Evangelical Society for Germany
| Evangelical Society for Germany KdöR | |
|---|---|
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| legal form | KdöR |
| founding | August 25, 1848 in Elberfeld |
| Seat | Radevormwald , Germany |
| motto | "Love God, win people, live the church" |
| Action space | Lower Saxony , Rhineland-Palatinate , North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse |
| people | Klaus Schmidt (Director), Jürgen Schmidt (1st Chairman), Florian Henn (Head of Administration) |
| Members | 7500 members and friends |
| Website | www.egfd.de |
The Evangelical Society for Germany KdöR ( EGfD or EG ) is a Christian community association. To a large extent, free-church organized congregations and communities that work under the umbrella of the respective regional church belong to it . The congregations or communities have names such as Evangelical Free Congregation , Evangelical City Mission , Evangelical Community etc. a.
The EG was founded on August 25, 1848 in Elberfeld . In 1882 it became a corporation under the old Prussian land law ( old law association ) and received the right of a legal person due to an imperial decree (Wilhelm I.). The EG has been based in Radevormwald near Remscheid since 1997 . In October 2019 the Evangelical Society for Germany was granted the rights of a corporation under public law by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia .
There are currently around 50 full-time pastors and youth officers working in the congregations, as well as many volunteers with the aim of winning people over to the Christian faith. With its creed, the EC stands on the ground of the Evangelical Alliance and is connected to many Christians in Germany and worldwide. The EG belongs to the Evangelical Gnadauer Community Association (Kassel).
To date, around 65 (as of 2019) Evangelical Free Congregations and Evangelical Communities have joined the EC . The motto of the EC is “love God, win people, live the community”.
history
In the middle of the 19th century there was a revival of rationalism in the new guise of liberal theology. In addition - due to the industrial revolution - there was a strong population increase in the big cities. Many workers in the industrial metropolitan areas lived in inhumane circumstances. "It emerged impoverished and pauperized masses who strove with God and man." In the founding year of the EC, in February 1848 appeared in London The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx . The women's rights movement for equality for women in society began. 1848, the first German appeared Women's Newspaper of Louise Otto-Peters .
Beginnings
Pastor Ludwig Feldner , Lutheran pastor in Elberfeld , saw the establishment of an Evangelical Society as an opportunity to counteract the de-churchization and de-Christianization of the German people. In May 1848, two months after the March Revolution, which also led to fierce street battles in Elberfeld and resulted in the release of the right of association and assembly, he published an appeal in the magazine “ Der Menschenfreund ” in which he called for evangelism in Germany . On the day after the Barmer mission festival of the Rhenish Mission, 53 pastors and other religious men met and “unanimously” founded the EC in Elberfeld under the motto: “Don't we want to evangelize Germany?”. The purpose of the EC was summed up with the words: "... the expansion of the kingdom of God internally and externally." Carl Brockhaus became secretary of the newly founded association in 1848.
In order to reach the youth, the Evangelisch Stiftische Gymnasium in Gütersloh and a teachers' seminar in Düsselthal were set up. The society devoted itself increasingly to the distribution of scripts; to this end, in 1852 she founded a document warehouse in Elberfeld. Colporteurs roamed the country like peddlers. From 1848 to 1873, 60,000 Bibles , 75,000 New Testaments, and a million edification writings were distributed in this way . It was not primarily about selling, but about personal testimony of faith in Christ. Where the doors opened, Bible study groups were established to further care for the believers. In order to connect the believers of a larger district with one another and also to work in a missionary manner, larger meetings and celebrations were held regularly.
The "messengers" (as the colporteurs were called) linked to the awakening areas in Germany in the first half of the 19th century. In the Ruhr area pious East Prussians immigrated as industrial workers. In the Westerwald there were visits from ore miners from the Siegerland who had come to believe in Christ. Missionary work among railroad workers began in Wetzlar .
Branch clubs
In order to further consolidate the work on site, branch associations were set up which supported the EC financially and took responsibility for the work on site, so that the "messenger" of the EC had freedom for evangelistic activities. If the number of members exceeded a certain number, it became necessary to build a house, which meant an increase in self-reliance and independence from the church.
The first branch was in Altena in 1848. Others followed: 1854 Breslau , 1850 Hagen , 1856 Dortmund , 1859 Essen , 1871 Wattenscheid and Duisburg , 1872 Bochum , 1873 Gelsenkirchen , 1874 Schalke . The main focus of work was in the Ruhr area .
The work spread rapidly since the 1880s. In 1874 the EG had seven branches, in 1880 there were eleven. In 1883 there were around 5000 members and 13 branch associations. Since 1851 the EG had its own magazine, the messages of the Evangelical Society for Germany .
The long-lasting economic rise in the Wilhelmine era led to increased prosperity and increasing secularization . The EC saw this as a challenge. In 1884 21 messengers were employed, in 1891 there were 33 and in 1908 the work had developed so strongly that 63 messengers were employed in a total of 54 branch clubs and 50 club houses. The number of inspectors also increased from one to three.
The reasons for this strong growth were closely related to the strong upswing in the community movement in Germany. The fact that the Gnadauer Verband represented the ideas of lay work, evangelism and community care also gave the EC a boost.
Since evangelism was the main concern from the start, society broke new ground in the late 19th century. The evangelism events with Elias Schrenk, which lasted several days or lasted for weeks, often with thousands of people, were something new. The EC primarily did the preparatory work and follow-up work. At the same time, she made sure that personal evangelism was not neglected.
Scripture Mission
In 1852 the writings mission began with its own writings defeat in Elberfeld. Before the First World War , this became an important focus of the work. In 1899 Pastor Joseph Gauger took over the editing of the Scriptures Mission. In 1905 the EG took over the Protestant weekly magazine Licht und Leben , founded in 1889 by Pastor Julius Dammann , which was purchased by 3,000 pastors in 1917. In 1925 the circulation had risen to 20,000 and in the Kirchenkampf up to 30,000 copies per week. In addition, the EC published numerous evangelistic and other writings, e.g. For example: One for all (for soldiers, 200,000 ed.), Germany's Hope (children's magazine, 17,800 ed.), In the service of the child friend (Help for Sunday school teachers, 6054 ed.), Light and Power (annual devotional book), Singet dem Herrn (new songs for the 250 choirs of the Evangelical Choir Association). In addition, with the publication of the Evangelical Psalter , the EC created a standard book of songs for Pietism .
After the war, the number of messengers, branches and houses only increased slightly. The work shifted more from evangelism to taking care of the faithful.
In 1920 the EG hired two youth secretaries (one man and one woman) for youth work , had published its own youth magazine Jugendland since 1924 and built a youth home in Hilchenbach , Haus Jugendland . The youth groups of the EC joined together to form their own association with their own statutes. In 1925 there were around 40 EC youth groups with 1500 members. In addition to these youth associations, there were 32 men's and youth clubs, 65 women's clubs, 66 singing clubs and 77 Sunday schools in the EC.
In 1925, thirty people worked in the Scriptures Mission. Pastor Gauger saw it as his job to raise political awareness and gave the community support through the Gotthard letters (since 1923).
Before the NSDAP came to power in 1933, there were clear warnings from the EC by President Pastor Paul Kuhlmann . On the other hand, there were also voices in the main board who let themselves be blinded by the use of the words "people's mission" and "people's missionary proclamation" on the part of the " German Christians " (DC). However, when the German Christians openly stated their goals at the Sportpalast rally on November 13, 1933, the main board agreed that cooperation with them was impossible. Praeses Kuhlmann advised the local communities urgently to maintain their independence.
In the next few years the EC experienced the systematic prevention of its work by the NSDAP up to the complete paralysis of entire branches of work. On July 13, 1938, light and life were banned. Due to the war, there was no removal of the leadership of the EC and a replacement with convinced National Socialists.
Time after 1945
After 1945, under the direction of Pastor Heinrich Jochums , there was a strong return to the concerns of the founders of the EC to evangelize Germany. In 1962 the EG founded the tent mission , which flourished in the following years. In 1974 the Neukirchen Mission joined the EC as a branch. In this way, the communities received the global horizon of world missions (previously through the relationship with the Rhenish Mission) and the missionaries also received the community reference of the EC communities.
Education and training also became important: since 1947, Bible courses for preachers have been held annually in the Hohegrete Biblical and Recreation Home (ore mine closed in 1900, bought in 1902).
In addition to this “preacher's armament”, the Wuppertal Bible Seminar was founded in 1960. The occasion was "the lack of co-workers in the work of the Lord and the ever increasing doubt about the authority of the Holy Scriptures". In 1963, Jochums and the Brake Bible School founded the conference of Bible-based training centers , which today includes over 30 schools in Europe.
From 1948, Light and Life were published again in the Schriftenmission under the editorship of Pastor Wilhelm Busch , but now monthly instead of weekly. Jochums published the magazine Der Solid Grund and the 21-volume series Current Issues .
