Community movement

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The community movement is a pietistic awakening movement that took hold in a number of Protestant regional churches in Germany and Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century . In many places this awakening led to the emergence of community groups ( regional church community ), which today have developed an independent community life in and alongside the traditional churches.

In the meantime, other communities and national and international organizations have joined this movement, which softens the pure church reference.

Origins

As they see themselves, the community movement is primarily rooted in the Lutheran Reformation . On Martin Luther's vision of a small but dedicated spiritual community within the national church is mentioned again and again in the history of the community movement. Another root is pietism , which revitalized Luther's vision under the term ecclesiola in ecclesia . The community movement includes both old Pietist communities, which are primarily at home in Baden-Württemberg, and “neo-Pietist” groups that received their decisive impulses from the awakening movement of the first half of the 19th century. Particular mention should be made of Methodism and the American sanctification movement . As the heir to these various currents, the community movement developed an alternative community model that also attracted those who had been de-churched as well as marginalized social groups.

history

The history of the community movement shows an abundance of germ cells: almost at the same time in the last third of the 19th century, neo- Pietist circles emerged all over Germany, which initially formed provincial brotherhoods and - after a provisional merger in 1894 - formed the German Committee for Evangelical Community Care in 1897 and evangelism , the so-called Gnadauer Verband , united. Member associations of this national umbrella organization were among others:

This departure was followed by the founding of numerous institutions of the community movement: deaconess houses, seminars for preachers and the German tent mission . It stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing liberal theology of rationalism, but for many decades of its history it was subordinate to the pastoral office and church structures. Only in the present can it be observed that the congregations of the movement are developing more and more independent, sometimes free-church structures.

With the Berlin Declaration of 1909, the community movement is responsible for a historical document that led to decades of rifts between the denominations in Germany concerned.

In Switzerland, the Frommes Basel movement emerged in Basel with the Basel Mission and the St. Chrischona pilgrimage mission, and in Geneva the Réveil from which larger Protestant societies developed in Geneva, Bern and Zurich. B. the Evangelical Society of the Bernese Cantonal Church .

Hymn books

The following collections of songs emerged from the community movement:

Personalities

Teaching

Despite all the diversity of the community movement, the following common doctrinal views can be named:

  • The proclamation of the gospel requires the call to decision and conversion from unbelief to faith in Jesus Christ . Where this call does not take place (anymore), the church loses its “salt power”.
  • The “work” of man is the decision and the will to repent, the actual regeneration of man ( rebirth , birth from above, compare John's Gospel chapter 3) is done by the Holy Spirit . Through this regeneration man becomes a child of God and the other children of God become brothers and sisters. The community movement rejects the fact that a new birth takes place through a sacramental act ( baptism , confirmation ).
  • An essential characteristic of a "born again" person is his personal and communal contact with God. Private and public prayer (the so-called “ prayer community ”) plays a special role within the community movement, as does the intensive study of the Bible .
  • Conversion and rebirth are followed by a break with the past. “New people” live in sanctification, that is, in following Jesus and in obedience to faith.
  • Sermon , organization of meetings, pastoral care and evangelism are the duties of all Christians.
  • The Bible and the Reformation Confessions are - apart from denominational restrictions - the yardstick for teaching, service and life of the community movement. While the Bible is viewed in conservative member associations as the inspired word of God in the sense of the founding roots, the leadership of the Gnadauer Association is open to a moderate Bible-critical question of the Scriptures.

Institutions and works within the community movement

Community associations

Youth associations

  • Christian Youth Association in Bavaria (cjb)
  • German Youth Association EC " Decided for Christ "
  • Youth work of the Old Pietist Community Association,
  • Youth work of the Württemberg Brethren,
  • Youth service of the joint project Berlin-Brandenburg,
  • Community Youth Palatinate (Ev. Community Association Palatinate),
  • Youth work of the Blue Cross in Germany
  • Student mission in Germany

Theological training centers

Mission Societies

Deaconess Mother Houses

Merged in the German Community Diakonieverband (DGD):

  • Deaconess mother house "Altvandsburg"
  • Deaconess mother house Bleibergquelle
  • Deaconess Mother House "Hebron"
  • Community Deaconess Mother House Hensoltshöhe
  • Deaconess Mother House Lachen
  • Deaconess Mother House "Neuvandsburg"
  • Zendings-Diaconessenhuis, Netherlands
  • Diakonieverband Ländli, Switzerland
  • Fellowship Deaconry, USA
  • Irmandade Evangelica Betania, Brazil
  • Fellowship Deaconry Motherhouse Bethel, Japan
  • Communaute des Diaconesses, Rwanda

Works with special tasks

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Cochlovius: Community movement . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Volume 12 (1984), pp. 355-368, here p. 355.
  2. ↑ Dieter Lange: A movement breaks out. The German communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their position on the church, theology and Pentecostal movement , 1979
  3. ^ Marc van Wijnkoop Lüthi: Evangelical Societies. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . June 11, 2012 , accessed June 6, 2019 .

See also

literature

Basic literature

  • Joachim Cochlovius : Community Movement . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 12 (1984), pp. 355-368 (detailed references)
  • Charles H. Lippy: Community Movement . In: RGG 4th ed. Vol. 3 (2000), Col. 645–652 (with further references)
  • Jörg Ohlemacher: Community Christianity in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. In: History of Pietism. Vol. 3, Göttingen 2000, pp. 393-464
  • Evangelical Community Lexicon / ed. by Erich Geldbach ... Wuppertal, 1978. 577 pp.
  • Taschenlexikon Religion und Theologie , Volume 2, Göttingen 1983, pp. 155ff.
  • Community (movement) . In: Michael Klöcker, Udo Tworuschka: Handbuch der Religionen, II, 2.1.9

More specific literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Kantzenbach: On the attitude of some leading men of the regional church community 1933/34. In: Journal for Bavarian Church History. 43. 1974, pp. 445–450 [Exemplary contribution to the attitude of the community movement towards National Socialism ]
  • Dieter Lange: A movement is breaking through. The German communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and their position on the church, theology and Pentecostal movement. Berlin 2nd edition 1981.
  • Jörg Ohlemacher: Building the Kingdom of God in Germany. A contribution to the prehistory and theology of the German community movement (= AGP 23). Goettingen 1986.
  • Hans von Sauberzweig: He the Masters, We the Brothers: History of the Gnadau Community Movement 1888-1958 . 1959.

Web links