passing the hat

Counting the number of missives I've been mailed from the local Finanzamt, I think I may be officially German. Every page (no thin envelopes, here) comes in klo-flimsy but öko-friendly recyclable paper, and the language is so lovingly convoluted and passively constructed that it takes me 15 minutes just to get through the salutation. It almost makes me yearn for the soothing jumble of cases and Cyrillic-code of Russian. Almost.

Even though I'm officially registered (with the Ausländerbehörde) and stamped with a steuernummer (from the aforementioned Finanzamt, which, oddly, is a far more pleasant place than the Ausländerbehörde) I am now being called to declare my religious persuasion. Because, apparently, in addition to the greedy mouths of the U.S. government and the German government, Jesus wants some cash too.

The one-page questionnaire asks under which religion I was baptized, and various other sundry, seemingly useless details, such as where my parents lived when I was born (does this make it easier for a fact checker?) But here's where my dictionary fails and my imagination kicks in. Sind Sie aus der Kirche ausgetreten? I guess one would translate austraten in English as "leave" or "withdraw," but the question is, leave of one's own accord, or get kicked out? Are they asking excommunication, here? Spiritual defenestration? And the rest of the questionnaire digs deeper: they're interested in not only whether I've screwed off mass to snooze late on Sundays, but also where I lived when I gave God the boot, and on what grounds I chose to punt, and under what name (obviously not the Lord's, ahem.)

I'd laugh all this off as a fun bit of cultural education if it weren't for the fact that I am utterly ignorant as to the tax implications of my combined freelance and atheist activities here in Berlin. I already know I'm screwed, freelance-wise. Which begs the question: What Would Luther Do?