Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Dreadful Doldrums in Deutschland
Dreadful Doldrums in Deutschland
Jan 31, 2026 4:35 PM

Watch Germany fall further into the abyss as it turns its back on both liberalism and Christianity.

Once a staunchly pro-American, global economic powerhouse, the country is now the “sick man” of Europe more ways than one. These recent news items offer proof:

Chancellor Gerhard Schrr lashes out at the “unrestrained neo-liberal system” for his country’s economic woes.

Schrr has been actively courting Russia and China as allies; John Vinocur’s column in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune points to “Schrrism” as the root cause of Germany’s many ills.

In the midst of all their domestic troubles, German intellectuals such as Jürgen Habermas, Günter Grass and Wolf Biermann have decided to nag the French into accepting the European Constitution.

And, to top it all off, despite being the first German Pope in nearly 1,000 years, Benedict XVI is more popular in Poland than in his homeland.

An English-language blog on Germany has regular updates on this depressing yet edifying story.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Book review: Our Father’s Word – Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation
I’VE BEEN BLESSED over the past 18 months to review three very different books on Christian ecology by three guys I would mend without hesitation as examples for our generation. – Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth’s “Serve God, Save the Planet” starts with Matt’s trading in his family’s king-size house for the King’s priorities. As he puts it, their new house was “about the same size as their former garage.” It’s a great read on how individual Christians and their families...
Black virtue: Success beyond the Super Bowl
This year’s Super Bowl was widely hailed as an advance for black Americans because, for the first time, two black coaches faced off in the game. But, as Anthony Bradley observes, coaches Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith pointed to an even greater achievement: They did it “the Lord’s way.” Read mentary here. ...
Government pay and performance
Travis Sinquefield at Disorganizational Behavior examines this Washington Post article on new parts of an annual survey given to government workers. Among the new statements the employees were asked to evaluate was this: “Pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs.” Only 22 percent of the respondents agreed with this statement, while 45 percent disagreed (25 percent were neutral). John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that a performance-based system of rewards would not...
Emerging German Economist to receive 2007 Novak Award
Dr. Andrea Schneider, recently appointed as an advisor to the office of Germany’s Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is the winner of the 2007 Novak Award and its associated $10,000 prize. Dr. Schneider studied economics at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where she taught and worked for the Chair for Economic Policy in Nuremberg, Germany. Her dissertation received both the Hermann-Gutmann-Foundation Award and the Wolfgang-Ritter-Award. She went on to work as director of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation’s economic policy group. At the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation,...
Show me the money
I’m a bit behind on this story, but as was reported by numerous media outlets over the past few months, a new trend has begun at some American churches. ATM machines, dubbed “Automatic Tithing Machines,” are appearing at some Protestant churches in the South. The machines are administered by the for-profit business SecureGive, run by Pastor Marty Baker and his wife, who integrated the machines at their Stevens Creek Community Church in 2005. Proponents point to the transition to a...
I’m so ashamed
Well, it’s happened. Ellen Goodman, writing last week in the Boston Globe, effectively ended the debate over climate change by invoking the most parison of all: I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. All-righty, then. One reasonable question: do those of us who...
The legitimacy of ‘secular’ work
In this month’s issue of Christianity Today, John D. Beckett, chairman of the privately held R. W. Beckett Corporation, speaks about his new book, Mastering Monday: A Guide to Integrating Faith and Work. When asked, “Do you think churches still don’t understand business as a calling?” Beckett responds, I do. Relatively few churches and pastors are reinforcing the legitimacy of a call into so-called “secular work.” I have colleagues with tremendous business influence who are starving spiritually in their local...
The role of limited government
Our religious and political rights are uniquely bound up together. Most young Americans, and far too many older native born American citizens, have little or no idea how important this truth really is. The central idea behind this unique relationship in American political understanding is limited government. This is really what classical liberalism understood and fervently practiced. Modern liberalism has little or nothing to do with this understanding, preferring to stress ideologies that are neither truly liberal nor limited. The...
Saving our(s)elves
Coming to a stadium near you (HT) A series of concerts “bigger than Live Aid” is being planned for July, in a bid to put the subject of climate change before an audience of a global audience of 2bn. The event, scheduled for July 7, will feature co-ordinated film, music and television events in seven cities including London, Washington DC, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Kyoto, with major broadcasters and media owners aiming to extend the reach of...
Faith in higher ed
Most of our talk at Acton about educational choice addresses K-12 programs, i.e., the public schools. There already exists a great deal of choice at the levels of higher ed, and so they are not of the most immediate concern. But the issues I raised earlier this month about the integration of faith and learning are just as relevant in the realm of higher ed as they are in secondary education. Here’s what David Claerbaut, author of Faith and Learning...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved