Andreas Bräm

Andreas Bräm (born April 30, 1797 in Basel , † January 11, 1882 in Neukirchen (today Neukirchen-Vluyn ) on the Lower Rhine ) was a Swiss Protestant Reformed pastor and founder of the Neukirchen Educational Association .

Live and act

Bräm, who came from a poor background, attended grammar school in his hometown thanks to a scholarship, where he also began studying in 1816. In the spring of 1818, through lectures by the Baltic Baroness Juliane von Krüdener , he learned of his conversion to a Christianity shaped by the revival movement . In 1819 he continued studying Protestant theology in Tübingen . In 1821 he became a private tutor at the silk manufacturer Friedrich Heinrich von Friedrich von der Leyen in Krefeld . In neighboring Neukirchen he met the pastor's daughter Wilhelmine Rappard (1798–1875), whom he married in 1825 when he was given a position as a teacher at the girls' high school in Basel (after his ordination in Basel Minster ). Here he dealt with the writings of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and the work in the poor school teacher and rescue facility at Schloss Beuggen (above Basel), one of the first companies of the Inner Mission, founded by Christian Heinrich Zeller .

In 1835 Bräm took over his father-in-law's pastoral position in Neukirchen and worked there, e.g. B. through Bible studies and the publication of the weekly newspaper “Die Biene” (1842–1846), in the spirit of the revival movement. His life's work was caring for uprooted children from the cities of the Wuppertal , which were hit by the early industrialization . Bräm set up a rescue house and on December 15, 1845, together with members of his presbytery and other citizens, founded the "Association for the Education of Poor, Abandoned and Neglected Children in Families", or Neukirchen Educational Association for short . Unlike in the rescue houses, the children should not (or only temporarily) live in a home, but were housed in families, mostly in rural areas of the Rhineland. Bräm was able to build three houses for the transition or for girls who were difficult to educate (the Elim house, founded in 1880, was the first girls' home in Prussia ), and numerous other facilities were added after his death.

In addition to his work as a pastor and pioneer of the Inner Mission, Bräm published biblical reflections, especially on the Old Testament , and promoted his model of youth welfare at the Protestant church days in Elberfeld (1851), Frankfurt am Main (1854) and Barmen (1860).

Works

• Description of the holy land . 1834; 2nd ed. 1838.
• Look into world history and its plan . 1835.
• The Truth to Godliness According to the Course of Scripture: A Teaching Guide . 1845.
• About the manner of worship according to biblical principles. A memorandum for our Rhenish-Westphalian communities and their representatives . 1849.
• The kingdom of God in the Old Testament . 1850.
• Traits from Abraham's household life . 1855; 1890.
• The fall of man: illumination of Genesis 3 . 1857.
• Israel's migration from Gosen to Sinai . 1859.
• Thoughts for orientation and self-examination about the task of the German Evangelical Church . 1862.
• Letters to women and virgins on questions from practical life . Edited by Gottfried Pott. 1895; 1921.
• Andreas Bräm: preacher, pastor, educator and founder of the educational association (1797–1882). A selection from his writings . Introduced u. ed. v. Rudolf Weth . Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1982.

literature

• Julius Roessle: Witnesses and Testimonials. The fathers of Rhenish-Westphalian Pietism . 1968. pp. 175-183.
• Elsbeth Lohbeck: Andreas Bräm - a forgotten champion for the solution of the social question in the 19th century . In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland 32, 1983.
• Elsbeth Lohbeck: Andreas Bräm (1797–1882) - a pioneer of diakonia in the Rhineland and founder of the Neukirchener Erziehungsverein: a picture of life, presented on the basis of archival sources . Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1989
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Bräm, Andreas. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 725-726.
• Manfred Jülicher: 150 years of educational association in the church district of Moers. Part I . In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland 57, 2008, pp. 165–184.