When Times Are Out of Joint. Contestations of Official Temporal Religious Forms

Abstract

The presence of houses of worship, religious clothing, food and sounds like church bells and the call for prayer in liberal and democratic societies is testimony to a vibrant religious diversity in the public sphere of such societies. In Germany, the historical predominance of Christianity is inscribed in the material culture as well as in temporal forms like the calendar. This chapter focuses on public controversies and social conflicts about religious holidays as public holidays in Germany. I discuss two such cases: the contested status of Good Friday as silent holiday and discussions about the introduction of an Islamic holiday as public holiday. I demonstrate that in both cases, religious holidays are mobilised as (temporal) things of conflict. State institutions use arguments based on culturalization or heritagisation of religion to escape accusations that the state privileges Christianity. Despite of that, however, the one-sided endorsement of Christian temporal forms by the state, contributes to the construction of an imagined collective cultural ‘we’ that is based on a ‘Judeo-Christian culture’, which is positioned against religious minorities, especially Islam.