Swiss Christians want to keep mentions of God in constitution

The political association Christian Public Affairs (CPA) published an argument on June 20th on its site, a few days after the National Council again publicly restated its refusal to follow up on the initiative "Secularism must be included in the Constitution", which socialist councillor Fabian Molina had filed in March 2021.

Molina requested to modify the Swiss Constitution's preamble, "In the name of Almighty God! The Swiss people and cantons, aware of their responsibility towards Creation…" by "The Swiss people and cantons, aware of their responsibility towards the environment…."

On February 25th, a commission of the Swiss National Council had, in fact, decided by 14 votes to 6 and 2 abstentions not to follow the initiative. This reports the Swiss Christian news website Evangelique.

Neutrality

For the members of the CPA, "this parliamentary initiative does not offer any progress in terms of religious neutrality, contrary to what it claims. This neutrality is already guaranteed and respected at the federal level." On the other hand, "this initiative wants to impose in Switzerland a secularised and secularist constitutional preamble, by removing a traditional reference which recalls at the same time the history of our country, the values on which it was built and the beliefs to which adhere even today a majority of the population," they say.

Christian Public Affairs was founded in 2019 by Christian organisations and associations, defined by a desire to exert "a constructive influence on the legislative process in Switzerland, based on the values defended by Christianity".

According to the Christian organisation Joshua Project, 76 per cent of Swiss people declare themselves Christian.