Elections in Germany are typically pretty quiet, according to Assemblies of God pastor Timothy Carentz.
Germans are wary of extremism, concerned about propriety, and committed to a principle of political privacy or “electoral secrecy,” which is enshrined in the German constitution. They often don’t put signs up in their yards or get into heated arguments about candidates at the pub.
But this year, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition in November, things have been more heated.
“We’ve noticed people getting more and more vocal,” said Carentz, an American who runs Rhema Café, a coffee shop and ministry center in Kaiserslautern, in southwestern Germany.
He’s heard debates about the economy, which is floundering, and rise of right-wing nationalists. People are arguing about immigration and asylum policies, the war in Ukraine, high energy prices, and which politicians (if any) can be trusted to help.
The conversations seem more divisive than usual.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen Germans so active, engaged, and opinionated about it all,” Carentz said. “This year, people are putting up banners outside their apartment windows, leaving stickers around town, wanting to hand out brochures and pamphlets.”
Amid it all, evangelical leaders told Christianity Today, they are focusing on God’s love for all people and the value of every human life—unborn and migrant, in Ukraine and the Middle East, and at home in Germany. And they are praying for Germany’s democracy.
The country has been in a lot of turmoil since the three-year-old coalition—made up of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Greens and the probusiness Free Democratic Party (FDP)—fell apart in an argument over a proposed budget. Under the stress of the recent reelection of Donald Trump in the US, differences over economic policy could no longer be reconciled, and the three parties stopped working together.
Germans will vote in a snap election on February 23. Currently, the SPD is polling at about 16 percent, down about 10 points from its 2021 victory. The Greens have 13 percent support. The FDP is polling so poorly that it may not clear the minimum threshold to get any seats in parliament.
The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are on track to win the largest share of the vote. Current polls show that the party that was in power for 16 years under the leadership of Angela Merkel has around 30 percent support.
The CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has emphasized the need to restrict immigration, rev up the economy, embrace nuclear power, strengthen Germany’s military, and rely less on America. The party’s platform also promises tax cuts, lower electricity costs, and investment in the tech sector.
“You deserve a government that governs our country better,” the platform says. “We know how to do it.”
The CDU/CSU does not seem to know who to do it with, however.
To govern, a party needs the support of at least half the representatives in parliament. The CDU/CSU might be able to form a coalition with the SPD. The center-right and center-left parties have partnered before, governing as a “grand coalition” from 2005 to 2009 and 2013 to 2021.
But both have lost support since then. Back in 2013, the two parties commanded a combined 68 percent of the popular vote. Today they’re hovering around 45 percent in polls.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has seen a surge of support, on the other hand, harnessing anger and anxiety over immigration, climate-change policies, COVID-19 restrictions, and the war in Ukraine, as well as ongoing dissatisfaction with the European Union. The AfD is currently polling second, even after a series of controversies over meetings to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship, and the use of banned Nazi phrases.
The CDU/CSU has been sharply criticized after working with the AfD to pass a nonbinding immigration motion—including criticism in a joint letter from the Protestant Church in Germany and the Catholic German Bishops’ Conference warning against the collaboration. Merz has recommitted to not forming a coalition with the right-wing party.
Several other smaller parties are running as well, including the Left Party, which is polling at about 6 percent, and a new left-wing party named for politician Sahra Wagenknecht, which is polling at 5 percent.
Members of Germany’s independent Protestant churches, called free churches, are not a significant bloc of voters. They’re unlikely to sway the election one way or another. But they have not been left untouched by the political debates roiling the country ahead of the February 23 election.
Konstantin von Abendroth, who represents the Association of Protestant Free Churches at the federal level, told CT that evangelicals are mostly concerned with the same issues that concern other voters.
“I know devout Christians in all parties,” he said. “Pacifists who vote for the Left. Christians who emphasize freedom of lifestyle and therefore vote for the Greens. Christians who emphasize social justice and therefore vote for the SPD. Christians who want to achieve peace through rearmament and therefore vote for the CDU. Christians who are afraid of Muslims and therefore vote for the AfD.”
Some free-church Christians have been drawn to the social conservatism of the AfD—and the kind of social change promised by someone like Trump in America.
“During the election campaign, Donald Trump interested evangelical Christians with some conservative family ethics but, above all, with the economic upturn he promised,” von Abendroth said.
Trump’s seeming delight in chaos and disruption, though, along with his aggressive rhetoric and the demeaning way he speaks about people, makes even the most sympathetic evangelicals a bit leery. Seeing people around Trump, notably billionaire Elon Musk, come out in support of the AfD seems to have prompted a bit of a backlash too.
“I expect that the actions of the current American government will lead to fewer evangelical Christians voting for the AfD,” von Abendroth said.
Frank Heinrich, one of the leaders of the Evangelical Alliance in Germany, said if evangelicals stand out on any issue, it is their emphasis on the dignity of every human as a creature of God.
“In our view,” Heinrich said, “this is the decisive prerequisite for any democratic society.”
Many evangelicals are more concerned than their neighbors about abortion. Terminating a pregnancy is illegal in Germany except to save the life of the mother, but it is currently nonpunishable in the first 12 weeks. The SPD and the Greens, with support from the Left Party, recently proposed decriminalizing abortion in the first trimester.
That may push some Christians to support Merz and the CDU/CSU. The center-right party’s candidate is Catholic and called abortion “an affront to the people” on the campaign. The AfD also opposes state support for abortion.
The proposed decriminalization didn’t advance in parliament, though, despite popular support nationally, including 62 percent of Catholics and 75 percent of Protestants, so it is unclear how pressing the issue will be when voters cast their ballots.
According to Heinrich, German evangelicals’ pro-life commitments also lead them to prioritize certain foreign policy concerns including peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. And they care a lot about sustainability issues. The Evangelical Alliance recently set up a new working group on climate change.
Perhaps the biggest political concern right now, though, is the state of politics itself. Many members of free churches are worried about how heated everything has gotten this election.
“Looking at the United States, there is a lot of skepticism among evangelicals about this style of politics,” Heinrich said.
When the Evangelical Alliance leader attended the National Prayer Breakfast in the US last week, Trump’s speech made him want to hide under the table. The way Trump talks about his political opponents—fellow citizens who disagree with him—was especially concerning, Heinrich said.
And stability feels really important to a lot of evangelicals in Germany right now.
The western part of Germany has only been a democracy for 75 years. And the eastern part of the country only freed itself from authoritarian rule 35 years ago. A thriving, healthy, and free society, where transfers of power are peaceful and people can disagree about the future of the country, is not something they want to take for granted.
“When the chancellor called for new elections, it showed how stable the system is,” Heinrich said. “That’s not guaranteed or always the case. … That’s what we are praying for here—that the stability would not go away.”
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