German Protestants in the free church tradition — including Baptists — issued a statement urging a balance of religious freedoms and health needs during the pandemic, and also called on Christians to reject conspiracy theories sparking misinformation and distrust.
The Dutch Protestant Church made a far-reaching recognition of guilt Sunday for its failure to do more to help Jews during and after World War II, and for the church’s role in preparing ”the ground in which the seeds of anti-Semitism and hatred could grow.”
The German Catholic bishops’ conference and the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany plan to continue their discussions about shared Communion. Read full piece
Hundreds of fans attended a special kind of musical happening Saturday (Sept. 5) at a church in Germany: a chord change in an organ piece that is supposed to last for an entirety of 639 years.
Baptists across the world have been impacted by coronavirus as it upended in-person worship services, impacted local economies, and increased ministry needs. But the virus has also infected Baptists in various countries, including recent tragedies in Germany and Cameroon.
While Germany’s federal government makes plans for tracing infection chains and reopening public facilities, churches across Germany are developing their own plans for how to restart worship with new regulations such as compulsory face masks, prohibition of physical contact, and restrictions on congregational singing.
Lothar Wieler, the head of the German government’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, specifically warned on Tuesday that communal singing was ill-advised. “Evidence shows that during singing, the virus drops appear to fly particularly far,” he said.
Baptists in the neighboring countries of Germany and Poland are taking similar precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, even as the two nations currently face drastically different situations from the global pandemic.
German Christians like Fischer are turning from their own language to a more global tongue: English. They say the foreign language allows them to loosen their German identity, praise God in an uninhibited way, and connect with a global, cosmopolitan Christianity.