Explaining the situation of churches in Germany

The churches in Germany are losing members drastically every year. Look at the following figures showing the number of people signing out of the organization year by year:

Year    Evangelic Church     Catholic Church

1970   202.823                    69.454

1980   119.814                    66.438

1985   140.553                    74.112

1987   140.638                    81.598

1988   138.700                    79.562

1989   147.753                    93.010

1990   144.143                  143.530

1991   237.874                  167.933

1992   361.256                  192.766

1993   284.699                  153.753

1994   290.302                  155.797

1995   296.782                  168.244

1996   225.602                  133.275

1997   196.602                  123.813

1998   182.730                  119.265

1999   192.880                  129.013

2000   188.557                  129.496

2001   171.789                  113.724

2002   174.227                  119.405

2003   177.162                  129.598

2004   141.567                 101.252

2005   119.561                   89.565

2006   121.598                   84.389

2007   131.000                   93.667

2008   168.901                 121.155

The figures are officially taken from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and the administration of the evangelic and catholic church in Germany.

The following chart shows the number of people leaving the evangelic and Catholic Church every year in Germany.

Kirchenaustritte

The churches use their income from the church tax for the following:

Catholic Church:

  • Employees: +- 60%
  • Administration: +- 10%
  • Buildings: +- 10%
  • Schools and education: +- 10%
  • Social work and help for the poor: +- 10% (What a scandal, because the churches always ask to help the poor)

Evangelic Church:

  • Employees: +- 70%
  • Administration: +- 10%
  • Buildings: +- 10%
  • Schools and education & Social work and help for the poor: +-  10%

Income out of church tax 2002:

  • Catholic Church: 4.1 Billion Euros
  • Evangelic Church: 4.3 Billion Euros
  • Total: 8.4 Billion Euros tax free money
  • Paid by church members: 5.05 Billion Euros (60.1%)
  • Paid out of country tax funds: 3.35 Billion Euros (39.9%)

The following statistics show the amount of members of the church organizations.

Year Population Ev. Church in % Cat. Church in % Total in %
2001 82 440 309 26 453 592 32.1 26 656 014 32.3 53 109 606 64.4
2002 82 536 680 26 211 487 31.8 26 466 076 32.1 52 677 563 63.8
2003 82 531 671 25 836 192 31.3 26 165 153 31.7 52 001 345 63.0
2004 82 500 849 25 629 534 31.1 25 986 384 31.5 51 615 918 62.6
2005 82 437 995 25 385 618 30.8 25 905 908 31.4 51 291 526 62.2
2006 82 314 906 25 100 727 30.5 25 684 890 31.2 50 785 617 61.7
2007 82 217 837 24 832 110 30.2 25 461 118 31.0 50 293 228 61.2
2008 82 002 356 25 176 517 30.7

Nondenominational people in Germany

Since the 20th century there is no more state church in Germany.

In 1970 the figure of 3.9% for nondenominational people was determined by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany in the Federal Republic of Germany at that time (Protestant 49%, Roman-Catholic 44.6%, Muslim 1.3%). The portion of the population without denomination amounted to 32.3% in 2004 and 32.5% in 2005 in the whole federal republic. In 2008 it rose once more to 34.1%. Besides, the group of the people without denomination is especially high in the new federal states where – according to statistics – between 65% and 80% of the population are not members of any religion. Causality for this high value was the atheistic adjustment of the GDR by which the churches had strongly lost to social meaning and humanity.

In Europe a trend towards the disengagement from church is recognizable in general.

The group of atheists, agnostics and therefore nondenominational people are growing from year to year.

The chart below shows the figure in 2008: Konfessionsfrei = nondenominational people

Konfessionen Deutschland

12 comments

  1. The last comment. If you look at the chart carefully, you see a green and a dark purple section. That are the others like muslims and so on. It is clearly stated that not all “nondenominational people" are Atheists but also Agnostics and so on. I was just trying to say that churches are looking members from year to year and not stating that all 34% of the “nondenominational people" are Atheists. But the trend is positive.

