Inner mission

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Berlin memorial plaque

The Inner Mission is an initiative for Christian mission within the Protestant Church. In Germany, Johann Hinrich Wichern founded the Inner Mission; it was absorbed in the diaconal work . The Inner Mission of Austria was founded by the Schwarz brothers.

history

In the period from 1750 to 1820 there was a charitable commitment for poor and abandoned people that was not motivated by Christianity or the church. The need for increased care for the needy was a need for German circles who were caught up in the revival movement : After the wars of liberation , there was an impoverished class of the population in larger cities and industrial areas, alienated from the churches. The efforts in England and Scotland served as a model for charity ; local activities took place in Germany .

The reasons of emergency homes for neglected youths by Johannes Daniel Falk in 1813 in Weimar and 1816 by Adalbert von der Recke-Volmerstein in Bochum - Hamme ( House Overdyck ), in the former Trappist monastery Düsselthal and the Foundation of the school for poor school teacher in 1820 at Castle Beuggen at Basel were the first steps on this path.

Coming from the pietistic awakening movement and inspired by Amalie Sieveking , Johann Hinrich Wichern opened the Rauhe Haus in the village of Horn near Hamburg in 1833 . It was a rescue house for children and young people at risk and at the same time the center of the brotherhood of the Rauhe Haus . Even if the term "Inner Mission" had been in use since around 1800, it only found its content and, above all, its organizational form through the so-called "impromptu speech" by Wichern at the Wittenberg Church Congress in 1848. The Inner Mission was part of this the “Central Committee” was a superordinate body that organized and linked the various fields of work.

The Inner Mission was an answer to the social question raised by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century . Wichern stimulated church and state social work and at the same time contributed to a contemporary form of evangelism that was geared towards modern urban people who were alienated from the Christian faith.

The first all-German Kirchentag in Wittenberg in September 1848, when Johann Heinrich Wichern presented the program of an Inner Mission, is considered the "official hour of birth of the Inner Mission". In 1849 the Association for Inner Mission was founded in Bremen .

From 1849 the activities of the independent associations and institutions for organized evangelical social work (Christian love service) were organizationally agreed and coordinated by Wichern in the "Central Committee for Internal Mission of the German Protestant Church".

With the concept of Inner Mission, Wichern understood Christian charity as a Christian renewal movement, and with Diakonie, poor relief.

In 1874 the first association for Inner Mission was established in Austria and in 1877 the first aid organization was the Deaconess Mother House Bethanien in Gallneukirchen in Upper Austria . Further facilities followed in Waiern and Treffen . In contrast to Wichern's founding in Germany, these first social aid organizations were institutions of deaconesses . In 1836 , Georg Heinrich Theodor Fliedner set up the first aid organization with deaconesses in Germany with the Diakonissenanstalt Kaiserswerth near Düsseldorf , which was followed by others. A so-called female diakonia was created in Germany through Fliedner's institutions, and a male counterpart through Wichern .

Name and organizations

The comprehensive name of the "Inner Mission", by which these efforts were put in parallel with the outer mission (Heidenmission or Jewish mission ), was first given by the Göttingen theologian Friedrich Lücke (1791–1855). The missionary movement initiated by "awakened" circles found a powerful sponsor from 1840 on King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia . Protestant life could only develop in Austria with two imperial patents , the tolerance patent in 1781 by Joseph II and the Protestant patent in 1861 by Franz Joseph I.

Central Committee for the Inner Mission

The period around the middle of the 19th century was marked by the beginning of industrialization , the resulting rural exodus as well as poverty and social hardship. As part of the social changes under the influence of developments in the Massenpauperismus in the revolutionary year of 1848 took place from 21 to 23 September 1848 in Martin Luther effect city Wittenberg a " meeting of Protestant Men " takes place, which is regarded as the first Protestant Church. The impromptu speech by Johann Hinrich Wichern at the Kirchentag received a lot of attention in Protestant circles. He was one of the most influential representatives of the Protestant Church at the time of the social question in the 19th century. On Wichern's initiative, the Wittenberg Kirchentag decided to found a "Central Committee for the Inner Mission of the German Protestant Church" . The "Central Committee" was constituted a few months later, on January 9, 1849; it consisted of ten members. His task was to coordinate the diaconal work in Germany. Aid associations have also been formed at the state and provincial level.

