Christian Bonk

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Christian Bonk (born June 1, 1807 in Leer (East Frisia) ; † January 30, 1869 in Pekin (Illinois) / USA ) was an East Frisian merchant and cloth manufacturer. He is considered the first Baptist in East Friesland and was a co-founder of the Baptist congregations in your and in Silver Creek (Illinois / USA).

Life

Leer around 1850
Johann Gerhard Oncken

Christian Bonk was the son of the Leeraner weaver Peter Hinrichs Bonk (also written Bunk ; * around 1760) and his wife Hilke Bruen Alting (* around 1769; † before 1826). Peter H. Bonk was temporarily a deputy of the weaving profession and in this capacity had applied to the government in Hanover in 1819 to "ban the importation of foreign linen or at least to restrict it". So far nothing is known about Christian Bonk's youth, school and professional training. His profession is usually given as “businessman”; Sometimes he is also referred to as a "cloth manufacturer" or - as in official correspondence - as a "wool manufacturer". Bonk's office building, the former Dr. Börnersche Apotheke , was in the Leeraner Pfefferstraße (today: Rathausstraße ). The original denomination of Christian Bonk is occasionally given as "Evangelical Reformed". In an immediate submission of January 28, 1847, Bonk declared his resignation from the Lutheran Church to the Hanoverian King Ernst August I. So Bonk was a Lutheran before joining the Baptists.

Meeting with Johann Gerhard Oncken

The first encounter between Bonk and the Hamburg- based agent of the British Bible Society Continental Society for Promoting the Gospel, Johann Gerhard Oncken , who later became the founding father of the German and continental European Baptist congregations, took place in 1827. On a trip from Hamburg to He distributed small evangelistic writings on the Ems ferry at Leerort in Rotterdam , which were gratefully received by fellow travelers. Among them was Christian Bonk, who with some other passengers expressed the wish to make Oncken's acquaintance. On his return trip, Oncken therefore spent several days in the house of the Leer merchant family and used the opportunity to "sow the seeds of God's word". Looking back on these encounters, Oncken wrote in the mission sheet of the German Baptists in 1855 : “On my return journey through Leer, I was delighted to find that the seeds scattered there had already borne fruit when I crossed the Ems that some believers of the state church in Leer had expressed the wish to get to know me personally. Taking this as a hint from the Lord, I stayed there for a few days and got to know some very dear, believing souls [...] who had a heart for the spiritual needs of the people [...]. Little by little I was able to distribute a few thousand copies of the Holy Scriptures […] and close to 100,000 tracts . The dear brother Bonk in Leer, one of my first acquaintances, took the most lively part in this effectiveness. "

Even the herrnhuterisch embossed Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann , the next Oncken and later Julius Köbner the influential founder personalities of the German Baptist was to become, belonged to the circle of Christian Bonk. Lehmann came from Berlin , had with his uncle in Leer Sattler craft learned and under the influence of an " awakened " circle of young people converted . Then he returned to his home in Berlin. A connection developed between Oncken and Lehmann from 1830 - probably through Bonk's mediation - which initially consisted of an exchange of letters and soon afterwards led to a personal encounter.

Foundation of the first East Frisian Baptist church

Your Baptist Chapel : The older building on the left is the chapel built in 1854 under Bonk's direction.

In April 1834 Johann Gerhard Oncken and six other people were baptized by the American Baptist pastor and theology professor Barnas Sears in the Elbe near Hamburg . The congregation founded after the baptism became the nucleus of German and continental European Baptism. Bonk heard of this event, but it would be more than eleven years before he joined the Baptist movement. In the meantime, the aforementioned Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann von Oncken had also been baptized and appointed as elder of the Berlin Baptist congregation founded in 1837. In 1840 Lehmann traveled to London and visited his friends in Leer for several days, including Christian Bonk. On that occasion, he held "a very well attended meeting." At the turn of the year 1841/42, Lehmann stayed in Leer again. Christian Bonk and the weaver Hinrich Coords had meanwhile “come to the knowledge of baptismal truth and the nature of the biblical community through diligent study of the Holy Scriptures.” Johann Ludwig Hinrichs and Anton Friedrich Remmers , leading members of the 1840, were also involved Baptist congregation founded in Jever , which, on behalf of Oncken, provided spiritual support to his East Frisian friends in Leer through frequent visits. The aforementioned Julius Köbner had also visited Christian Bonk and the Leeraner Kreis more often on his travels.

On the evening of October 18, 1845, Johann Gerhard Oncken baptized Bonk and Hinrich Coords. The action, which took place "in a kolke near Leer", caused a great deal of public attention, but the reaction of the city authorities was initially cautious. But when, almost nine months later, Julius Köbner baptized nine more people in the village of Ihr (today: Westoverledingen-Ihr ) south of Leer , with them, Bonk and Coords even constituted a congregation of baptized Christians on May 23, 1846, including Christian Bonk as elders, the state and church authorities intervened. In a report dated November 4, 1847 by the Aurich Consistory to the Ministry of Clergy and Educational Matters, the countermeasures taken by the authorities and clergy are discussed in detail. However, these were ultimately unsuccessful: “The matter only seemed to rest for a short time. As early as September 1, 1846, the church commission in Leer reported on enthusiastic movements in the Reformed congregations in Ihrhove and Großwolde [...]. ”The letter also mentions the“ businessman Bonk ”. He was "according to general testimony [a] respectable citizen and caring family father", but strictly rejects the baptism of his recently born child and has declared his resignation from the Lutheran Church to the church council . You see yourself at the end of the “measures that we may have to take, since it is impossible to suppress the aberrations of fanatical people.” In its response to this report, the Royal Cabinet in Hanover decreed that children from Baptist families should not be forced to baptize (unlike in Grand Duchy of Oldenburg , where Baptist children were subjected to baptism using police violence) should be avoided.

In spite of the external resistance, your church experienced strong growth. In the following years branches ("stations") emerged in Leer, Weener and six other places in East Frisia. In 1849 Christian Bonk hired the aforementioned Johann Ludwig Hinrichs as an official private tutor, but unofficially he was commissioned to serve the young community as a preacher and missionary. In addition to building up the internal community in yours, Hinrichs devoted himself above all to mission. He undertook - sometimes accompanied by Bonk - trips to the Netherlands , Münsterland , South Oldenburg, Borkum and northern East Frisia. Christian Bonk took care of the distribution of Bibles and Christian literature in connection with these mission trips.

In 1854, the Ihrer Baptist congregation managed to acquire a piece of land under Bonk's leadership and, against the resistance of the local mayor and some of the villagers, built a chapel , which was inaugurated on February 25, 1855 after only a few months of construction. Today it is part of the new community center built in 1977 (see picture!).

In 1858 Christian Bonk passed the office of elder to Harm Willms , the so-called theologian in peasant rock . He and his family moved to Sandhorst near Aurich in 1859 , where he managed the Eschen estate , which he had bought. Bonk, however, remained a member of your Baptist congregation, which meanwhile had numerous preaching stations on the entire East Frisian peninsula, including some in the vicinity of Sandhorst ( Münkeboe , Moorhusen ).

Bonks declaration in the East Frisian Official Gazette

Around 1850/51 the news spread in East Friesland that Bonk had separated from the Baptists and asked the Reformed to join them. In a statement covering several pages, which was published in the official gazette for the province of East Friesland on July 26, 1851, the merchant from Leer vigorously opposed this rumor “to the glory of the truth”. His resignation from the "Association of the Lutheran Church Fellowship" and his "transfer to the community of baptized Christians, also called Baptists," were due to the divine word "under many and great struggles and temptations". He has not regretted this step so far; he feels that his “beliefs are happy and blissful”, because he knows that these convictions are “completely on biblical grounds”.

In the further course of the declaration, Bonk mainly dealt with three representatives of the Lutheran regional church. They had written anti-baptist pamphlets and thereby spread the rumor across the country. The church representatives were the Nessmer pastor Johann Ludwig Schatteburg, the Norder elementary school teacher Meyer and the Victorbur clergyman of the same name.

Foundation of the Baptist emigrant community in Silver Creek, Illinois

Bonks lived and worked in Illinois (the addition of the city of Chicago is only for better orientation)

In the spring of 1865, 36 members of the Ihrer Baptist Church and their families immigrated to the United States. In the early summer of the same year they were followed by Christian Bonk with his second wife and two of his children. The previously mentioned Gut Escher is given as the last place of residence in Germany in the US immigration lists , and the date of arrival in the United States is June 5, 1865. The starting point for emigration was Bremen .

