Heinrich Neviandt

Heinrich Neviandt (born October 1, 1827 in Mettmann ; † April 6, 1901 in Elberfeld ) was a theologian and co-founder of the Association of Free Protestant Congregations .

Life

The family of Huguenot origin, was born in the Neviandt the son of a textile manufacturer Carl Wilhelm Neviandt (1792-1870), formed one of the centers of revivalist life in Bergisch Land . Neviandt's father was a co-founder of the Evangelical Society (1848) and the Evangelical Brothers' Association (1850), which were founded to evangelize Germany after the shocks of the revolution of 1848/49 . The early experiences at home set the course for his life. Later, his brother-in-law, the founder of the first Free Evangelical Congregation in Germany, Hermann Heinrich Grafe (1818–1869), exercised a very definite influence, both on Neviandt's faith and on his decision to become a member and preacher of this community in ( Wuppertal-) Elberfeld and Barmen.

theology

In Halle an der Saale , where Neviandt began to study theology, he experienced first decisive impressions for his theological thinking through the revival theologians August Tholuck (1799–1877) and Julius Müller (1801–1878), but also experienced through the encounter with the historical critical research a profound crisis. The encounter with the thoughts of August Neander (1789–1850) set theological guidelines in his life, which led to the ecclesiological question becoming an inevitable question of conscience for him. The preparation for the second theological exam, where he had to deal with the nature of evangelical worship and the question of the sacrament, led to "the first more serious shocks" of his ecclesiastical position. He rejected a trial sermon and informed the consistory that it was impossible for him to take up an office as an ordained pastor in the regional church because, based on the New Testament , he had fundamental concerns about the church constitution because of the "equal rights of believers and unbelievers" which runs through “our whole ecclesiastical organization and of which most of the grievances in the church, which form the subject of the recurring complaints of so many serious Christian men, are the necessary consequence.” This also shows “in the way one becomes a responsible member of the Church and no less in the administration of St. Lord's Supper, which the Church serves not only to believers but also to unbelievers, while in Holy Scripture it seems to be represented as a meal of the most intimate communion of believers with one another and with the Lord. "

When he received the news of the establishment of the Free Evangelical Congregation in Elberfeld-Barmen on November 22nd, 1854 while working on behalf of the Evangelical Brothers Association in Siegerland , he resigned from the regional church after a "serious internal struggle" and the independenten closed Congregation and was called to preach it after he had previously visited the dissident congregations in Switzerland, France and Belgium (Eglises évangéliques libres) and familiarized himself with their ideas.

For Neviandt - as for HH Grafe - the discovery of the unconditional, free and freedom-giving grace of God, which had grown on Reformed soil, was also decisive for his understanding of the community. Neviandt, who saw himself as a “verbi divini minister”, saw himself committed to the word of God in its “entire scope” and commissioned to assert the Gospel also in ecclesiological questions. Therefore, he no longer saw the shape of the regional church as exegetically and theologically legitimized. For him the church constitution was not a question of expediency, but a question of faith withdrawn from human will, decided by the word of God, to which the individual could only be obedient or disobedient. Despite his separation from the regional church, he assured that he “will always rejoice from the heart about everything that happens for the Lord and his kingdom within the church to which I have belonged so far.” And he feels deeply connected with everyone, "Who love the Lord Jesus, but at the moment consider their position within the Church to be those assigned to them." He hopes "to prove by deed that brotherly love does not grow cold through the separation from the existing Church."

Community work was the focus of his life until his death on April 6, 1901. He saw the sermon as the most essential task of the church pastor. From the years 1863 to 1901 there are over 1,300 written sermons, mainly on continuous texts from the Pauline letters. The focus of his Christ-centered sermons, which were mostly didactic and edifying in character, was the proclamation of justification and sanctification.

