Wilhelm Leber

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Wilhelm Leber (born July 20, 1947 in Herford ) was the eighth Chief Apostle of the New Apostolic Church since his inauguration on May 15, 2005 ( Pentecost ) in Fellbach , replacing Richard Fehr as incumbent. On May 19, 2013, he was retired by his successor, Jean-Luc Schneider .

Life

Wilhelm Leber was born on July 20, 1947 in Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia, into a New Apostolic home and had known the family of then Chief Apostle Bischoff from childhood and youth. He studied mathematics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . From 1973 to 1977 he worked as an assistant at a business management chair at the University of Hamburg .

In 1975 he received his doctorate in natural sciences (Dr. phil. Nat.) On the subject of convergence terms for linear operators and stability statements. From 1977 to 1991 he worked for a Hamburg life insurance company.

On September 9, 1990, Wilhelm Leber was ordained an Apostle of the Bremen district , and since 1991 he has worked exclusively for the New Apostolic Church.

His area of ​​responsibility expanded to include the districts of Hamburg (November 22, 1992), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (January 16, 1994) (these three districts currently form the district churches of Northern Germany ) and North Rhine-Westphalia (January 1, 2003). He also served for the Church Coordination Group (Advisory Committee) for six years and the Church Strategy Group (Finance) for five years.

In 1972 he married Barbara Bischoff, a granddaughter of Chief Apostle Johann Gottfried Bischoff (1871–1960). The marriage produced a son and a daughter. Today he lives with his family in Buchholz in the Nordheide .

Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber retired on May 19, 2013. His successor is the Frenchman Jean-Luc Schneider .

Developments in his tenure

Dissemination and Mission

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When Chief Apostle Fehr retired, there were around 10,850,000 New Apostolic Christians worldwide. By December 31, 2007, i.e. one and a half years under Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber, the number of members had risen to 11,239,935 New Apostolic Christians, i.e. by around 3.6%, which is a considerably smaller increase than before under Richard Fehr. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, that more intensive missionary work was carried out under the previous Chief Apostles , which, however, weakened under Leber.

In short, Chief Apostle Leber was out to reorganize the Church in terms of congregations, ministers and finances.

Therefore, one of the important developments under Wilhelm Leber is the independence of the District Churches. So far, African states have been handed over to support African District Churches and so-called “District Apostle Helpers” have been commissioned to promote independence in places where membership numbers are sometimes very high. In practice: Madagascar , where 60,000 New Apostolic Christians live, previously cared for by southern Germany, has been taken over by Southeast Africa. Apostle Shadreck Mundia Lubasi was commissioned as District Apostle to make East Africa with Kenya , Tanzania and Uganda with two million New Apostolic Christians independent.

Church internal and public relations

Chief Apostle Leber particularly strove to strengthen the New Apostolic Church from the inside out in doctrine and oneness. For this purpose, teaching seminars are held and a new self-image of the church is defined. This is intended to enable clearly structured public relations work through brochures or public appearances. In addition, it was hoped that this would prevent prejudices from other denominations and increase awareness in Europe.

In addition, the New Apostolic Church is interested in reconciliation and a joint review of history with the Association of Apostolic Congregations. Dialogues should be conducted with dropouts and critics.

Ecumenism

His predecessor in office, Chief Apostle Fehr, set up the Ecumenical Project Group on October 28, 1999 . The ecumenical dialogue itself, however, was only properly promoted under Leber. The chairman of the ecumenical project group is Apostle Volker Kühnle (southern Germany, Nürtingen), who has already given a large-scale lecture on this topic: New Apostolic Church and ecumenical movement - risk or opportunity?

Andreas Fincke, employee at the Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauung questions, published him the brochure And She Moves Yet - News from the New Apostolic Church. Like the religious commissioner of the EKS, Georg Schmid, he presented the development of the church positively, not least because of the processes in the area of ​​ecumenism. The New Apostolic Church, for its part, emphasizes that the statement of the need for salvation of the apostles is never relativized by ecumenism. Fincke said it was a big problem that the New Apostolic Church is still severely disadvantaged in everyday life.

With Chief Apostle Leber, the New Apostolic Church, which strongly points to the step towards ecumenism, recognized baptisms of other Christian denominations, provided that they are carried out in the rite of the Trinity of God.

