Word: kirchentag
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Germany last week was a stage for an unexpected act in a great drama-the struggle between the pain and glory of freedom under God and the numb death of tyranny under man. It was Kirchentag-a five-day rally of Germany's Evangelical Church-and church officials had never seen such crowds. Protestants streamed in from all over the country, 80,000 on the first day, 300,000 at the close (the U.S. Army provided tents to house some of the visitors). Long before the proceedings began, they packed medieval Roemerberg Square and flowed out into the surrounding...
Church officials tried hard to muffle political realities. "Be ye reconciled to God" (II Corinthians 5: 20) was the official theme, and Pastor Martin Niemoeller opened the Kirchentag with a sermon that steered clear of secular applications. But in a Germany that is bifurcated geographically, politically and ideologically, the word reconciliation had overtones. One was "reunification"; another the question of conciliation between the Christians in East Germany and the Communist state; another the conflict, in the Evangelical Church itself, between the pro-West faction and neutralists...
...Flaming Cherub. The discussion groups at Frankfurt's fair grounds on the Kirchentag's second day were broken up into six themes, but by far the biggest drawing card was "People and Politics." Bonn government officials were on hand to listen, and from East Germany came Deputy Premier Otto Nuschke and President Johannes Dieckmann of the East zone's rubber-stamp parliament. While Nuschke fidgeted and nervously massaged his nose, a crowd of 12,000 heard Evangelical Leader Günter Jacob of Cottbus, East Germany describe the sinister magnetism the totalitarian state exerts upon man. Applause...
...Germany's Soviet zone, Communist mouthpieces took up the hue and cry against some East German Protestant clergymen who were too outspoken at the recent Kirchentag held by the Evangelical Church in Leipzig...
Probably less than 10% of Germany's nominal Protestants go to church regularly. Now, however, the churches are beginning to fill up. The Kirchentag (Church Day) rallies organized by Reinold von Thadden, a Prussian layman, with Germans from both East and West participating, have aroused more mass enthusiasm for their religion than Protestants have seen for the last century. Last year's rally, held in Stuttgart, drew a crowd...