This number is released every year in the International Bulletin for Missionary Research.[1] In 2010 the number stood at 178,000, for 2009 176,000,[2] and for 2011 it was corrected to 100,000.[3] As a yearly changing number people think it is the number of martyrs of the given year, but actually it is said to be the average number per year of the last full decade (eg 1990-2000, 2000-2010).

The commentary provided with the “Global Status of Mission” itself indicates that this number is the most quoted figure from this table.[4] A number of this magnitude is widespread through the books World Christian Encyclopedia, World Christian Trends, Atlas of Global Christianity and the electronic World Christian Database.

I find it difficult to criticize this number on account of its widespread use, particularly due to the facts that it comes from reputable researchers and good friends. However, as an academic I have too often had to answer for such numbers before secular colleagues, politicians around the world, the German or European parliament, and journalists to just allow our institute (the International Institute for Religious Freedom) simply assume them.

Since by many secular, Christian, and among them also Evangelical[5] researchers and specialists the figure is 1. viewed to be too high, and 2. on the basis of numerous factors viewed to be a number that cannot even be collected, it would be desirable to have a precise account of the basis of comprehensive research upon which the number is compiled. Furthermore, it would be desirable to know which scientific standards are followed in the process and how research colleagues’ conformity can be reviewed. All of this is not available – even the comprehensive presentation in World Christian Trends nowhere mentions the source of the data and which criteria were used in producing the estimates.[6]

But in the present media landscape in which we find ourselves, it is natural that someone with even a roughly estimated number has an advantage over an individual who says that the number cannot be reliably estimated at the present time.

The role of civil wars

According to the reports of its authors, the figure of 156,000 – 178,000 martyrs per year is an average number per year for the ten years 1990-2000.[7] In the process one has to recognize – without its being expressly stated – that the vast portion of the 1.6 million martyrs over a period of 10 years comes from the civil wars in southern Sudan and in Rwanda. Let us suppose one were to use even a broader definition of Christian persecution (“martyrs in the widest possible sense” [8]). Still, the extent to which Rwanda can be included at all, and the share of deaths in southern Sudan that can be traced back to the persecution of Christians by Muslims and not seen either affecting animists or originating with brutalizing southern Sudanese parties to the civil war, is at least disputed.

For the ten-year period 2000-2010, southern Sudan and Rwanda no longer count. The mammoth share of the amount of 10 x 100,000 comes under the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Admittedly there were many Christians who died there, but that they died because they were Christians is not something that is defended by anyone in the literature. Let us suppose that there were 900,000 martyrs estimated for the DRC. The remaining 100,000 over 10 years would then move one far closer to an exceedingly lower number.

What I criticize above all is that nowhere is the composition of the figure presented according to countries. This would allow the main countries to be recognized and discussed, eg Congo. It would then be especially easy to see the one or two countries to which the high number could be traced back. I also criticize the fact that no discussion about these one or two difficult-to-classify-situations can occur.

Not every Christian who dies in a civil war like one in the Congo can simply be counted. An estimate is made about which portion of the Christians killed actually died as martyrs. This share then has to be discussed and justified. But instead of this, nowhere can it be found which portion was estimated, much less how the estimate was made. All that is said is that it is “a substantial proportion” of the 5.4 million in the Congo. A 10% increase in the number of martyrs in the Congo, however, would translate into an increase of the total number of 100,000 per year by 54,000 martyrs per year, a jump of over 50%! If 10% less than the unknown percentage in Congo were to be estimated, that would be 54,000 fewer annually, which means that the figure would shrink by over 50% from 100,000 to 46,000! This means that de facto the entire number of martyrs worldwide is decided by the estimate of the share of martyrs found among the victims of unrest in Congo.

Regarding definition

I see a general contradiction between the definition given by the Status of Global Mission, that martyrs are “believers in Christ . . . in a situation of witness,“ and the statement of “defining and enumerating martyrs in the widest possible sense.“

An intra-Christian, theological definition will always be much tighter than a sociological one. As a sociologist of religion, I definitely see that a very broad number may be chosen that does not take into account whether the murdered Christian is a baby, a poor excuse for a churchgoer, or a sectarian of some sort. I personally consider the “situation of witness” to be unnecessary. If a church is blown up in Egypt and 20 people are killed in the process, this is considered Christian persecution even if the 20 people killed were only interested guests.

My broadest political definition would be the following: “Christians who are killed and who would not have been killed had they not been Christians.” However, even if this definition is used as a basis, I would by far not come up to the 170,000 or 100,000 Christian martyrs per year.

More than 50 martyrs a day?

Events where 20 or 50 Christians killed are nowadays not only widely reported on in the Christian world. Rather, in some countries such as Germany this would as a rule even appear on the front page of newspapers. Experts who deal with the question of the persecution of Christians hear about this in any case. No one would say that this happens every day. However, even if we assume that there is an event with 50 murdered Christians every day, that would amount to an annual number of only 18,250. Given 20 murdered Christians per day would be 7,300 – a number which I consider more realistic.

It might be pointed out that there have been and are events that generate a higher yearly average than than 50 per day. Indeed that is true, but these are individual events spread out over years. I know of the following countries for which this applies in the recent years: Indonesia, India, Iraq, and Nigeria. The point is that these events hardly overlap with each other. Stated otherwise: In years past these horrible events have occurred selectively within a period of 1-3 years and in the years thereafter were superseded by other main events in other countries. Again stated alternatively: As a general rule, an event with more than 100 Christian martyrs in a country occurs one time a year somewhere in the world.

The strange numbers that arise when one simply makes a rough estimate is demonstrated when a grading is made in the ‘World Christian Database’ countries according to the annual number of martyrs, whereby the average over the last 50 years was taken (beginning in 1960).

In Denmark and Finland there are said to be 15 martyrs per year, while in Sweden there were 19, in Switzerland 20, in the Netherlands 39, in Australia 45, in Canada 76, in Great Britain 149, and, believe it or not, in Germany 192. In all of these Protestant countries, there are no known martyrs and under no circumstances 50 times the number given since 1960.

That the high numbers are difficult to comprehend and are traceable to liberal estimates of the share of Christian martyrs killed as a result of warfare and civil war also applies to the numbers for historic cases. Were there really 1,000,000 martyrs at the hands of the National Socialists? No researcher of National Socialism (among whom I count myself with two dissertations) would attest to that. Admittedly there were millions of Christians who died in World War II, not, however, because they were persecuted as Chrsitians. Among true Christian martyrs are those Christians who were killed on account of their Christian resistance or as clerics or representatives of religious communities. Their destiny has been thoroughly researched, their stories have been recorded in biographical encyclopedias, and a curriculum vitae is available for almost every such individual. This notwithstanding, there is still a total of only a few thousand and not 1 million.

Are there so many martyrs among the dead in civil wars and other warfare?

I want to make one further comparison which leads me to believe that both numbers, the 170,000 and the 100,000, can be questioned. According to statistics of the World Health Organization, there were 184,000 victims of warfare and civil war in 2004.[9] And the number of martyrs is supposed to be just as large, without experts’ immediately being able to list the cases which comprise these numbers? One can list all warfare and civil war in a year and make it clear how this number of 184,000 victims is composed. If the number of martyrs is just as large, how can the events not be likewise listed and added together more or less in one’s head? How does it happen that far too few large events come to mind even to the experts which would be able to explain the high numbers?

On the road to research an actual number for a previous year

How high, then, is the actual annual number of Christian martyrs? I have occupied myself with this for years and have probably discussed this with every known expert from all large denominations and beyond who has anything to say about it. Let me put to one side for the time  being the sheer difficulty of producing a definition of “martyr”.  Even if a concrete definition is set, experts strongly differ with respect to individual countries. Were the ‘missing Christians’ of North Korea killed decades ago or are they still living in camps and currently being killed?

If one asks for the total number worldwide, practically no one wagers an estimate. Additionally, everyone agrees that an average is confusing. Rather, the number of martyrs strongly fluctuates from year to year. For that reason the number has to be newly ascertained every year. Anyway, whoever hears a statistic for 2010 assumes that this is not an average value for 1990-2000, but rather that some institution has concretely researched the number for 2010 and has documented or at least has realistically estimated it on the basis of reports.

Overall I am of the opinion that we are far from having a reliable report of the number of martyrs annually. The International Institute for Religious Freedom will continue to address this issue, and wants to contribute to a fair and open universal discussion.

What we need is a database in which for any year we could enter all the known, larger cases so that at the end of the year we not only have a useable estimate, but rather a situation where given the list everyone can investigate the estimate’s resilience.

[2] “Status of Global Mission, 2011”, see http://ockenga.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/resources.php.

[3] “Status of Global Mission, 2011.“ International Bulletin of Missionary Research 35 (1011) 1: 29, line 28; cf. Commentary “Christianity 2011: Martyrs and the Resurgence of Religion.“ Ibid., p. 28.

