activists in a democratic community to be anti-peace and extremely dangerous," says the text of the petition, for which signatures are to be collected across Germany. “Protests must remain peaceful in a free and democratic community – forms of protest that use violence against people or things are not legitimate. This also and especially applies to roadblocks by the so-called last generation.”

At the synod in Magdeburg, EKD President Heinrich described such roadblocks as a legitimate means of civil resistance, the letter says. "We disagree with this view," write the Union politicians who are close to the church. "We are deeply concerned that such statements will cause immeasurable damage to the Evangelical Church and its membership."

With their criticism of Heinrich, the politicians also call for consequences from the incident: "We invite you to a broad debate on the meaning of violence and peace in the Evangelical Church and ask your responsible bodies for clarifying statements," it continues. The initiator of the letter is the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU politician Henning Aretz. The federal chairman of the evangelical working group of the CDU and CSU, the member of the Bundestag Thomas Rachel, supports the campaign.

At the same time, the CDU MEP Markus Pieper spoke up. He is the European Parliament's rapporteur for the expansion of renewable energies, so he is a climate politician himself. "The Church's approach to the activists of the "last generation" is disconcerting and shameful," writes Pieper in a letter to President Heinrich, which is available to WELT. "As a Protestant Christian with political responsibility, I urge you not to offer any platform to anti-democratic organizations in the future, let alone to support their extreme positions."

The specialist politician accuses the EKD representative of allowing herself to be blinded by the arguments of the climate activists. "Just as urgently, I ask you to read the IPPCC studies yourself and not blindly follow the interpretations of climate NGOs and one-sided research institutes," writes Pieper. The IPPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) regularly publishes reports on the status of climate change. They are the basis of global climate policy.

Heinrich and the EKD have come under criticism because they offered a forum for the climate protest movement “Last Generation” at the EKD synod in Magdeburg. In a speech before the synod on Tuesday, the activist Aimée van Baalen defended the controversial protests such as road blockades. The activists see no other way to get their concerns heard, said van Baalen.

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