After Grafe's death in 1870 he took over the chairmanship of the Brothers' Association and from 1889 to 1901 the role of editor of the association's journal "Der Säemann". When the Confederation of Free Evangelical Congregations was formed in 1874, Neviandt played a decisive role in the creation and management of the Confederation. He was elected President of the conference, was long regarded as the undisputed leader of the covenant and pursued with him the goal of "strengthening one another in a common faith in the Lord Jesus and in love for all children of God [...], to serve one another with the gifts received, to advise and to offer a helpful hand. ”He tried to prevent any confessional narrowness or denominational definition of the covenant as a“ party matter ”, but at the same time to consolidate the authority of the covenant in the direction of a synodal system.

Neviandt was committed to the Evangelical Alliance , which was founded in London in 1846 as the "Evangelical Union" and which had the vision of a "union of all Protestants". He acted as deputy chairman of the "West German Committee of the Evangelical Alliance". In the sanctification movement, which made waves in Germany since 1875, Neviandt initially took an active part, but increasingly distanced himself from its unhealthy one-sidedness as well as from the enthusiastic and obtrusive methods of the Swedish-American evangelist Fredrik Franson (1852-1908), who as one of the initiators of the "Alliance Mission" founded in 1879, which became the external mission of the Free Evangelical Churches.

Neviandt Prize

Since 2008, the prize named after Heinrich Neviandt has been awarded to people who have made outstanding contributions to the older and more recent FeG history. The following people have been honored with the "Neviandt Prize" by the historical working group of the SCM Federal Publishing House and the initiative of the Association of Free Evangelical Churches in cooperation with the Ewersbach Theological University :

• 2008: August Jung
• 2009: Gerhard Hörster
• 2011: Hartmut Weyel
• 2013: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Heinrichs
• 2015: FeG former president Peter Strauch
• 2017: Dr. Wolfgang Dietrich
• 2019: Prof. Dr. Wilfrid Haubeck
• 2020: Kurt Seidel

Quotes

• The unity of all God's children exists, cannot be made.
• Christians are said to be salt but not pepper.

Works

• Justified conviction of conscience and unjustified subjectivism; in: Die Freie Gemeinde Nr. 7, Bern 1883.
• The Church of Believers in the Old and New Testaments, their relationships and their differences; in: The Free Community No. 10, Bern 1889.

literature

• Wolfgang Dietrich (ed.): An act of conscience. Memories of Hermann Heinrich Grafe (= history and theology of the free evangelical communities. Volume 1). Bundes-Verlag, Witten 1988.
• August Jung: The inheritance of the fathers. The "Witten direction" and the "Wuppertal direction" between poetry and truth. Bundes-Verlag, Witten 2007.
• Hartmut Lenhard: Studies on the development of ecclesiology in the free evangelical congregations in Germany. Brockhaus in Komm., Wuppertal 1977 (dissertation, University of Bonn, 1976).
• Richard Schmitz: Heinrich Neviandt. A picture of life. Bundes-Verlag, Witten o. J. (1926).
• Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Heinrich Neviandt. A memory on the occasion of his 150th birthday. In: The gardener . 40f / 1977, Witten 1977, p. 631 ff.
• Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Heinrich Neviandt (1827–1901). Pastor, teacher, praes. In: Ders .: The future needs a past. Lively portraits from the history and prehistory of the Free Evangelical Churches (= History and Theology of the Free Evangelical Churches, Volume 5.5 / 1). Bundes-Verlag, Witten 2009, pp. 182–199.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ H. Lenhard: Studies on the Development of Ecclesiology in the Free Evangelical Congregations in Germany, Bielefeld 1977, pp. 141–145.
2. ↑ W. Dietrich (ed.), An Act of Conscience, Memories of Hermann Heinrich Grafe, GuTh Vol. 1, Witten 1988, pp. 95-294, here pp. 201-204.
3. ^ H. Neviandt: Letter to the Evangelical Consistory of the Rhine Province of January 6, 1855; in: Lenhard: Studies, p. 144 f.
4. ↑ § 3 of the "Guiding Principles" and conference minutes from 1874.