wfn.org | Unity Favored for German Protestant Church, Caution on Structures

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Greater Unity Favored for German Protestant Church, But Caution on
Structures
Simplified Administration Not the Answer to Questions about
People's Faith

HANOVER, Germany/GENEVA, 19 July 2002 (LWI) - The President of the
Lutheran Church Office of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Germany (VELKD), Dr. Friedrich Hauschildt, favors increasingly
concerted activities of the German Protestant church but cautions
that this cannot be achieved by modeling a streamlined
organizational structure similar to the set up in large
corporations.

For Hauschildt, the real problem is not church structure, but
decreasing power of the Christian faith to attract, hold and shape
people.

"Simplifying administration will not answer the question of how to
present the faith to its best advantage, so that it develops more
power to shape people," Hauschildt told journalists in Hanover
early July. He considers it far more important to develop a
mission concept that allows for society's trend towards greater
pluralism rather than uniformity. He noted that Protestant church
structure does not insist on mere uniformity, but lives in
"reconciled diversity."

Hauschildt backed a proposal by the VELKD Presiding Bishop, Dr.
Hans Christian Knuth, (Schleswig) that the Protestant Church in
Germany (EKD) become an Evangelical Church of the Augsburg and
Helvetic Confessions in Germany. He said such a model would make
the church more recognizable and accessible from an ecumenical
viewpoint. Domination by Lutherans is not the goal, for the United
German churches "are in practice largely Lutheran," he said.

Also, such a model would ensure that Reformed Protestants in
Germany were not sidelined. "We want a uniformity in the
Protestant church on the basis of content, a unity with a common
foundation." If this structure could be implemented, Hauschildt
sees the possibility to give up an independent VELKD framework. It
would be opportune to consider whether the proposal for
restructuring by Dr. Eckart von Vietinghoff, President of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, who started this debate
early 2002, could be combined with Knuth's.

Oberkirchenrat Norbert Dennerlein spoke to journalists about his
positive assessment of the discussions in VELKD member churches on
the draft "Guidelines for Church Life." More than 13,000 copies of
the document were ordered, and there was an "unexpectedly big
response" to an Internet forum, he said.

Dennerlein, who is responsible for the church life topic in the
VELKD Lutheran church office, said there was positive response to
concern in the guidelines to formulate the basic tenets of the
faith in a generally comprehensible way and clarify what the
Lutheran church is about. But under the title "Strengthening the
Lutheran Image," many expressed a wish for change.

The VELKD Synod will discuss the revised draft Guidelines at its
meeting next October, after which member churches could adapt the
"pamphlet for distribution" according to their own needs.

The VELKD unites eight regional churches: the Evangelical Lutheran
Churches in Bavaria, Brunswick and Thuringia, of Hanover,
Mecklenburg, Saxony, Schaumburg-Lippe, and the North Elbian
Evangelical Lutheran Church, representing a total of 11 million
members.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 133 member churches in 73 countries representing over 60.5
million of the 64.3 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of
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material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the
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