Bible week

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bible Week is a seven-day project launched once a year by the German Evangelical Church for Bible study in the congregations.

history

The roots of the Bible Week lie primarily in the Reformation and the Bible translation by Martin Luther as well as in the book printing by Johannes Gutenberg ; through the pietism of the 17th and 18th centuries with its goal of personal piety, the Bible later became very important for the believers. The Bible movement at the beginning of the 19th century can be seen as a forerunner of the Bible Week, which had its roots in the revival movement with its own Bible studies .

In 1934, the dean Friedrich Hauß , who came from Baden , was appointed head of the newly established people's missionary office of the regional church, where he established the “Weeks of People's Mission”. In January 1935 the Bible Week was introduced at a seminar for pastors in Baden; this happened because of the conflict with the National Socialist regime. In the spring of the same year, the Bible Week was introduced across Germany in Wertheim .

Bible Week is a fruit of both popular mission and church struggle . Helmut Kern , Friedrich Haus , Heinrich Rendtorff and thirty other pastors in southern Germany are considered to be the founders of the Bible Week . Rendtorff gave the theological concept to the Bible week work.

Heinrich Rendtorff saw the need for people's mission especially in the situation after the First World War. The people's mission was carried out during the people's mission week, during which the message was fundamentally aligned for 8-10 days. The aim of the people's mission was to call the individual to the decision and to place them in the community. The individual should accept Christ as his Lord. The newly won would have to find a spiritual home in the church. After the People's Mission Week, a Bible course should be held with the aim of learning how to use the Bible independently. These people's mission weeks were banned during the Nazi era.

The “Declaration on the Practical Work of the Confession Synod of the German Evangelical Church” by Pastor Georg Schulz , which was drawn up as part of the Confession Synod of Barmen , was decisive for the beginning of the Bible Week work . The concerns of this declaration were the spiritual renewal of the parish, building up the confessional congregations and the mission of the confessional congregations. The tasks within the congregation included: evangelism , the service of the scriptures , the Bible week for deepening and the service of the alienated.

The first Bible week took place in Baden. At its center was the Sermon on the Mount . Karl Friedrich Zahn regards 1937 as the founding date. This year a conference of the German people's missionaries took place in Bad Harzburg . The letters of the Revelation of John were considered. Work came to a standstill as a result of the Nazi regime.

In the following years the following biblical writings became the basis of Bible Week:

1938: 1st letter from Peter

1939: Basileia tou theou ( Gospel according to Mark ),

1940: Credo in spiritum sanctum ( Acts of the Apostles ). From 1941 to 1945 no printed handouts were published. From 1946 a leaflet appeared in the mail on the letters of the Revelation of John, which was copied and sent on.

The preparation of the Bible Week took place on Schwanenwerder , a West Berlin Havel island , until the Wall was built in 1961 . After the building of the wall, the Bible Week was prepared in the mission house in East Berlin.

The biblical book for Bible Week is selected four years in advance by the AMD Brotherhood Council . The central event is the preparatory conference. The participants in this conference are the Biblical Week commissioners of the regional churches. All German-speaking churches and other denominations are represented. Afterwards, there will be working talks in which the songs, psalms and headings are determined. In addition, advice is given on how to continue working on the employee record. This is followed by editing, printing and distribution of the material.

The first contact between the Bible Week and the ecumenical movement came in 1954 during the assembly of the World Council of Churches in Evanston . The ecumenical movement emphasizes working with the Bible.

In 1961 the preparatory material referred to the Bible studies of the World Conference of Churches in New Delhi . Bible Week has been adopted in England and Scotland . Representatives from England criticized Bible Week in German-speaking countries as being clerically monopolized.

From 1962/63 representatives of the Eastern Bloc countries worked with the Bible Week preparatory conference. From 1964/65 representatives of the free churches joined them, and from 1971/72 representatives of the Catholic Church also worked .

On the side of the ecumenical movement, the Bible was understood as the basis of unity in plurality because the Bible Week became known. Working with the Bible was of central importance at the World Church Conferences in Uppsala in 1968 and Nairobi in 1975 a. a.

In 1964 the Ecumenical Bible Week was founded by the Second Vatican Council and Catholic Days. The Bible Week is the responsibility of the Missionary Services Working Group , which also holds the annual Bible Week conference with Protestant and Catholic theologians from all over Europe. Among other things, the series of texts for the Bible Week is determined here.

Under the leadership of Wolf-Dietrich Talkenberger , the redesign of the AMD preparatory booklet expressed a changed objective ( exegesis , help for lecture and dialogue, collection of material): All participants in the Bible Weekend should be actively involved in the conversation. The spiritually existential dimension is retained.

construction

Seven texts from a biblical book will be selected for Bible Week . There is an annual alternation between the Old and the New Testament . Whereas in the past the Bible Week evenings were still characterized by lectures, theatrical performances by theater groups or confirmands are now also common. Meanwhile, a filmic and musical processing of the topics is taking place.

aims

The Bible Week aims to encourage curiosity about the Bible and impart basic knowledge about its texts and enable them to be understood.

The goal of Rendtorff's Biblical Week is a direct encounter with Christ through the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, a deeper understanding of Scripture and an independent use of the Bible.

In the methodological processing, the Bible Week preparation material went through different phases. They were determined by the pedagogical thinking of the respective time period. In the 1950s, the preparatory material contained no methodological considerations. In the 1960s, those responsible tried to include relevant time issues and to establish a relationship between the test and the situation.

Spiritual learning is inherent in Bible Week. It consists in the fact that the person comes into conversation with the Bible through a methodical arrangement, for which purpose his situation must always be discussed. The Bible and the situation relate and interact in this way. The aim is the direct relationship between man / community and Christ, who is attested by a biblically based preaching that is appropriate to the situation.

This spiritual learning can be characterized as:

  • within the congregation,
  • learning that requires certain external activities that must be characterized by a corresponding inner attitude,
  • situation and Bible-oriented,
  • intending an encounter with Christ.

swell

  • Robert Weisensee: A departure that continues to this day . In: Wertheimer Zeitung from 30./31. October / 1. November 2010
  • General information about Bible Weeks. Evangelical Church in Baden, archived from the original on July 30, 2012 .;
  • Bible Week: Background. Missionary Services Working Group, archived from the original on January 18, 2013 .;
  • Jürgen Wolf: The Bible Week as a congregational educational activity: with special consideration of empirical results from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia. Hall 1991
  • Jürgen Wolf: The Bible Week under the aspect of church education. In: Die Christenlehre 9/95, pp. 374–381.