Official statement on the "embassy"

In an interview with the evangelical magazine ideaSpektrum , Leber said about Chief Apostle Johann Gottfried Bischoff's announcement in 1951 that Jesus would return during his lifetime (known as the " Message "):

“The fact that Chief Apostle Bischoff's prediction was not fulfilled remains an unanswered question for me ... I do not want to make a final judgment about the true context. Perhaps Chief Apostle Bischoff misinterpreted something, or conditions were mentioned that we do not know [...] The subject is no longer a dogma, everyone can form their own judgment about it. "

On May 13, 2013, Chief Apostle Leber once again made a comprehensive statement on the message in a five-page document. He emphasized that the New Apostolic Church no longer adheres to the presentation of Chief Apostle Bischoff's message as divine revelation. He also stated that shortly after the death of Johann Gottfried Bischoff, the church leadership declared that God had changed his will for unknown reasons, was not compatible with the church's image of God and the Bible. It also says there:

“As we understand it today, Chief Apostle Bischoff should not have allowed the message to be made an essential subject of faith. It is true that it is subject to the Chief Apostle's teaching authority to “proclaim further information from the Holy Spirit and to declare it to be the binding teaching of the New Apostolic Church” - so it says in the Catechism . But the starting point and basis of doctrinal statements must be the Holy Scriptures. Thus it would have been necessary to justify the message in a sound and resilient manner on the basis of the Holy Scriptures. A personal conviction cannot be sufficient. "

- Wilhelm Leber, from the statement on the "Message"

criticism

Church understanding

A sermon at a divine service in Osnabrück as well as statements about the self-image of the New Apostolic Church on December 4, 2007 brought Leber criticism, especially since many church members are not satisfied with the statement that salvation “through God's will” also in others Churches could be attained, but the NAK is the work of God and the church of the true apostles of Jesus. This statement is seen less drastically by other denominations , since the Roman Catholic Church, for example, has practically the same self-image. At the end of 2008 Chief Apostle Leber relativized the statement that the forgiveness of sins was linked to the NAK Apostle Ministry and reformulated it so that sins would ultimately be remitted “sovereignly” by God himself.
In March 2011, the New Apostolic District Elder Thomas Feil publicly announced his protest against the New Apostolic Church's new understanding of the church. Shortly before, this had explained the changed understanding of the church in a circular to all ministers. Hundreds of officials and members publicly expressed their solidarity with Thomas Feil and his opinion.

History processing

An information evening on December 4, 2007, which was broadcast across Europe by satellite, was actually supposed to be a historical representation - also in cooperation with the Apostolic Congregations (VAG), which once split off from the NAK . Because the responsible District Apostle Wilfried Klingler could no longer contact the VAG due to an illness, this history lecture was given without the consent of the VAG, which led Chief Apostle Leber to harsh criticism.
On February 1, 2008, the apostles and bishops of the VAG published a declaration with which they initially ended all talks with the NAK. Leber asked the VAG for forgiveness and assured them that it would take care of a new and more objective approach. One result of this reprocessing was the statement on the Bishop's “message” (see above).

literature

  • Convergence terms for linear operators and stability statements. Dissertation in Faculty 12 (Mathematics) at the University of Frankfurt am Main, 1975

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Apostolic Church International: Figures, data, facts (as of December 31, 2004) ( Memento of June 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). March 17, 2005
  2. ^ New Apostolic Church International: NAK Worldwide . (last updated on September 24, 2008)
  3. ↑ New Apostolic Church International: “Setting the course for the future of the Church” . December 1, 2006
  4. ^ New Apostolic Church International: The New Apostolic Church in Madagascar will in future be headed by Southeast Africa . September 19, 2007
  5. ^ New Apostolic Church International: New District Apostle Helper for East Africa . August 3, 2007
  6. ^ New Apostolic Church International: Notes on the self-image of the New Apostolic Church . December 14, 2007
  7. ^ New Apostolic Church International: Information evening on December 4, 2007: A documentation . 4th December 2007
  8. ↑ a b New Apostolic Church International: Letter from Wilhelm Leber to Matthias Knauth (VAG) (PDF; 57 kB). January 4, 2008
  9. ↑ New Apostolic Church International: Chief Apostle interview in “ideaSpektrum”: “Every apostle is first of all a servant of God!” . June 20, 2006
  10. ^ Official statement by the Chief Apostle on the Zurich message , May 13, 2013
  11. ↑ Glaubenskultur-magazin: Documented: Controversial sermons from Sunday in original sound ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glaubenskultur.de archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . November 29, 2006
  12. ↑ Christ in Dialogue: After Osnabrück - An Ice Age for the Ecumenists in the NAK? ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.christ-im-dialog.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. November 29, 2006
  13. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church ; Pp. 72-73
  14. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glaubenskultur.de
  15. ↑ Association of the Apostolic Congregations in Europe: Declaration on the processing of common history with the New Apostolic Church of February 1, 2008
  16. ^ New Apostolic Church International: Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber offers the VAG further discussions . January 8, 2008
predecessor Office successor
Richard Fehr Chief Apostle of the New Apostolic Church
2005–2013 		Jean-Luc Schneider


personal data
SURNAME Leber, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leber, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Chief Apostle of the New Apostolic Church
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Herford