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Author Anne Baum: Why is it so difficult for me to leave the church?
Photo: Anne Baum
I was in a shepherd's costume, although my dream role had been that of a sheep.
A little swing with hay, stand in the background and smile, perfect.
Instead, I wore a hiking hat and a pillow under the vest to imitate the shepherd's belly.
At that time I was 13 years old and, like all confirmation candidates, I was obliged to play the nativity scene.
"And then Jesus was cribbed in swaddling clothes," I said.
stage exit.
That was the first time I thought about leaving the church.
I'm 28 now and have finally said goodbye to the childish belief that someone is sitting up there watching me, whether I'm sleeping or the embarrassing performance of the nativity play.
However, I am still a member of the church.
Sometimes I postponed my exit because the agreed date at the registry office didn't suit me, sometimes because the administration fee of around 30 euros seemed too high to me.
But there was always an exit date, a point in time when I really wanted to leave: my start in professional life.
Then the church is no longer content with sending me parish letters with church psalms and pastor jokes.
She wants something from me: nine percent of my income tax.
taxes and statistics
New projections were only published on Tuesday, according to which less than half of the people in Germany belong to one of the two major churches.
Hundreds of thousands cancel their membership every year.
When an expert report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising was published at the beginning of the year, requests for resignation in Bavaria skyrocketed.
Researchers at the University of Freiburg found in a 2019 study that the likelihood of leaving is highest among those in their mid to late 20s.
Whether there is a connection with starting a career was not researched.
But that is close.
Because in a survey by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the research group Weltanschauungen in Germany (fowid) from 2021, around 64 percent of those who left justified their decision with the church tax.
And you only really feel it with the first pay slip.
If I calculate the average salary for editors, I would save around 800 euros a year by leaving the church.
I could invest the money.
Or donate.
Or at least plan to.
Although the church also uses part of the church tax for charitable purposes, a lot of money goes to the parishes and administration fees.
I would rather spend my money on refugees from war zones or my favorite animal shelter.
So there are now more reasonable arguments against the church than the uncomfortable feeling at the nativity play back then.
Still, I can't get out.
Why?
Why believe?
If I still believed in God, I would ask him.
Finally, Psalm 139:4 says, "Behold, there is not a word on my tongue that Thou dost not know, Lord." (I admit I googled the psalm.) Instead, I ask Michael Utsch, he is Psychotherapist specializing in psychology of religion.
I want to know from him what religion still means in the 21st century.
Faith helps to cope with the tragedy and absurdity of life, says Utsch.
And not to despair of the futility.
In order to come to terms with the early death of a family member or an environmental disaster, scientific and technical explanations are often not enough; some form of faith is required for this.
There are just enough reasons to despair.
War, climate change, the never-ending corona pandemic.
And then there are the individual concerns.
Those around my grandparents, for example, who are getting older.
What helps me to keep going anyway?
Belief in the good in people perhaps, in friendship?
Not that easy to answer.
But I know one thing: My membership in the Church does not help me to understand what is happening in the world right now.
On the contrary: the church itself is one more reason to doubt humanity - I remind you of the cases of abuse.
But churches fulfill even more functions, says Utsch.
Community can develop through shared rituals and belief in God.
And with it security.
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Author Anne Baum: Posing for the confirmation photo
Photo: private
I grew up in a town with a bishops' conference and all my schools had Christian names.
Nevertheless, I never experienced the much-vaunted sense of community that comes from church trips or Bible studies.
I like going to churches.
I like the murals, the slightly dusty smell, sometimes heavy with incense, and the silence.
But I don't feel anything there - at least no closeness to God or security, rather a pronounced fascination for the architectural masterpieces.
I am making a second attempt to understand myself and church membership.
For this I resolve to find God in my brain.
What sounds like a planned drug trip is based on neurotheology.
It attempts to explain beliefs and religious feelings using neurology, examining brain activity during spiritual acts.
Explaining the rather abstract belief with a scientific approach, I like that.
Faith in Brain Research
Michael Blume is a religious scholar and wrote his doctoral thesis on neurotheology.
There are different approaches and experiments, he says, such as that of an American neurologist.
She wanted to find out if spirituality is reflected in a specific brain region.
To do this, she organized two groups of subjects – Christians from an evangelical free church and atheists.
Both groups had to read a psalm, while their brainwaves were measured.
And indeed, the psalm activated different brain regions in the believers than in the atheists - namely, above all, the front parietal lobe, which is responsible for evaluating social actions and memories, for example.
"This does not prove the existence of God in the anterior parietal lobe," says Blume, "but that the psalm led to a social experience among the faithful, similar to a conversation with close friends."
If my brain waves were measured while reading a psalm, little would probably happen in my anterior parietal lobe.
I don't associate psalms with any social experiences or memories.
It would be different when leafing through the family album - with the pictures from last Christmas, from my confirmation, my baptism.
Then the brain waves would probably only flow like that.
And suddenly I understand why I haven't left the church yet.
The real reason for my hesitation is the smell of fried shrimp on Christmas Eve.
My godmother's look at the photo of my christening, the cross over my grandparents' kitchen table.
In my brain, the church, my family and my childhood have connected.
And when I think of Christmas Eve or my grandparents' kitchen, a feeling arises: security.
This is called association in psychology.
Two independent elements are linked together.
It's like the cactus ice cream in the swimming pool, which tastes a bit like strawberries, but a lot more like summer and light-heartedness.
And so the bells at the Christmas service always remind me of childhood and family.
It's these connections in my brain that make it so difficult for me to leave the church.
I'm afraid of losing part of my childhood memories.
My membership in the church has little to do with it.
Because my memory is managed by someone else: countless nerve cells in my brain.
When I leave the church my paycheck will change, but not much else.
The church bells will continue to ring and we will be grilling shrimp again at the next Christmas party.