The Church I ...

Monday, September 26, 2011. There was the visit of the pope to Germany over the past days. In Germany, the catholic church and the Lutheran and reformed churches have a special relationship, and around 48 Million people are members of these churches. Thus, the newspapers have been full of articles and discussions …

What is the Church? …

What is the church? Is it mainly a big historical institution? Is it an old unflexible something, which is mainly characterized by the suppression of women and by scandals of sexual abuse? Some journals try to create this impression.

In Germany, around 500 years ago we had the big schism of the reformation, where the Lutheran churches arose, with half of the country Lutheran/reformed, the other half catholic. There were many important theological questions which led to this split, but also social processes and a good portion of struggle for power. What is the church today? Which church, you might ask? There are so many of them, the orthodox churches of the east (which arose from another Schism earlier in history) and then all the smaller evangelical churches everywhere in the western world.

When we talk about the church, we need to go back to the question of what defines the church. We need to go back to Jesus and investigate how he and the first Christians saw their community. But thas is already the first point of dissense. The catholic church weights their church history strongly, where the evangelical churches want to be close to the origin, to what they understand as the spirit of Jesus.

The Voice of Jesus …

I am happy that the practical view of many Christians both in the catholic as well as in the evangelical churches is much closer to a joint Christianity than many of the view which are expressed by the church leaders or the theologians. As Christians we are close, since we are all connected to Jesus. That does not mean that everything we say is always right, that we know everything. So it is good to be careful and to have an open ear to the position of other Christians, from the very right to the very left.

The church is a great adventure. It is the community of people believing in Jesus. It is a community of people who are transformed, who are changing, who are searching to be changed into a life full of justice, full of truth, full of appreciation and love. It is a strong and daily challenge for all of us, catholic or evangelical or orthodox … Let us work on the church! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts