Pioneer Christian-Muslim Kindergarten Opens in Germany

The cause of interfaith dialog in Germany will receive a new impulse August 2 with the opening of the country’s first Christian-Muslim kindergarten in the town of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony. Seven Christian children, seven Muslim children and four children from non-religious families will receive education from this Thursday in the ‘Abraham’s Children’ facility, a daycare center which aims to be a “house of tolerance” and a “contribution to reconciliation” between local religious and non-religious communities, according to Martin Wrasmann, chair of the kindergarten board and a pastoral agent in the Catholic Diocese of Hildesheim.

The idea of a Christian-Muslim kindergarten “came to us during the refugee crisis, when the mosque communities here in Gifhorn had problems fulfilling the desire of the Muslims for their own kindergarten”, Wrasmann told Spiegel Online. In conversations on the issue “both sides soon realized that we have more in common than we have differences”, continued the pastoral worker, adding that “the biggest challenge for us is the social and political acceptance – we are being watched very closely here”.

And indeed, Wrasmann said that the organizers of the ‘Abraham’s Children’ initiative have faced “political pressure” from the start. Not least of all from the far-right political party AfD, whose local representatives are concerned that the Turkish-Muslim partner in the preschool, DITIB, is controlled directly from Ankara. Local Catholics and Muslims have been sceptical about the kindergarten too, the first group because the children will all eat Halal food, and the second group because they fear the kindergarten authorities will try and convert their children to Christianity.

“If we have common origins, we should have a common future”

Talking to Spiegel Online, however, Wrasmann dismissed the concerns of the sceptics, and said ‘Abraham’s Children’ will not be a “mission school” and will limit religious instruction to songs and prayers that all children can participate in. “The difference to other kindergartens in everyday life will not be so great”, said the pastoral agent, adding in comments to Deutschlandfunk that the distinctive marks of the center will be simply “mindfulness, tolerance and respect” and the conviction that, if Christians and Muslims have common origins, “we should have a common future”.

In comments to NDR, Wrasmann’s colleague on the kindergarten board, Yurtsever Rayman of the DITIB mosque in Gifhorn, praised the “positive tolerance” the children will learn at the center by celebrating together the great festivals of the two religions, such as Christmas and Ramadan. “We are part of society and belong to Gifhorn”, added Rayman. “This kindergarten will contribute to more tolerance and mutual respect”.

Hans-Peter Daub, CEO of the other principal partner in ‘Abraham’s Children’, the Evangelical association Diakonie, was also enthusiastic about the new center. “I don’t believe that we clarify our identity by delineating ourselves”, said Daub. “It is much, much easier to feel what being a Protestant means in an open and friendly dialog with people of other religions, because then I can see in a very relaxed and often humorous way what constitutes my own [tradition]”.

Wrassman and the other coordinators of the ‘Abraham’s children’ project explained that they would have liked to have included the Jewish community in the new kindergarten, but found that no Jewish association exists in Gifhorn. This three-way dialog in education between the great religions of the book will receive an important stimulus in 2021, however, when a Jewish-Muslim-Christian kindergarten is slated to open in Berlin.