Margot Käßmann believes that if you are not a church member, you should not get married in a church either. In the eyes of the theologian, the wedding of Finance Minister Lindner and journalist Lehfeldt has a “celebrity bonus taste”. She is harsh on both the bridal couple and the church.
Margot Käßmann also spoke out sharply in the debate about the church wedding of Finance Minister Christian Lindner and journalist Franca Lehfeldt. “Sylt, a lot of celebrities, champagne – and a church. It doesn’t seem to matter what the church stands for,” writes the Protestant theologian in the “Bild” newspaper. “It’s outrageous because it has a celebrity bonus flavor.”
The former council chair of the Evangelical Church in Germany criticizes: “This was not about Christian content, but about a backdrop. But our church should not give in to that.”
Lindner and Lehfeldt are said to have both left the church. It is also common in the Northern Church that at least one of the two partners must be a member of the Evangelical Church. However, the 2020 Synod decided that “a casual service can also be celebrated if people who are not church members ask for it”. The Evangelical Church describes services that are celebrated on the occasion of important stations in people’s lives as occasional events: baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial.
Käßmann, on the other hand, thinks: “It is correct that at least one spouse must be a member of the church for a church wedding to take place. If there is a legal gap, it should be closed as soon as possible. Otherwise we will degrade our traditional spaces in which Christians give glory to God , to cheap event locations.”
Among others, the Protestant ethics professor Mathias Wirth had criticized the wedding. He told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” that this was a “luxury wedding ceremony of little social and moral sensitivity for a minister who at the same time wants to cut the Hartz IV rates for the long-term unemployed”.