Central Association for Inner Mission

In 1912 the "Central Association for Inner Mission" was founded in Austria to improve the organization. This resulted in the Diakonie Österreich in 1968 as an amalgamation of Lutheran , Reformed , Methodist , Old Catholic , Baptist and diaconal aid organizations.

Central Association of the Inner Mission

The “Central Committee” in Germany continued to develop, so that on January 1, 1921, the “Central Association of Inner Mission” was founded. After the Second World War alongside the existing Inner Mission another evangelical organization that was Protestant relief organization , by Eugen Gerstenmaier founded. In 1957, the association "Inner Mission and Aid Organization" was created out of the two. However, the all-German connection ended with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, through which the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and thus also the Protestant aid organizations split into two independent parts. In 1969, the relief organization and the inner mission in the GDR were merged into one organization, the "Diakonisches Werk - Inner Mission and Aid Organization - of the Evangelical Churches in the GDR". In 1975 another central organization, the “Diakonisches Werk der EKD eV”, was founded in the FRG and replaced the West German aid organization. From the separate welfare organizations, today's “ Diaconal Work of the Evangelical Church in Germany ” emerged in 1991 .

City Mission

Stocking plug for children in care 1954 in Altenkirchen

In addition to the already mentioned rescue houses for neglected children such as the deaconess houses for poor, nursing and toddler schools, the Inner Mission comprised associations and institutions for single youths and girls ( youth associations , Mägdeherbergen, hostels to the homeland , Marthastifte), prison associations, especially for released convicts, Workers' colonies for the homeless and unemployed, Magdalene houses for “sunken women” etc. In large cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Stettin and Breslau, all such efforts were uniformly organized in the form of city missions.

Significant examples, some of which still exist today, are the Berliner Stadtmission founded by Adolf Stoecker and the Hamburg City Mission founded by Johann Hinrich Wichern , the Nuremberg and Stettiner Stadtmission . In addition, the associations for internal mission built their own houses for their meetings in almost all larger cities; these evangelical club houses were often associated with “ hostels for home ”.

Social work and politics

Distribution of CARE packages in 1954 together with the Evangelical Aid Organization
Organized holiday camp for children, 1954

The Inner Mission often touched general government interests, especially in the field of the poor ( workers' colonies and catering stations for tramps ) and the prison system . Wichern had an official relationship with the Prussian prison system since 1852 and was appointed to the Ministry of the Interior as a lecturer in 1858. In the same year he became Evangelical High Church Councilor in Berlin. With the other, unexplained ecclesiastical association activity, as well as with the noble Order of St. John , the Inner Mission entered into a relationship of peaceful cooperation with the state and gradually lost much of the pietistic appearance that it had previously often been accused of through multiple contacts with the outside world .

See also

Web links

Commons : Inner Mission  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Gerhard K. Schäfer & Volker Herrmann: "Historical Developments in Diakonie". In: Günter Ruddat & Gerhard K. Schäfer: Diakonisches Kompendium, Göttingen. 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inner Mission , based on a public domain text from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 4th edition from 1888–1890
  2. ↑ JC Kaiser: Art. Innere Mission , in: HD Betz, DS Browning, B. Janowski, E. Jüngel (Eds.): Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4 , Vol. 4, Mohr-Siebeck, p. 152.
  3. ↑ M. Elser, S. Ewald, G. Murrer (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Religions. Weltbild, Augsburg 1990, p. 82.
  4. ↑ Bettina Hitzer : Protestant Philanthropy and Civil Society in Germany: An ambiguous relationship, in: Arnd Bauerkämper u. Jürgen Nautz (ed.): Between welfare and pastoral care: Christian churches in European civil societies since the 18th century , pp. 113–130, here p. 116.
  5. ^ A b Volker Herrmann: Christian poor care. Publications of the Diakonie 2008, Diakonie
  6. ↑ Volker Herrmann: Organizational framework. Publications of the Diakonie 2008, Diakonie
  7. ^ History of Diakonie in Austria. Publications of the Diakonie Österreichs, Diakonie Österreich
  8. ↑ Volker Herrmann: Diakonie under the conditions of the GDR. Publications of the Diakonie, Diakonie ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.diakonie.de
  9. ↑ From Inner Mission to Diaconal Work. Publications of the EKD 2008, EKD