Christian Jensen (missionary)

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Christian Jensen (born January 20, 1839 on Lütjenswarft ( Fahretoft ); † March 23, 1900 in Flensburg ) was a German pastor and missionary .

family

Christian Jensen was the son of Volquard Jensen, dike worker in Fahretoft, and his wife Metta Jensen, nee. Feddersen used Nissen († 1860). Jensen's father was actually called Volquard Heiksen - in accordance with the Frisian custom, however, he had taken the supplementary first name of his father Jens Heiksen as his surname. In his first marriage, Volquard Jensen was married to Katharina Boysen until her death. This marriage had two children. His second wife brought three children into the marriage, so that Christian Jensen grew up with five step-siblings.

Christian Jensen and Helene Baurmeister (* March 20, 1844; † November 28, 1912) married on January 21, 1868 in Rendsburg - the couple had secretly got engaged in 1862 . The marriage had nine children: Magda (* 1869), Maria (* 1871), Christian (* 1872; † February 28, 1916), Elisabeth (died at the age of 16), Clara, Theodor, Johannes, Hermann and Mathilde . The son Christian Jensen was also a pastor and from 1900 to 1916 head of the Institutes for Inner Mission in Breklum.

Life

Jensen was baptized on February 13, 1839 in the Evangelical Lutheran St. Laurentius Church in Fahretoft and confirmed on March 18, 1855. From March 1857 he attended the cathedral school Schleswig and from January 1860 to September 1863 a high school in Rendsburg . In the winter semester of 1863/1864 Christian Jensen began studying theology at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , where he became a member of the Teutonia fraternity . Because of the German-Danish War , Jensen moved to the University of Erlangen in the summer semester of 1864 , where he began his studies on May 4, 1864. Jensen returned to Kiel at Easter 1865. Here he also attended lectures with the theologian Bernhard Weiss . He passed the tentamen in October 1866 and the exam on April 21, 1867 (Easter).

His teachers in Erlangen were the theologians Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann , Gottfried Thomasius and Franz Delitzsch . Jensen's missionary motif came from studying Zinzendorf's writings .

St. Nicholas Church

On October 3, 1867, the Eiderstedter parish Uelvesbüll elected the young theologian Christian Jensen pastor of the St. Nikolai Church; his ordination followed soon thereafter. Since after the end of the German-Danish War the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig now belonged to the Province of Schleswig-Holstein , the church administration was with a consistory based in Kiel . At the same time, reform efforts were made to introduce a synodal church order. A spokesman for this movement was the theologian Richard Adelbert Lipsius . Resistance to the reforms was offered by Wilhelm Heinrich Koopmann , Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein, founded in 1867 .

During the Uelvesbüller time, on July 1, 1870, the Schleswig-Holstein Sunday paper for the house, founded by Jensen and printed in Altona , was published for the first time . His central theme was mission . The publisher Jensen's staff included a. his friend Höber, Pastor Wolf from Bülderup , Pastor Weiland from Oldenswort and Ernst Evers. The newspaper had to cease publication during the Nazi regime . After the end of World War II , the Sonntagsblatt existed for more than a hundred years from 1948 until it was finally discontinued in 1972.

In May 1873 Jensen was elected chief pastor in the North Frisian Breklum and was introduced to the office on June 28, 1873. In 1875 he founded the Breklumer Druckerei and the Christian bookstore , which continues to exist in the Mission House as the Breklumer Bucherstube . He had previously bought a printing company in Bredstedt , which then operated as the Breklumer printing company.

Jensen was a member of the board of directors of the State Association for Inner Mission , which was founded in 1875 . On September 19, 1876, together with twenty clergymen and forty lay people, he founded the Schleswig-Holstein Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in Breklum in the legal form of an old law association . On April 10, 1877, General Superintendent Bertel Petersen Godt inaugurated the mission house. The club began its first missionary seminar on April 16, 1877, and the first four missionaries were ordained on November 24, 1881.

The mission has been sending its missionaries since 1881/82 - initially to British India and the USA - later Tanganyika , China and German New Guinea followed . The Association for Inner Mission was also founded - both associations merged after the end of the Second World War.

On April 9, 1882, on the initiative of Jensen, a Christian high school was opened in Breklum, which was able to move into a new building on October 31, 1882 in Kirchenstrasse. It was named Martineum after Martin Luther . By order of the Prussian Ministry responsible for the province of Schleswig-Holstein , the grammar school had to be closed again in 1893. In 1899 Jensen was able to found a sanatorium.

