Germany is again a missionary land

1000 years after the conversion of Germany the Head of the Protestant Church in Germany again confesses to acute mission needs. Bishop Wolfgang Huber admits: 'The fear of being considered too religious is great.'

Germany according to the view of the Protestant Church is again a missionary region. The 'dramatic decline' of the church membership in East Germany was balanced by a 'gradual erosion of religiosity in many areas of the old Federal Republic, the Head of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Wolfgang Huber of Berlin said this Thursday in Kassel. The realization that all this is a great missionary challenge we take on more slowly, that more than 1000 years after the Christianization of our region, a missionary situation has arisen, confronts with insistence the usual religiosity, 'Huber said opening the three-day EKD 'Future Workshop'.

The Church directed the question 'How do I become a Christian?' too often only to people who already were Christian, criticized Huber. They must release themselves from a triple mental captivity. That one is taken prisoner in one's own society: 'For us, approaching overburdened mothers is as difficult as embittered Hartz IV recipients.' This comes from a 'spiritual timidity ': 'The fear of being considered too religious is great.' The third 'mental captivity' is that of a spiritual 'life on tick' through activism: 'We call to the utmost on the forces of both professional and volunteer staff without questioning the necessity and purpose of the activities required.' The process of reform of the Church is therefore also a 'call for more composure.'

'We need values, so that our freedom is not overwhelmed'
Para about meeting itself omitted.

Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) warned the congress that new media like the Internet were threatening to make life superficial life. "The constant availability and speed of communication lead to pressure for immediate response. For a thoughtful, balanced response there is often no more room." Sometimes society "appears to loose proportion". "We need values and orientation, so that the seemingly limitless freedom of our society does not overwhelm us ," Schäuble said. "The answers to these questions of public policy must also be found by the church."

Cathcon: Having been at least partly responsible for the dechristianisation of Germany, the EKD have little room to complain.

Interesting comments how activism is a substitute for real religious life.

"‘Europe will return to the Faith (Cathcon-not the EKD idea of it!), or she will perish. The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith.’  —Hilaire Belloc, _Europe and the Faith_"




Cathcon:

Cardinal in ecumenical chorus line in Berlin for bread blessing

Festival of the Churches at the beginning of the month. The Cardinal is Georg Kardinal Sterzinski, and the protestant representative, Bishop Huber already reported on this blog for a variety of reasons.


Kyrie eleison!


You I will praise all the time


Coptic bread blessing


The chorus line
Alt-Katholische Kirche, Anglikanische Kirche, Armenisch-Apostolische Kirche, Äthiopisch-Orthodoxe Kirche, Berliner Mennoniten-Gemeinde, Bulgarische Orthodoxe Kirche, Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden (Baptisten), Christliches Zentrum Berlin, Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche, Evangelische Brüder-Unität Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Evangelische Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz (EKBO), Finnische Lutherische Gemeinde (s. EKBO), Freie evangelische Gemeinden, Griechisch-Orthodoxe Kirche (Antiochien), Griechisch-Orthodoxe Kirche (Konstantinopel), Die Heilsarmee, Koptisch-Orthodoxe Kirche, Mülheimer Verband freikirchlich-evangelischer Gemeinden, Niederländische Gemeinde Berlin, Niederländische Ökumenische Gemeinde, Reformiertes Moderamen (s. EKBO), Religiöse Gesellschaft der Freunde (Quäker), Römisch-Katholische Kirche Erzbistum Berlin, Rumänisch-Orthodoxe Kirchengemeinde Berlin, Russische Orthodoxe Kirche, Schwedische Victoriagemeinde, Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Serbisch-Orthodoxe Kirche, Siebenten-Tags-Adventisten, Syrisch-Orthodoxe Kirche von Antiochien sowie der Rat der afrikanischen Christen in Berlin-Brandenburg und der Internationale Konvent Christlicher Gemeinden in Berlin-Brandenburg.

Islamic death threats against Head of German Protestants and Germany's Interior Minister

Report here

Islamists have called on a German website for the murder of the participants of the Islamic Conference, "Bild"-Zeitung reports. Associated with the call are photos of German Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, Ayyub Axel Köhler, and Head of the Protestant Council, Bishop Wolfgang Huber.

The German Islam Conference was founded in 2006 by Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and to improve the dialogue between the German state and Muslims living in Germany over a period two to three years. As well as fifteen politicians, many Muslim representatives participate. On the website, whose name "Bild" did not publish the participants of the conference were condemned as "sons of monkeys and pigs". The Constitution Protection Office gave an internal warning to the security authorities. Why Bishop Huber is one of those threaten, the "Bild" report did not specify.

A "YusufQ" called for murder of participants in the conference with a verse from the Koran: "slaughter them! So Allah will punish and humiliate them by your hands and help you against them and to bring healing to the hearts of a believing people." The Constitution Protection Office said, according to "Bild", the verse is incorrectly translated, and it really says in the Qur'an: "fight them ..." instead of slaughtering them. "

In the same forum, the four suspected bombers of the so-called Sauerland Group are glorified with a verse from the Koran: "Surely your Lord will take your evils from you and take you into gardens through which rivers flow." The four suspected terrorists are currently on trial in a court in Dusseldorf. In this context a photograph of the presiding judge in the Dusseldorf Upper Regional Court is shown. The caption stated: "Is there still life there or is it just a shell of an inwardly empty, ugly doll?"

In Germany alone, there are some 3.4 million Muslims. Only about 15 percent of them are in the five nation-wide active Islamic umbrella associations.

"Protestant Bishop's Final Battle in Berlin"

As one German newspaper article describes the activities of the soon to retire leader of the German Protestants, Bishop Huber who I was once told was to be seen more often in a TV studo than a church.

As the article goes on to say

"Still there are five hours until the polling stations close. In the evening, the bishop wants to go to the election party for Pro Reli in the Catholic Academy. In the afternoon, it looks quite obvious, that it would be more of a funeral than a party."

Protestants call on Pope to unreservedly accept Vatican II

Vatikan: Kritik an Papst Benedikt reisst nicht ab - Bild.de

In Mannheim, a church has set up a hotline for distressed Catholics to express their anger.

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has expressed its concern about the future of ecumenism. While the denial of the Holocaust by Williamson one should not trivialise, it is "by far not the only problem we have in this context in mind," said President of the EKD Bishop Wolfgang Huber to Bavarian Radio.

Everyone knew that the SSPX even more radically deny the Second Vatican Council and the "ecclesiastical nature" of all other Christian churches than has been the case in recent Papal utterances, said Huber. In the recent decree of the Vatican, a change in this attitude was not required.



The Braunschweig Regional Bishop Friedrich Weber in the ARD-Morgenmagazin was critical of the fact that the Pope in the General Audience on Wednesday did not use the occasion to personally comment on Holocaust denial. "That would have been a clear signal that the Pope stands by the results of the Second Vatican Council."

Cathcon calls on all Protestants to recognise immediately wholly and without reservation the decrees Vatican II at least, as well as Trent and Vatican I. If they don’t accept them themselves, how can they criticise other people for not accepting them?