[4] Ibid., p. 28.

[5] Eg. http://www.persecution.net/faq-stats.htm.

[6] David Barrett, Todd Johnson. World Christian Trends. Pasadena (CA=: William Carey Library, 2001. chapter 16.

[7] “Christianity 2011: Martyrs and the Resurgence of Religion.” Ibid., p. 28.

[8] Ibid., p. 28.

[9] World Health Organisation. The Global Burden of Disease. Geneva: WHO, 2008. p. 74, see http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/. Comp. the information of 171,000 for 2002 in the map among the atlas collection representing the actual world: http://www.worldmapper.org/display_extra.php?selected=484.

Kirchengeschichte Asiens (Asian Church History)
Klaus Wetzel
Nuremberg (Germany), VTR, 2010
ISBN 978-3-941750-25-8
Original edition 1995, revised edition 2010
paperback, 680 pp.

translated from the Indonesian edition:
Kompendium Sejarah Gereja Asia
Malang (Indonesia), Gandum Mas, 2000
www.gandummas.com

Reviewed by Thomas Schirrmacher, Bonn, General Editor of Evangelical Review of Theology

This history of the church in Asia is unique, as it grew out of teaching the subject at an Indonesian school of theology, was first printed in Indonesian and then translated into German. The author now teaches the same subject at the Academy for World Mission in Korntal, the German branch of Columbia International University, besides being a pastor and chair of German branch of WEC International. This is a second revised German version which is updated to the present time from the latest Indonesian edition.

It is a pity that the language barrier between English and the rest of the world means that English texts have a wide acceptance in the whole evangelical world, but influential books in other major languages often stay virtually unknown and without influence. Also, when one reads evangelical works published in the USA, one rarely finds other than English sources in the footnotes. Therefore the chance that this important work will make its way from Indonesian or German into the evangelical world community is not very great.

But it should, as the compendium is evangelical scholarship at its best. It is ecumenical, giving due place to all churches in all ages from the early church through the high times of Oriental churches in Asia, the times when the Catholic Church was the dominating Christian force in Asia, until the remarkable growth of the Protestant churches stemming from mission work. And yet it is evangelical, not only by highlighting evangelical mission history, but by carrying the conviction that mission and church history is under God’s providence and God still uses history to teach his church. Thus the author asks at the end of each chapter, what the central spiritual questions were in that era and what we can learn from them for today.

Evangelical at its best is also the combination of mission history, church history and the history and comparison of Christian confessions and churches. The author is convinced that one should not separate them into different disciplines, but research and describe them together.

What overall picture do you get by reading the book? Here it is: The Christian church in Asia has increasingly moved into global Christianity’s field of vision in recent decades. Unexpected revival movements can be as easily named here as can much acknowledged theological studies. In the meantime, leading personalities in Asia significantly shape international Christian associations. Christianity in Asia has become an important branch of Jesus Christ’s church around the world.

A particular focus of the book has to do with diverse aspects relating to Asian Protestant churches’ paths to independence in various geographic regions. From the first indigenous church leaders and clerics all the way up to large churches fully under local leadership, the book traces how churches which originated through missionary work took various routes to became churches that are fully at home in their domestic cultures. An additional focus of the book, which to my knowledge has not been found in any other Asian church history up to now, is the important number of changes for church history that occurred in Northern and Central Asia as well as in the Caucasus Mountain region at the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s.

Evangelical Review of Theology, vol. 35 (2011) 2: 189-190

Here the original pages: PDF-Download

The World Evangelical Alliance is grieving the loss of Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who was assassinated today in Islamabad. The WEA condemns in the strongest terms this senseless act of violence and urges the government of Pakistan to bring to justice those who committed this crime.

Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, WEA Secretary General stated, “Not only have I lost a dear personal friend, but the world has lost a great champion for religious liberty, human rights and the protection of human dignity for all people.”

The WEA commends Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari for creating the Ministry for Minority Affairs, for appointing a minister from a religious minority community, and for forcefully condemning the assassination of Minister Bhatti. The WEA urges the Government of Pakistan to honour the pioneering work of Minister Bhatti and his memory by ensuring the swift appointment of another strong advocate for minorities to build upon all that he accomplished.

Minister Bhatti was an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy law and had been calling for its abolition. Pamphlets left by the assassins labeled him an “infidel Christian” and cited his opposition to the blasphemy law as the reason for his assassination.

