wfn.org | Spiritualist Movements: A Global Challenge for the Church

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

Spiritualist Movements: A Global Challenge for the Church
LWF Seminar Participants Call for More Emphasis on Pastoral Care
for Bereaved Persons

SVATY JUR, Slovak Republic/GENEVA, 16 December 2003 (LWI) -
Spiritualist practices are not only widespread outside the
churches. They represent a reality within churches. Dr Harald
Lamprecht, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony in Germany, made
these remarks at a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) European
region seminar on spiritualistic movements. 

Many people who are involved with spiritualist movements also
consider themselves Christians. Therefore, the churches have the
task of translating the gospel anew for a "post-rationalist age,"
said Lamprecht, responsible for world views and sects with the
Saxon church.

Lamprecht was among 24 delegates from Lutheran churches in 15
European countries who gathered mid-October in Svaty Jur, Slovak
Republic, as part of an LWF study program, "Spiritualistic
Movements as a Global Challenge for the Church." The participants
noted that the increasing importance of spiritualistic movements
pose a major challenge in Europe, and particularly called for
more emphasis on the pastoral care of bereaved persons. 

With various references to Luther and the confessional writings,
General Bishop Dr. Julius Filo, head of the seminar's host
church, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the
Slovak Republic, elaborated on the place of the Holy Spirit and
spirits in the Bible.

Dr Johan L.F. Gerding, professor at the institute of
parapsychology, Leiden University in the Netherlands, explained
that extraordinary human experiences are the subject of
parapsychological research. Although millions of people have had
experiences with the spiritual world, he said, they rarely dare
to talk about them. But, he noted, a simple conversation is often
much more helpful than the usual psychotherapeutic or
pharmacological interventions. He pointed out that extrasensory
perception and psychokinesis have become very plausible events,
as shown by parapsychology experiments, "and such experiences
need to be accepted as part of human reality, even though we
cannot completely explain their causes."

Dr Matthias Poehlmann, representing the Protestant center for
ideologies in Berlin, Germany, explained that the phenomena of
new revelations had led to the development of "post-Christian
belief systems" which seek to renew or overcome church
Christianity. He noted that in the experience of "channeling" --
communication with the spirit world through a medium -- there is
a tendency to mechanize religion or the religious. Thus, he
noted, spiritual evolution is becoming the inner space "hope for
salvation." Dr Theo Sundermeier, a missiology professor at the
University of Heidelberg, Germany, warned against impoverishing
the diversity of biblical faith: "We have lost the contact and
communication with the realm of heaven taken for granted in the
Bible."

Efforts to Build Bridges between the Church and Spiritualistic
Movements

Rev. Ole Skjerbaek Madsen from Denmark called on the seminar
participants not to meet members of the neo-spiritualist
movements primarily with dogmatic arguments and judgments, but to
listen to them. Christian prayers and acts of blessing, he said,
would produce their own effect, so that doctrinal discussions do
not need to be the first stage of an encounter. In his efforts to
build bridges between the church and the spiritualist movements,
Madsen has been holding worship services under the title, "In the
Master's Light" (IML) since 1995. 

In the seminar's plenary and small group discussions,
participants agreed that it was indispensable to find out, in
personal conversations with people, what their spiritualistic
experiences meant to them. This would reveal the lacunae in the
church's work and proclamation of the gospel, which are
currently being filled with spiritualistic content. It was
proposed that the church's teaching and practice need to pay
more attention to elements of faith that are somewhat neglected
-- such as the Resurrection, Christian hope in connection with
individual and general eschatology, angels and the gifts of the
Spirit. 

The goal of the LWF program is "to provide assistance to
Lutheran churches all over the world in view of the growing
influence, even within the churches, of spiritualistic
movements," explained the study coordinator, Rev. Dr Ingo
Wulfhorst, the Study Secretary for the Church and People of Other
Faiths, LWF Department for Theology and Studies.

A compilation of experiences shared in the seminar will be
presented to the churches in the region for consultation. Similar
meetings are planned for all LWF regions by the end of 2004. A
document on the global experiences under the LWF program will be
published in 2005, and will serve as a guide for the churches on
the subject of spiritualistic movements. (742 words)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 136 member churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian
assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects
of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in
Geneva, Switzerland.)

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Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
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