Johann Ludwig Hinrichs
Johann Ludwig Hinrichs (born July 3, 1818 in Jever , † 1901 in Elbing ) was a German Baptist clergyman. Along with Johann Gerhard Oncken , Julius Köbner , Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann and others, he belonged to the founding generation of German Baptists .
Beginnings
Hinrichs was born on the Gotteskammer estate near Jever . His father Christian Hinrichs was employed there as a gardener. From a young age he read the Bible intensively and dealt with questions of the Christian faith. After attending the Mariengymnasium in Jever, he began preparing for teaching at the Evangelical Teachers' College in Oldenburg in 1835 . The seminar, which only accepted eight new trainees annually between 1822 and 1842, included a boarding school that was strictly managed. The Oldenburg vernacular therefore mockingly referred to the training facility as a “monastery”. Lessons were held from Monday to Saturday, with the exception of a one-hour lunch break, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Biblical history and catechism , geography , singing , intellectual exercises, outdoor movements, mental arithmetic , instruction on arithmetic , mathematics , physics , language teaching, orthography , catechetics , reading and thinking exercises and history formed the canon of subjects in the teacher’s seminar . In his life review, Hinrichs praised the training he enjoyed at the seminar as a good prerequisite for his later church and missionary service.
Hinrichs did his first school service in Sillenstede in Jeverland. He reports on his further career in his life review:
“I must praise the Lord's wonderful work for introducing me to Baptists. Before I got to know her personally, according to the scriptures, I recognized her baptism as correct. The way of salvation: repentance, faith, baptism, sanctification, I found biblical [...]. I was baptized with nine others on August 29, 1840, and the next day I was a member of the newly established congregation. "
The decision to be baptized and to become a member of the new Jever Baptist congregation cost Hinrichs his professional future. At that time, school supervision was the responsibility of the respective state or regional churches. Dissidents were banned from practicing their profession and were charged with "illegal practice of religion" and the like. a. imprisoned and / or heavily fined.
Very soon after his baptism, Hinrichs was called to work as a missionary in Oldenburg and East Frisia . He kept his residence in Jever until 1845. Due to its five-year activity in this region, the basis for later church planting in Felde (today Evangelical Free Church Community Westerstede ), Varel , Seehausen (today: Nordenham ), Bremerhaven and Westoverledingen-Ihr was laid.
In addition to his missionary work, Johann Ludwig Hinrichs was a passionate but also diplomatic fighter for religious freedom in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and in the Kingdom of Hanover in the first years of his service . Numerous petitions, which bear his signature, attest to this. In 1840 Hinrichs wrote one of the first Baptist confessional writings for his dispute with the authorities, which is entitled: "Confession of Faith of the Evangelical Baptist Churches in America, Great Britain, Hamburg pp and Jever" .
Hinrichs as elder and pastor of the early Baptist churches
At the beginning of 1845 Hinrichs was called to Hamburg to work alongside Johann Gerhard Oncken in the Baptist church and missionary work there for a few months. In the summer of the same year the solemn ordination as an elder and pastor took place. Julius Köbner and Gottfried Wilhelm Lehmann assisted in this act, Oncken said the consecration prayer.
Immediately after the ordination service, Hinrichs traveled to Berlin to represent his co-ordinator Lehmann for a year in the pastoral service of the local Baptist church. According to the Berlin address directory from 1846, he lived there in Lehmann's apartment at Scharrnstrasse 18. He stated his occupation as being devoted to school work. Hinrich's vacancy service was crowned with success in two ways. The Berlin congregation grew by 87 members that year. Three of these newly baptized came from Szczecin and became the nucleus of the Szczecin Baptist congregation.
After Lehmann, who had been in England, returned to Berlin, Hinrichs moved to Stettin in 1846 to support the young community's difficult founding phase. In addition to internal difficulties, a cholera epidemic that killed 16 parishioners created particular hardships.
In the revolutionary year of 1848 Oncken sent Johann Ludwig Hinrichs to Vienna . Dissidents close to the Baptists gathered here in a former monastery . Hinrichs reports in his life review:
“Here [...] we had nice meetings, but soon this was forbidden by the secret police. Friedrich Oncken , who was also here, left Vienna with an occupied coupee in women's clothes and was only able to put on men's clothes after crossing the Austrian border. Soon afterwards I received an expulsion order and I had to leave Vienna. "
Despite the short stay, Hinrichs laid the foundation stone for the foundation of the first Austrian Baptist congregation.
Hinrichs returned to northwestern Germany and began missionary work in the area around Leer in 1849 . In your (today: Westoverledingen-Ihr ) he founded a Baptist congregation, which developed a strong charisma in the following years: In East Friesland, the Netherlands and even among German emigrants in Illinois / USA, numerous Baptist congregations arose from your.
In 1853 Hinrichs was appointed pastor of the Oldenburg Baptist Congregation. He worked for six years in the grand ducal residence and moved to Elbing in West Prussia in 1859, where he headed the first Baptist congregation for almost 40 years. During its effectiveness, three more communities emerged in Elbing and the surrounding area. One of these newly founded congregations, the Elbinger Salemsgemeinde, became the last station in his more than 60 years of service as a missionary and pastor from 1898 onwards.
During his time in Elblingen, he also took numerous missionary trips to Eastern Europe, including Memel ( Klaipėda ), Riga and Saint Petersburg . He left traces everywhere, some of which can still be seen today.
literature
- Bund der Baptistengemeinden (ed.): Journal of the truth witnesses . No. 40 (1901), pp. 319-320.
- Bund der Baptistengemeinden (ed.): Zeitschrift Wort und Werk . No. 2 (1913), pp. 19-21.
- Josef Lehmann: History of the German Baptists . Vol. 1, p. 12; 104; 189; 207; 222; 231 ff.
- Rudolf Donat: How the work began . Kassel 1958.
- Margarete Jelten: Under God's Roof Tiles - Beginnings of Baptism in Northwest Germany . Bremerhaven 1984.
- Evangelical Free Church Community Leer, Festschrift: 100 Years of the Baptist Church Leer . Leer 2000.
- Heinz Buttjes: 150 years of the Evangelical Free Church in Jever . Jever 1990.
Web links
- Known people from Jever , accessed October 9, 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Data and facts are - unless otherwise noted - taken from the obituary in the journal Der Truthszeuger (Ed. Bund der Baptistengemeinden), No. 40 (1901), pp. 319-320.
- ↑ Quoted from Heinz Buttjes: 150 Years of the Evangelical Free Church of Jever , Jever 1990, p. 31
- ↑ Bund der Baptistengemeinden (ed.): Journal of Truths witnesses, No. 40 (1901), p. 319f
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hinrichs, Johann Ludwig |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Baptist theologian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 3, 1818 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Jever |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1901 |
| Place of death | Elblag |