For some unexplainable reason, I’ve recently begun to think seriously about what I really believe about Jesus Christ. Is he really who the scriptures say he is, and is he alive today?In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses objecting to corruption in Roman Catholicism to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
On Sunday, members of St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in downtown Fort Wayne kicked off a yearlong 175th anniversary celebration by hearing about a plan to start a new Lutheran congregation there.
Wittenberg has become a casualty of “a post-Christian cycle in Germany,” the Rev. Daniel May, president of the Indiana district of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, told the congregation – and the town known as a cradle of the Reformation now is seen as a 21st-century mission field.
Today, Wittenberg has only two Lutheran churches – and they’re seen more as museums than vibrant centers of spirituality, May said in a telephone interview last week.
“Wittenberg was in the Eastern bloc under communism, where Christianity was discouraged, if not (forbidden) during much of the last century,” May explained.
“So Christianity and Lutheranism in particular, declined pretty severely – to the point that only a small percentage of the population now claims to be Christian or Lutheran. It’s in the single digits.”
But with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation approaching, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, St. Paul’s parent body, hopes to stem the decline.
The synod is starting a new center in Wittenberg focusing on Luther’s life and ideas and also founding “a worshipping congregation” so residents can come to know Lutheranism today, May said.
“Many of them were probably baptized in the church, especially the older people before Hitler, and even the younger people might say, ‘Technically, I’m Lutheran, but I don’t know what that means,’ ” he said.
“We want this to be more than just a look back but also a reflection of who we are as a church today and the mission we have to the people in Germany.”
May, of Fort Wayne, is on a denominational committee that aims to raise $7 million to $9 million to convert a 400-year-old stone building that was a Latin school to house the center.
“I was there last spring to look at the project and evaluate what needs to be done with the building” to bring it up to modern German building codes, he said.
“It’s possible the German government is also going to have a part in the project because it’s a tourism kind of thing from the German perspective.”
In upcoming months, May will outline the project to other area Missouri Synod churches, many of which were started by German immigrants.
St. Paul’s, at Barr and Lewis streets and formally established in 1837, was known for nearly a dozen years as the German Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne.
Its second pastor, the Rev. Friedrich Wyneken, was sent from Germany as a missionary, and the church continued worship services in German for about a century.
May says its heritage places St. Paul’s in a position of potential leadership for the Wittenberg Project.
“I think interest will be there because of the history of the congregation and their commitment to Lutheranism,” May said. “They are at a historical place themselves, so … it might warm their hearts.”