  2. Not paying church tax (protestant or Catholic) is also including the large number of Muslims in Germany, also other faith groups whether Christians (Baptist, Orthodox …), Hindu’s, Buddhist etc. are not paying church tax.
    To put up some numbers of believe statistics in Europe (Spiegel-Online in April 2009)
    I do not belief in god (atheist) GER = 12%, France = 19%, UK = 16%
    I do not know if god exists and it can’t be found out (agnostic) GER = 11%, France = 16%, UK = 14%
    I do not belief in a personal God but some higher spirit (deist) GER = 33%, France = 14%, UK = 20%
    Sometimes I belief in God, sometime not : GER = 6%, France = 11%, UK = 12%
    I have doubt, but overall I think there is God : GER = 15%, France = 14%, UK = 13%
    I know there is God and have no doubts : GER = 22%, France = 24%, UK = 23%
    Don’t know what to answer : GER = 1%, France = 2%, UK = 2%

  3. Hi Thomas,
    Please do not see my post as critique of your article, but as adding some further details to it especially the percentages of the atheist/agnostic/deist/theist distribution in Europe.
    It would be interesting to see the latest exodus figures of Catholic tax payers in Germany after the last child raping scandals of Catholic clergy.
    And it will be a very long way to go for the Philippines, with the self reinforcing spiral of overpopulation –> poverty –> poor education –> high religiosity -> overpopulation ….. to close the cycle of the downwards spiral.
    And as a few studies (Gregory Paul ; Zuckermann) showed now the strong correlation of high religiosity as an indicator of a failed and dysfunctional society (high crime rates, income disparities, low social/health security, high stress) it will be difficult to escape from this cycle.

  4. Hi Thomas! Thanks for writing this article for the blog! Its nice to see the situation in other countries and dream of the day when we can get to those statistics ourself. Though perhaps our countries aren't directly comparable.

    I don't know if I have any problems with using tax money to preserve old churches. They are cultural artifacts despite of their baggage and some of them can be inspiring in terms of the human achievement it took to build them. Although now that I think about it I think the church should have enough of their own money to restore the building themselves.

    Or better yet the church can go build themselves a new building and the old churches can be sold to the government for preservation and for secular purposes like a public museum or library. Which would be really damn cool.

  5. Yes I am a German yet staying in The Philippines since one month. Sorry for some spelling mistaces! 🙂
    I am also a member of the HVD (That is a very large Atheist community in Germany)

  6. "But I can say that *surely* up to 80% of the peoples from the east of Germany are Atheists, depending on the area, because of their socialism background from the former GDR when Germany was splitted."

    Why, Thomas are you in Germany or have been?

    Possible. I noticed you wrote stopped as 'stoppt'.

  7. I have to give a comment to the last reply. What I ment by “nondenominational people" are at least peoples with agnostic thoughts, of course not all can be atheists … for now 🙂 ! But the trend is good cause already 34% + of the Germany are without confession and no longer following blindly the multi billion tax free money making organisation church. But I can say that surely up to 80% of the peoples from the east of Germany are Atheists, depending on the area, because of their socialism background from the former GDR when Germany was splitted.
    From what I know and have read, peoles who dont pay church tax also dont go to church anymore. (This is surely not 100% but near to). Specially in a village where the priest knows all his members he will also know if someone has stoppt paying church tax.
    The next scandal is that german government is giving money to churches for renovations because they claim to be a part of cultural buildings.
    The expectaion is that in 2020 maybe only 50% of the peoples will belong to religions in Germany.

  8. “nondenominational people” just means that these people are not paying the 8-9% church tax, but went to the municipal registration office (similar in Philippines = NSO) and delisted from the tax registration as evangelical (Protestant Lutheran) or Catholic. This is not preventing to attend Sunday mass or not believing in God, it just reduces the tax burden.
    And the amounts mentioned in the article (pure church tax collection) can be doubled when adding the cost of collection from authorities in behalf of the church plus several forms of subsidies of the church institutions from the government. The “ 10% spend for the poor” is more for missionary work and proselytizing the vulnerable, not so much about helping (feeding/housing/supporting) the poor.
    The assets of the 2 main churches in Germany were 60 Billion Euro in stock holdings alone at the beginning of 2009 (in the deeps of the crisis), plus huge assets in form of government bonds plus 8.5 billion square meters of real estate property often in downtown prime locations is resulting into assets of at least 500 Billion more likely 800 billion Euro.
    So just a tiny percentage of these church assets is already matching the entire budget of the RP.
    So how was this with the camel is easier fitting through the eye of a needle than a rich man entering heaven ??

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