The family's first place of residence was the small town of Forreston . Just two months later, your emigrants founded the First East Frisian Baptist Church under Bonk's chairmanship . The town of Silver Creek, northeast of Forreston, was founded . In the membership register of the congregation - as in the so-called original book of the congregation - baptized Christians are first in your Bonks name. The Silver Creek Parish still exists today, but has moved its location from Silver Creek to neighboring Baileyville, Ogle County . The Bonk family moved from Forreston to Pekin. Immediately after his arrival, Christian Bonk began to found a branch church, but he did not see it develop into an independent church. At the beginning of August 1868 he fell seriously ill and died after a half-year sick bed. His grave, the memorial of which is preserved to this day, is in the Lakeside Cemetery in Pekin, Tazewell County (Illinois) .

family

Christian Bonk was married twice. The first wife Anna Christina, née Denekas, died in 1846 or 1847. This marriage resulted in at least two children (a son and a daughter). In 1848 Bonk married Engbertha Benatte Janßen, who was 18 years his junior. He had three children with her (two daughters and a son), of which, however, the first-born child died shortly after the birth. While Bonk's first wife did not join the Baptists, his second wife, Engbertha, was baptized in the aforementioned Beijing branch six months after her husband's death. In 1872 she returned to East Friesland and joined the Your Baptist Church.

literature

  • Margarete Jelten / Volkmar Janke: From East Frisia to America. Baptists cross the sea. A contribution to the history of emigrants from 1848 to 1872 / From East-Friesland to America. Baptists moving across the Sea. An Article about the History of Emigration 1848 to 1872 (bilingual), Bremerhaven 2011, pp. 90–94
  • Robert H. Behrens: We will go to a new land: the great East Frisian migration to America. 1845–1895 , 1998, pp. 88 and 94
  • Jürgen Hoogstraat: From East Frisia to America. From the life of East Frisian emigrants in the 19th century , Volume III of the series Bibliothek Ostfriesland , Norden 1990, ISBN 3-922365-79-5 , pp. 163f
  • Hero Jelten: And the Lord added. 125 years of the Baptist congregation in the Hesel / Uplengen area (publisher Evangelisch-Freikirchliche Gemeinde Firrel / Remels), Leer 1990, pp. 9–11
  • Margarete Jelten: Under God's roof tiles. Beginnings of Baptism in Northwest Germany , Bremerhaven 1984
  • Karl Radtke: Prehistory and development of the Evangelical Free Church Community Veenhusen-Ostfriesland (Ed. Evangelical Free Church Community / Baptists Veenhusen), Leer o. J. (1983?), Pp. 8-15
  • Menno Smid: Ostfriesische Kirchengeschichte , Volume VI in the series Ostfriesland im Schutz des Deiches (Ed. Deichacht Krummhörn), Pewsum 1974, p. 539f
  • Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations , Kassel 1958, pp. 108–110