Second half of the 20th century
After the war there was disappointment in the theological course of the church. “In this way, as it seemed at the beginning of the church struggle, there was no reformation of head and members. The hoped-for new did not materialize. Under the leadership of the former BK champions we have the restoration of the church ... ”( Gotthold Lesser ). In this "New Church" that more and more of the existential theology over time Rudolf Bultmann was influenced, Jochum "the communities have been pushed as a disturbance in the corner." Advocated in his 1968 book attacking the church the thesis that the The sharpest attack on the Church comes from within the Church itself. In 1963 Jochums and Pastor Horst Thurmann wrote the Wuppertal Confession .
This was accompanied by an ever greater openness to people outside the church and a reflection on community theological issues. Pastor Horst Thurmann wrote in 1963: The community “wants, can and may, however, if it is under the blessing, ultimately be nothing else than (in all weaknesses said it) community”. In 1973, Pastor Heinrich Jochums advised: "If necessary, we should also be ready to carry out so-called official acts ourselves." In 1975 the EG Verlag published the book Congregation According to God's Construction Plan by Alfred Kuen. In 1966 the youth work of the EC was rewritten, which primarily serves the youth groups in the EC that are not affiliated to the YMCA or EC.
Recent developments
According to its “Mission Statement 2020”, the EC sees itself as a federation of congregations and communities, whose members and friends also assume responsibility for one another and for the entire work beyond their local work.
On the premises of the youth education center in Radevormwald, there are the branches jbs: upwards (an adventure education team) and the EG Kolleg (training for volunteer community members). In 2002, after the death of former President Hans Mohr, a "Hans Mohr Foundation" named after him was established.
After 2010 the EG gave up its theological seminar in favor of a cooperation with the Theological Seminar Rhineland (TSR) in Wölmersen / Westerwald.
The Evangelical Society for Germany has been a public corporation since October 2019 .
structure
The EG includes:
- the youth organization with three full-time speakers,
- the youth education center as a leisure and conference center in Radevormwald,
- jbs: upwards: an adventure education team with climbing forest u. a.
- EG-Kolleg: a training center for volunteers
- the Hans Mohr Foundation
The EC works together with the Neukirchen Mission in the areas of Peru , Tanzania , Kenya , Java , Belgium , Italy , Slovakia , Ukraine and Latvia .
See also
- Evangelical Society Stuttgart
- Evangelical Society of the Canton of Bern
- Evangelical Society of Zurich
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Klaus Schmidt: Community list of the Evangelical Society for Germany . Ed .: Evangelical Society for Germany. Radevormwald 2019.
- ^ W. Hoffmann: Evangelical Society for Germany - Neukirchen Mission . In: Helmut Burkhardt and Uwe Swarat (ed.): Evangelical Lexicon for Theology and Congregation . tape 1 . R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal 1992, ISBN 3-417-24641-5 , p. 565 , col. 2 .
- ↑ Evangelical Society for Germany: Who we are . Retrieved November 1, 2019 .
- ^ Judith Hildebrandt: Pietistic community building between community and community. The understanding of the community of the Evangelical Society for Germany compared to the Evangelical Gnadauer Community Association. Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1998, p. 87.
- ↑ Hans von Sauberzweig: He the master, like the brothers. History of the Gnadau community movement. 2nd edition Gnadauer Verlag, Denkendorf 1977, p. 54.
- ^ Judith Hildebrandt: Pietistic community building between community and community. The understanding of the community of the Evangelical Society for Germany compared to the Evangelical Gnadauer Community Association. Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1998, p. 88.
- ^ Ludwig FWP Feldner: Don't we want to evangelize Germany? Principles for the formation of a Protestant society. In: The philanthropist. 24, 1848, p. 138.
- ↑ Erich Geldbach: Brockhaus, Carl . In: Hans Dieter Betz u. a. (Ed.): Religion in the past and present . Concise dictionary for theology and religious studies. 4th edition. tape 8 , no. 1 . UTB, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-8401-5 , Sp. 1769 .
- ^ Fritz Coerper: Fifty Years of the Evangelical Society for Germany in Elberfeld-Barmen. A commemorative publication for its members and friends. Elberfeld 1898.
- ↑ Paul Fleisch: The modern community movement in Germany - an attempt to portray and appreciate the same according to its origins. Leipzig 1903, p. 144 f.
- ^ Adolf Essen: Short chronicle of the Evangelical Society for Germany in Elberfeld Barmen for the period from 1909 - until the 75th annual festival and anniversary in July 1923. P. 31.
- ↑ Bernd Brandl : The Evangelical Society for Germany in the Third Reich. In: Light and Life. No. 7/8, 1984, p. 180.