March 18, 2007
Germany's Lutherans
So the Christian Century reports that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany is facing great difficulties. This is news?
I was struck by one passage in this report:
Stop looking inward, you jackanapes! Start looking outward—namely at Christ and His Cross! That is the only thing that will save the Church in Germany—not surveys and bank accounts and mergers! ACH!
For those of you who would like to keep an eye on our brothers and sisters in the Old Country but do not speak German, an English-language website has been established for this purpose.
Although what advice can you Americans offer the Germans when there are many serious issues that remain to be addressed right here.
For example, if you are going to employ video-accompanied praise music projected onto a screen that also functions—when closed—as a hymn board for the more traditional 8:30 a.m. service, you might want to make sure the screen locks shut so it does not swing open in the middle of the pastor's sermon, smacking him in the head as he stands in the pulpit. This has been known to elicit inappropriate titters.
I was struck by one passage in this report:
In some ways this level of soul-searching is not unusual for a church that sends out surveys every decade or so asking its members if they're happy with the church and its offerings.Do you see the same thing I see? Specifically: "asking its members if they're happy with the church..." and "institutional introspection."
"This institutional introspection is nothing new," said Wilhelm Graeb, head of the theology department at Berlin's Humboldt University, noting that problems aren't as dire as they may appear because some parishes could live for years off bank accounts fattened by years of church taxes.
Stop looking inward, you jackanapes! Start looking outward—namely at Christ and His Cross! That is the only thing that will save the Church in Germany—not surveys and bank accounts and mergers! ACH!
For those of you who would like to keep an eye on our brothers and sisters in the Old Country but do not speak German, an English-language website has been established for this purpose.
Although what advice can you Americans offer the Germans when there are many serious issues that remain to be addressed right here.
For example, if you are going to employ video-accompanied praise music projected onto a screen that also functions—when closed—as a hymn board for the more traditional 8:30 a.m. service, you might want to make sure the screen locks shut so it does not swing open in the middle of the pastor's sermon, smacking him in the head as he stands in the pulpit. This has been known to elicit inappropriate titters.