Individual evidence

  1. ^ North Frisian Association for Local Studies and Homeland Love: Frisian Yearbook , 1936, p. 130
  2. ↑ a b c Ostfriesische Landschaft Aurich / Hero Jelten: Christian BONK , Biographical Lexicon for Ostfriesland , accessed on April 3, 2014
  3. ^ For example, in Menno Smid: Ostfriesische Kirchengeschichte , Volume VI in the series Ostfriesland im Schutz des Deiches (Ed. Deichacht Krummhörn), Pewsum 1974, p. 539
  4. ↑ Margarete Jelten / Volkmar Janke: From East Friesland to America. Baptists cross the sea. A contribution to the history of emigrants from 1848 to 1872 / From East-Friesland to America. Baptists moving across the Sea. An Article about the History of Emigration 1848 to 1872 (bilingual), Bremerhaven 2011, p. 92
  5. ↑ Manfred Schäfer: On the history of the health system in the city of Leer / Ostfriesland with special consideration of the pharmacies from the beginnings to 1900 (dissertation), Marburg 1980, p. 47; Schäfer is quoting the newspaper advertisement from Christian Bonk's brother-in-law.
  6. ↑ See also Christian Bonk's statement printed in the Official Gazette for the Province of East Friesland ! ( Official Gazette for the Province of East Friesland of July 26, 1851, p. 1552, Col. II)
  7. ^ Henry Clay Vedder: A Brief History of the Baptists. Hamburg 1896, p. 137; Oncken was also the secretary of the Lower Saxony Tract Society , which was founded in 1814 on the impulses of the British Continental Society ; see Wayback / Bibelgesellschaft Hannover: Geschichte ( Memento from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); accessed on February 13, 2016.
  8. ↑ Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations , Kassel 1958, p. 108
  9. ↑ Quoted from Hero Jelten: And the Lord added. 125 years of the Baptist congregation in the Hesel / Uplengen area (Ed. Evangelical-Free Church Community Firrel / Remels), Leer 1990, p. 10f
  10. ↑ Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations , Kassel 1958, p. 108
  11. ↑ Rudolf Donat: How the work began. Origin of the German Baptist Congregations, Kassel 1958, p. 108f
  12. ↑ In a letter from November 17, 1845 addressed to Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann, Oncken describes the details of the baptismal act. This letter was published in Primitive Church Magazine , Volume III, London 1846, p. 26, Sp I and II ( Mr. Oncken's Visit to Holland ); Google Books online
  13. ^ Menno Smid: Ostfriesische Kirchengeschichte , Volume VI in the series Ostfriesland in the protection of the dike (Ed. Deichacht Krummhörn), Pewsum 1974, p. 539
  14. ^ The report is in the Lower Saxony State Archives in Hanover. It is filed in the collection of files The exit of various Baptist-minded residents of the city of Leer and the surrounding area 1847–1856 , Reg. 113 K III, No. 348; an excerpt can be found at Hero Jelten: And the Lord added. 125 years of the Baptist congregation in the Hesel / Uplengen area (Ed. Evangelical-Free Church Community Firrel / Remels), Leer 1990, p. 11
  15. ↑ Margarete Jelten: Under God's roof tiles. Beginnings of Baptism in Northwest Germany , Bremerhaven 1984, p. 42f
  16. ↑ Hero Jelten: And the Lord added. 125 years of the Baptist congregation in the Hesel / Uplengen area (Ed. Evangelical-Free Church Community Firrel / Remels), Leer 1990, p. 12
  17. ↑ Hinrichs, originally an assistant teacher at the elementary school in Sillenstede , had lost his job in 1840 after being baptized by Johann Gerhard Oncken. In 1853 he moved from yours to the Oldenburg Baptist Church ; see Margarete Jelten / Volkmar Janke: From Ostfriesland to America. Baptists cross the sea. A contribution to the history of emigrants from 1848 to 1872 / From East-Friesland to America. Baptists moving across the Sea. An Article about the History of Emigration 1848 to 1872 (bilingual), Bremerhaven 2011, p. 91f
  18. ^ Johann Gerhard Oncken: Successful laboratories in East Friesland , in: The Missionary Magazine (Ed. American Baptist Missionary Union), Volume XXXI, No. 9, Boston, September 1851, p. 345f ( Google Books online )
  19. ↑ Karl Radtke: Prehistory and development of the Evangelical Free Church Community Veenhusen-Ostfriesland (Ed. Evangelical Free Church Community / Baptists Veenhusen), Leer o. J. (1983?), P. 10
  20. ↑ On Willms see Theodor Duprée: Harm Willms - a theologian in peasant rock. Hamburg 1896
  21. ↑ See also Menno Smid: Ostfriesische Kirchengeschichte , Volume VI in the series Ostfriesland im Schutz des Deiches (Ed. Deichacht Krummhörn), Pewsum 1974, p. 693f (Itineraries of the missionary work Matthias de Weerdt and Johann Pieter de Neui )
  22. ↑ Christian Bonk: ( To the honor of truth ), in: Official Journal for the Province of Ostfriesland , Edition 89 (July 26), Aurich 1851, p. 1552 (Sp II) - 1555 (Sp II)
  23. ↑ See for example Castlegarden: Chr. Bonk ; Accessed April 19, 2014
  24. ↑ Margarete Jelten / Volkmar Janke: From East Friesland to America. Baptists cross the sea. A contribution to the history of emigrants from 1848 to 1872 / From East-Friesland to America. Baptists moving across the Sea. An Article about the History of Emigration 1848 to 1872 (bilingual), Bremerhaven 2011, p. 94
  25. ^ Homepage of the Baileyville Baptist Church ; accessed on April 8, 2014
  26. ^ Find-A-Grave: Christian Bonk ; accessed on April 4, 2014
  27. ↑ The exact year of death is not known; see Margarete Jelten / Volkmar Janke: From Ostfriesland to America. Baptists cross the sea. A contribution to the history of emigrants from 1848 to 1872 / From East-Friesland to America. Baptists moving across the Sea. An Article about the History of Emigration 1848 to 1872 (bilingual), Bremerhaven 2011, p. 91
personal data
SURNAME Bonk, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Frisian cloth manufacturer, Baptist church founder
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH Leer (East Frisia)
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1869
Place of death Pekin (Illinois)