Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Autumn 2016 71 resentment-laden protests of Eastern European nations. These countries argue that they cannot be expected to share in bearing the conse- quences of a crisis that they regard as caused by Merkel’s recklessness, pointing out that Germany neither consulted them in advance nor involved them in decision making. Many of the 1.3 million refugees will likely seek to remain in Germany, a demographic shift that will transform the country. What’s more, asylum law permits family members to join an eligible asylum seeker in Germany. It’s not surprising that some German citizens react to the prospect of the coming social shift with withdrawal, fear, aggression, or an exclusionary stance. From their perspective, the already painful pressures that the globalized economy has brought to bear are now being aggravated by the mass influx of refugees. Between this position and that of the Willkommenskultur runs a fault line along which German and European politics will play out for the foreseeable future. Political elites will do well to offer policies that are plausible to a broad base of their electorates rather than reacting with their own forms of exclusion toward those unwilling or unable to follow the liberal mainstream. German Churches in Action From the beginning of the refugee influx, German churches have seen themselves as an integral part of the Willkommenskultur. Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), and Cardinal Marx of Munich, chairman of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference, both joined Merkel at Munich’s main station to welcome the first trainloads of refugees. Across the country, German churches and parishes have formed the backbone of civil society’s efforts to care for the refugees sent to cities and villages after their initial processing. In many German towns, “round tables” have served as forums for local citizens to discuss and solve questions of how to receive and Pro-refugee demonstrators protest a right- wing populist march in Berlin (July 2016). Photograph by Jörg Carstensen / EPA