Kirchen: Chuck-Norris-Church | nd-aktuell.de

Howdy from Texas, dear readers,

Do you still remember the 90s cult series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”? In it, Will Smith’s dim-witted cousin, Hilary Banks, angrily confesses when she fails to seduce an educated man: “I lied. I really believed that Martin Luther King lived in the Middle Ages! I laughed heartily in my German children’s room at the time at this joke that crossed nations and eras, but was not entirely historically correct. Many years later, raising a child of my own in the United States, I experience déjà vu. When an American friend asks me why Martin Luther is so important and I want to elaborate with a sermon about the Reformation, which is paradoxically little known in this country, my daughter interrupts me: “Mom, his name is Martin Luther KING!” The thing about the late Middle Ages and I’ll probably explain the early modern period to her later.

But back to religion. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist, a faith not exactly widespread in Europe. In the States, however, things are different: around 15 percent of the US population are Baptists. And although they still haven’t overtaken the Catholics with their 22 percent, you still get the feeling that Catholicism is insignificant here. A neighboring town organized a Mardi Gras eating festival long before Lent had begun. The much more powerful and cooler reform churches (Baptists, Evangelicals, Methodists, Presbyterians and others) just don’t take catechesis that seriously. Schools hold Easter egg hunts over a week before the actual Easter celebration! But the children’s baskets here are more full than in Europe. On Easter Sunday, a friend posted a photo on Facebook of an entire laundry basket full of toys for her child. “Jesus is risen” – and with him the household budget.

For this year’s Easter we decided to go to a so-called megachurch, i.e. a super-sized church. A Baptist one. One that includes Chuck Norris in the congregation where the Texas governor appears and which has 7,000 seats. Three masses are held one after the other at Easter and each time the concert hall (there is no other way to describe the interior) is completely full. I think with sadness of the cozy little baroque church in Hamburg where I was married to my Protestant husband, or of the richly decorated Gothic churches in Bordeaux, which I often visited during my exchange semester. Sublimity, silence, emotion, incense, altarpiece, crypt, cornice. In Texas, on the other hand: parking attendants, stage, screens, camera team, photo wall and a football field.

The choir alone consists of around one hundred people. His songs are clumsy and poppy: “Thank you Jesus for the blood applied / Thank you Jesus, it has washed me white”. Everyone gathered rocks along or involuntarily raises their hands in a gesture that is forbidden in Germany. Children paint and fool around. “How many empty coffins can you find?” is written on the activity sheet that my daughter receives before the mass. This is how you reach the youth! European Christianity can only dream of such a pull.

But the intellectual is banned from the church; the performances are strongly reminiscent of the series “Righteous Gemstones”. The pastor promotes his colleague’s book, tells jokes about how he once dropped his pants and incites against President Biden. He declared Easter Sunday to be transgender day. Boos from visitors can immediately be heard. That is diabolical, says the pastor. However, a quick Google search reveals that Biden, a Catholic, chose the date of March 31 three years ago, which happened to fall on Easter in 2024. Unfortunately, this form of Baptistism no longer has much to do with Martin Luther King. But as the saying goes: God said, “Let there be light!” Chuck Norris replied, “Please say!”

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