Magdeburg picture controversy

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The Magdeburg Bilderstreit (also Magdeburg prayer controversy or Sintenischer Bilderstreit ) was a theological dispute between Protestant rationalists and Protestant Pietists in the middle of the 19th century.

Peasant family praying in the forest

In the year 1840 a sentimental poem by Wilhelm Ribbeck was published in the Magdeburgische Zeitung about a lithograph of the praying peasant family in the forest distributed by the Magdeburger Kunstverein . In the poem a prayer to the “dear Savior Jesus Christ, / who is merciful of all need” was recommended. The pastor of the Magdeburg Heilig-Geist-Kirche , Wilhelm Franz Sintenis , took a public position against this in a newspaper article.

For the rationalist Sintenis, Jesus was not considered the Son of God, but a prophetic but normal person. God alone is worthy of worship . A prayer to Christ is superstition and unevangelical.

This was followed by a public, sometimes polemical, dispute between rationalists and pietists. The general superintendent, Bishop Bernhard Dräsecke , spoke out in favor of the worship of Christ in a sermon in the Magdeburg Cathedral and thus sided with the Pietists. He asked Sintenis to revoke the opinion expressed. Since Sintenis refused, he received two reprimands and a written reprimand. The latter was connected with a publication ban and the threat of impeachment.

Many felt this was inappropriate. The church elders of the Holy Spirit Church under the leadership of Ämil Funk and the majority of the community protested. The Mayor of Magdeburg, August Wilhelm Francke, and the municipal magistrate intervened with the Minister of Education and saw the "Protestant freedom of teaching" threatened. The behavior of the official church was also discussed controversially across the region.

As a result of the picture dispute , rationalist clergy from the Magdeburg region, led by Leberecht Uhlich, came together to form the opposition group of friends of light , initially within the church . The Friends of Light gained supraregional importance and became an important part of the free religious movement that still exists today .

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