The killing of Minister Bhatti underscores the peril religious minorities in Pakistan are facing as a result of the blasphemy law and the culture of animosity this law continues to foster within the country.

Dr. Tunnicliffe met Minister Bhatti just recently to discuss the situation in Pakistan and plan a high level visit to Islamabad by WEA leaders.

Ten days ago Shahbaz Bhatti was re-inducted into the cabinet of the government of Pakistan. According to Minister Bhatti his induction “had sent a wave of joy and encouragement among the religious minorities across the country, especially the Christian community”.

Yesterday, a day before his assassination, Minister Bhatti wrote in a communication with Dr. Tunnicliffe, Secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance:

“I personally believe that it is Jesus Christ who has once again bestowed unto me this responsibility and position with a special purpose and mission to serve the suffering humanity and I am determined to carry on defending the principles of religious freedom, human equality, social justice and the rights of minorities.”

Writing to Geoff Tunnicliffe yesterday, in what was one of his last communications, Bhatti called Christians around the world to prayer for Pakistan saying, “It is time to stand in solidarity.”

The WEA will continue to champion the work of heroes of the faith, like Minister Bhatti, and speak out for marginalized and persecuted people in all societies.

Letter from Minister Bhatti to Geoff Tunnicliffe:

March 1, 2011

Dear Brother Geoff,

It was nice to meet you and discuss important issues with you during my visit to Washington. Thank you for your support, solidarity and prayers. Thanks for letter and press release. I had   very memorable and productive trip to Canada and USA.

I appreciate your commitment for religious freedom and your dedication for the persecuted and marginalized Christians.

My meeting with you was a source of encouragement for me and I thank you for the solidarity shown by you for the religious minorities of Pakistan.

As you are aware, I have been re inducted into the reconstituted Federal Cabinet of Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari despite severe opposition from the extremists included me into the reshuffled Federal Cabinet.

My induction has sent a wave of joy and encouragement among the religious minorities across the country, especially the Christian community.

I personally believe that it is Jesus Christ who has once again bestowed unto me this responsibility and position with a special purpose and mission to serve the suffering humanity and I am determined to carry on defending the principles of religious freedom, human equality, social justice and the rights of minorities.

I am looking forward to welcome you and your delegation in Pakistan. Kindly encourage WEA network and other friends to keep me in their prayers. It is time to stand in solidarity

Yours in Christ,
Shahbaz Bhatti

Many leaders and theologians living in contexts of persecution have developed a sound biblical and theological evaluation of suffering and its consequences for believers, churches and the world at large. It is time that theologians internationally  and especially Western theologians start taking this contribution seriously as a major part of a contemporary approach to our world and of systematic and historical theology.

The persecution suffered by Christians under the Roman Empire prior to 311 AD has had a lasting influence on the theology of the church. Although the total number of victims was rather low througout the first three centuries, the experience of persecution has had a formative influence on the theology of the emerging church. The church had from New Testament times developed its theology under the pressure of persecution and oppression. In the current contexts of varying degrees of pressure on Christians,  it is worthwhile to restudy the literary heritage of the persecuted church. There is an abundant literature on martyrdom and its connection to theology proper, to christology and soteriology. Ethelbert Stauffer has noted that Eusebius’ History of the Church, the first church history at all, was written from the perspective of martyrology.

We can observe this church developing its theology under persecution. It did not regard a theology of suffering as a threat to theology, but as central to its theology. It was such a church that reached the Roman Empire for Christ. What a pity that this fruitful dynamic fell victim to the triumphalism of the European church in the Middle Ages and was forgotten by a large portion of mission in the colonial age.

We hope that the contributions to the Bad Urach Consultation and its broad theological declaration, the Bad Urach Statement, help to let the whole church once again share in the theological strength of the church under persecution. We hope that it will contribute to taking down the walls between theology, theological education, missiology, and those working directly with the persecuted church, as well as the walls between theologians from the West and the Global South.

The fact that the Bad Urach Consultation has been co-sponsored by the Theological Commission, the Missions Commissions, the Religious Liberty Commission (all of the World Evangelical Alliance) in cooperation with the Theology Working Group of the Lausanne Movement is of high symbolic value!

We are more than thrilled, that Bad Urach gave great theologians from countries where the church is persecuted the opportunity to inspire evangelical theology and missiology at large. Their thinking ought to be studied and discussed by theologians of all confessions across the world and whereever theology is taught.

