Crosses on mountain tops are under threat but theologian thinks this should not promote a culture war

Tück on Tyrolean cross debate: "Topic is not suitable for a culture war".

Is it still contemporary in a religiously plural society to erect crosses on mountain peaks or to preserve them? This question was the subject of a small debate in July, which started in Italy and eventually spread to Tyrol and Bavaria. On the part of official church representatives one held back thereby - now however the Viennese theologian Professor Jan-Heiner Tück explained itself in a guest contribution in the "Furche" (10 August) to it, summit crosses are further up-to-date, as far as they represent a "thought-provoking impulse", which has "even religiously unmusical contemporaries something to say". At the same time, however, Tück called for moderation: "The topic is not suitable for a culture war, not even a small one."

The debate was triggered by the alleged demand of the Italian Alpine association Club Alpino Italiano (CAI) to remove existing crosses out of respect for other cultures, since mountain peaks are religiously "neutral ground." Even though the CAI later rowed back and explained that this had never been an official demand, a debate got underway in which both local politics in Tyrol and Bavaria participated. Even mountaineer Reinhold Messner commented on the debate in the German newspaper Bild, advising that no new summit crosses should be erected, as this would resemble a religious demonstration of power.

Tück also rejected the idea of a "blanket dismantling" of summit crosses as an "iconoclastic act." If, on the other hand, existing crosses continue to be maintained, he said, this is "a tradition-sensitive solution that at the same time responds to the change in the religious field." In fact, mountains are "special places" from the point of view of the history of religion, the theologian further reminded the audience: they "build a bridge between heaven and earth," and their summits also repeatedly play an important role in biblical tradition, be it with Abraham and Isaac or in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

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