Rainer Wagner (religious educator)

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Rainer Wagner (born July 24, 1951 in Weißenfels ) was federal chairman of the Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny (UOKG) from 2007 to 2015 and chairman of the Association of Victims of Stalinism from 2014 to 2015 .

Life

As a 15-year-old Wagner tried to flee the GDR . In 1967 he was sentenced to one year and two months imprisonment for "attempted violent border breaches " in the GDR. From a protocol of the Eisenach People's Police and his arrest warrant it emerges that, under the influence of West German television broadcasts, he allegedly came to the conclusion that he was going to West Germany, where a “truly Christian party”, the CDU, is the only legitimate governing party in power. The GDR is a state that God does not want, and he can not reconcile serving in the People's Army with his faith. He had come to the opinion that he could not live freely in the GDR. West Germany is the only legitimate state in Germany because the West German government emerged from free elections. He, Rainer Wagner, also supported Otto von Habsburg in his endeavors to form an all-German monarchy that would exercise power in Germany, Austria and Hungary. Because of his youth, Wagner was supposed to be released after 2/3 of the prison term. The Six Day War, in which the GDR stood on the Arab side, fell during his imprisonment. When Wagner declared during a discussion in custody that Germans were not allowed to stand against Israel after the 3rd Reich and that Israel already held the country in biblical times, he had to serve the entire prison term. From 1970 to 1974 he attended the theological seminar of the Evangelical Gnadauer Gemeinschaftwerk ( regional church community ) in the GDR in Falkenberg . After that he was a preacher of the "Sachsen-Anhalt Community Association" until 1984 - within the Evangelical Church (regional church community) in Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Tangermünde . From 1984, after he was able to leave the GDR, he was city mission leader of the inner church city mission in the Evangelical Community Association Palatinate eV in Bad Bergzabern and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse until 2017 . Since 2014 he has been a Bible studies teacher at the Siloam Bible School. Since 2017 he has been a preacher of the Evangelical Community Meckenheim eV

He was officially recognized as a political prisoner in the GDR by the decision of May 23, 1984 - in accordance with the Prisoner Assistance Act (HHG 10.4) - by the Rheinhessen-Palatinate district government . In addition, there is a rehabilitation decision according to the Professional and Administrative Rehabilitation Act, §§ 17.22 of the Halle regional council of November 23, 1995 as well as a rehabilitation ruling by the Halle District Court 2nd Senate of May 27, 1992. The accused of "attempted violent border breach", a " illegal border crossing ”, or the attempt to do so was one of the core political crimes in the GDR.

In 1995 the training was equated with that of a qualified religious educator (FH), and in 1999 ordination as a predicant by the Evangelical Church of the Palatinate .

In 2007 Wagner became federal chairman of the Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny and in 2014 chairman of the Association of Victims of Stalinism. In April 2015, he resigned both offices and his seat on the Bundestag's expert commission on the future of the Stasi records authority. The Berliner Zeitung saw the resignations, which were publicly justified with his health, in connection with a “ racist speech” by Wagner in 2006 that had become public .

Theological positions

Rainer Wagner is a biblical pietist and creationist . His theological publications mainly contain questions of biblical studies, Christian apologetics, salvation history, church history and homiletics from a conservative biblical point of view.

Wagner regards the Bible translation “ Bible in Just Language ”, introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006, as “blasphemous” and “false doctrine brought up by Satan”, as it is not only based on the original text with regard to the concept of God, but consciously incorporates ideological motifs.

Wagner regards Israel as God's chosen people and the State of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies ( Christian Zionism ). Even during the GDR era, Wagner was active for the State of Israel and against anti-Semitism .

At the beginning of 2016 he published a text by the former Chemnitz pastor Theo Lehmann in his parish letter from 2004, in which he warns of the impending persecution of Christians in Germany. With reference to the refugee situation in Germany in 2015, the text was received controversially and sharply criticized.

Political positions

Together with other former GDR civil rights activists and victims of the SED dictatorship, Wagner spoke out before the state elections on September 14, 2014 in Thuringia against a possible participation of the party Die Linke in the future government. Such participation would be “a fatal wrong decision with disastrous European and foreign policy consequences”, since Die Linke has “immense democratic deficits” and combines “left-wing populist, left-radical and even left-wing extremist tendencies”.

Church activity

  • 1986-1999: Chairman of the Evangelical Emergency Association in Germany eV
  • since 1997: Chairman of the regional group Southwest Germany of the Bibelbund eV
  • since 1998: Member of the standing committee of the Bibelbund eV
  • 2000–2016: with interruption chairman of the Evangelical Alliance in Neustadt / W.
  • since 2012: Member of the trust council of the network of professing Christians in the Palatinate

Activity in clubs

Honors

  • 2004: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
  • 2013: Golden badge of honor of the UOKG
  • 2015: VOS badge with gold wreath

Publications

  • Practice book short Bible school. Hänsslerverlag Neuhausen Stuttgart 1991. New editions 1998 and 2005, ISBN 3-933372-83-6 .
Russian: * Vvedenie v Biblija. Kiev 2013, ISBN 978-966-2089-64-6 .
  • Workbook Salvation Plan Doctrine of Faith. Lahr 1995, ISBN 3-88002-554-1 . Translation into Russian in 2004 and into Hungarian in 2006.
  • All in one boat - ecumenism and the price of unity. Bielefeld 2000, ISBN 3-89397-455-5 .
  • Church of Jesus between division and ecumenism - 2000 years of church history from a biblical perspective. Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-87857-314-6 .
  • At 15 in jail. Nuremberg 2006, ISBN 3-937965-32-7 .
  • In Search of Awakening: Understanding Spiritual Developments - 100 Years of the Berlin Declaration. Dillenburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89436-691-9 .

Wagner is a co-author of other books.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Document on the homepage of the UOKG ( Memento from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Reasons for the judgment in 1967. Document on the UOKG homepage ( Memento of December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ egvpfalz.de
  5. ↑ stadtmission-neustadt.de
  6. ↑ Siloam Bible School , 2019, p. 12.
  7. ↑ Evangelical Community Meckenheim. Retrieved October 7, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Ansgar Borbe: The number of victims of the SED regime. (PDF) 2010, p. 14 , archived from the original on October 10, 2015 ; Retrieved on February 19, 2016 (quotation from a study by Heinrich Best and Michael Hofmann).
  9. ↑ Markus Decker: Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny: UOKG chairman Rainer Wagner falls over a racist speech. In: berliner-zeitung.de. January 23, 2017. Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
  10. ↑ portal.dnb.de
  11. ^ Information ( memento of July 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) by Rainer Wagner
  12. ↑ Rainer Wagner: Let go of the agitation against Israel. (PDF) In: The barbed wire. 2013, accessed on May 10, 2019 (reprinted from a letter from 1981).
  13. ↑ bitimage.dyndns.org
  14. ↑ evangelisch.de
  15. ↑ DPA-RegiolineGeo: Elections: GDR opposition members do not want left in government. In: Focus Online . September 5, 2014, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Trust Council on nbc-pfalz.de
  17. ↑ Information on the state executive on the website of the East and Central German Association in the CDU Rhineland-Palatinate ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cdu-rlp.de
  18. ↑ Information on the UOKG homepage
  19. ^ Rainer Wagner: Head of the GDR victims' associations must go . Frankfurter Rundschau, May 18, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, Rainer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German federal chairman of the UOKG
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Weissenfels