A research project at the University of Kiel has determined that, under the leadership of Pastors Christian Jensen (Breklum), Johannes Paulsen (Kropp) and Johann Hinrich Wichern (Hamburg), more than six hundred candidates for preaching office (Sendlinge) for the American Lutheran churches in the three local seminars were trained. The training was based on pietism and revival piety .

position

Jensen's position as a Protestant pastor in the 19th century was on the one hand shaped by Neo-Lutheranism , whose roots lay in the revival movement . Crucial influences on Neo-Lutheranism came from the Kiel pastoral theologian Claus Harms , which his student Wilhelm Heinrich Koopmann was able to continue as Bishop for Holstein and from 1868 within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein . On the other hand, Jensen got to know the Erlangen school during his studies . Because of the diverse currents, Jensen called himself a mild Lutheran or a Lutheran Pietist . His activities were driven by the awakening movements of the 19th century .

In his sermons Jensen referred often and for his work in a fundamental sense to the love of Christ, as described by the missionary Paul in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians ( 2 Cor 5:14, 15  EU ). By referring to his Erlangen teacher Hofmann, Jensen made the term agape the center of his thinking and his mission. Jensen's main interest lay in the analysis and usability of agape as a causative element of divine action. With this theological position, the theologian Jensen consistently opposed Lutheran Orthodoxy , which brought him hostility and incomprehension.

Award

Publications

monograph

  • A four-month trip to America. Breklum 1895.

editor

  • The new house postille. Breklum 1888.
  • Jesus the sinner savior - stories of Jesus' help. Collected by Christian Jensen. Christian bookshop, Breklum 1888.
  • Daily devotions. Breklum 1894.
  • Around the turn of the century. Breklum 1900.

See also

literature

  • Hans Dunker: “I have to work.” From Christian Jensen's life. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1938.
    • New edition: Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989.
  • Ernst Evers: Christian Jensen. A picture of life. Publishing house of the Christian bookstore Hermann Jensen, Breklum 1908.
  • Walter Göbell :  Jensen, Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 408 ( digitized version ).
  • Hans Otto Meier: Breklum messages. Husumer Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2007, ISBN 978-3-89876-373-8 .
  • Martin Pörksen : From the breadth of a narrow pietist. Jensen, Breklum 1956.
  • Martin Pörksen: Pastors for America. From the history of the Breklumer Martineum. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1980.
  • Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and the Breklumer Mission. Christian Jensen's mission theological approach and its realization in the Breklum mission history. Dissertation at the Church University of Berlin . Studies and materials published in Nordfriisk Instituut Nr. 10, Bredstedt 1976.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Evers: Christian Jensen. A picture of life. Fourth edition. Verlag der Christian Buchhandlung Hermann Jensen, Breklum 1924, p. 31.
  2. ^ Hans Otto Meier: Breklumer messages. Husumer Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2007, p. 9.
  3. ^ Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989, p. 11 u. 47.
  4. ^ Hans Otto Meier: Breklumer messages. Husumer Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Husum 2007, p. 62.
  5. ↑ Walter Goebell:  Jensen, Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 408 ( digitized version ).
  6. ^ Ernst Evers: Christian Jensen. A picture of life. Verlag der Christian Buchhandlung Hermann Jensen, Fourth Edition, Breklum 1924, p. 57 u. 60.
  7. ↑ a b c d Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989, pp. 11-13.
  8. ↑ Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, pp. 13-16.
  9. ^ Ernst Evers: Christian Jensen. A picture of life. Verlag der Christian Buchhandlung Hermann Jensen, Fourth Edition, Breklum 1924, pp. 80f.
  10. ↑ Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, pp. 102-103.
  11. ^ Ernst Evers: Christian Jensen. A picture of life. Verlag der Christian Buchhandlung Hermann Jensen, Fourth Edition, Breklum 1924, p. 90.
  12. ↑ Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, p. 38.
  13. ^ Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989, p. 26.
  14. ↑ Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt , Ortwin Pelc (Ed.): The new Schleswig-Holstein Lexicon. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2006, Lemma Jensen, Christian .
  15. ^ Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989, p. 12 u. 34.
  16. ↑ Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, p. 8f.
  17. ↑ Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, p. 31 u. 73.
  18. ↑ a b Klaus Sensche: Christian Jensen and Breklum mission. Bredstedt 1976, pp. 33-37.
  19. ^ Hans Dunker: Christian Jensen. Founder of the Breklumer Mission. Breklumer Verlag, Breklum 1989, p. 40.
personal data
SURNAME Jensen, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German missionary
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Drive often
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1900
Place of death Flensburg