Prof. Dr. theol. Dr. phil. Thomas Schirrmacher
* Chair, Theological Commission, World Evangelical Alliance
* Director, International Institute for Religious Freedom (Bonn, Cape Town, Colombo)
* Speaker for Human Rights of the World Evangelical Alliance

Godfrey Yogarajah
* Executive Director, Religious Liberty Commission, World Evangelical Alliance

Well then, it is amazing what one comes across when traveling! A rather tedious amount of research yielded a solution to the mystery: The inscriptions on the beautiful pulpit of the Naumburger Cathedral from the year 1466 have only three original relief panels with depictions: 1) a depiction of the 12 year old Jesus in the temple, 2) a relief of Gregory, and 3) a relief of St. Augustine. Yet most of the carved columnar figures next to them were missing for a long time. In the 1930s the pulpit was restored and supplemented in Halle’s workshop for historic preservation and, lo and behold, the Lutheran wood carver or individual who commissioned the work smuggled Martin Luther in and set him up on a row with apostles and church fathers.

Within three days I found the following randomly chosen reports about Islamists, which were published almost simultaneously in practically all major media in Germany: in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad, an Islamic suicide bomber had killed four UN employees at the local headquarters of the World Food Program when a bomb he was carrying exploded.

• For an entire day Islamists paralyzed the headquarters of the Pakistani Army by placing it under fire and taking hostages. Now 30,000 Pakistani soldiers are attempting to move against the Islamists and compensate for the disgrace.
• A one-hour German language video with an Islamic group tied to Al Qaeda, in which German and German-speaking Islamists threatened Germany, shows background pictures of terror training camps in which numerous blond or European looking children are conspicuous.
• In Yemen the government is fighting a desperate battle against the Islamic Al Qaeda network, which wants to expand Yemen into its new operational headquarters. Although the future of Islamic terrorism could be decided here, Yemen is missing international support.
• In Hamburg a ten-man Islamic terror cell that traveled in March to Hindu Kush was discovered. In Germany there is estimated to be around 80 trained Islamic terrorists at present living in the country.
• In Berlin in one fell swoop 155 officials were searching through apartments in order to move against a group of 15 Islamists who are suspected of planning attacks against Russia and who wanted to defect.
• A book about honor killings that was about to be released was withdrawn at the last minute by the publisher Droste Verlag due to fear of acts of vengeance by Islamists.

That was all just within three days!

And Evangelicals are compared with such Islamists in the sme media? Absurd! Unfounded! Malevolent! Even to compare my peaceful Muslim neighbors with such terrorists would be a disgrace, but peaceful, often pacifistically oriented Evangelicals?

Evangelicals are allowed to pay required fees for German state TV ARD and ZDF television so that with conspiratoranial means they can ‘prove’ and advance what cannot be demonstrated – that Evangelicals are a type of Christian Islamists. The fact is: there are no Evangelical terrorists, no suicide attackers, and no Evangelical network which is planning to conduct something that brings death and violence. Anything else is virtual nonsense and the worst type of slander.

Where is it necessary to search for weapons in Evangelical churches? Where are Evangelical terror camps being maintained, army headquarters attacked, and skirmishes conducted against 30,000 soldiers?

Who is scared of traveling to a particular country for vacation because Evangelicals live there? Where are the Evangelicals who are threatening journalists who hold dissenting ideas or threatening their families? Why do Evangelicals not come under the rubric of constitutional protection, either in Germany or anywhere else in the world?

And in addition to this: in spite of the non-stop horror reports about Islamism, we are – and rightly so – repeatedly reminded and even remind ourselves again and again that we have to distinguish between Islamists and peaceful Muslims. For once just consider the thought that the 1.8 million Evangelicals in Germany would want to limit freedom with violence. And while no one has witnessed anything like that, at the same time several thousand Islamists keep us on edge?

In the case of 400 million Evangelicals, in contrast, it seems as if one does not have to differentiate between Terrorists (wherever they might be) and the millions and millions of peaceful adherents. One negative example is enough to make everyone responsible for their counterparts! Even if there were to be one single Evangelical terrorist or an individual who even dreamed of being a terrorist, one would still have to clearly distinguish between that individual and the millions and millions of peaceful Evangelicals.

One more question to pose to ARD and ZDF television: Is it not also an aspect of religious freedom that one is to be protected from governmental and semi-governmental institutions? Does our state media know that there is no persecution of minorities where the media is not playing a central role? And does our state media know that nowadays it is often the media who more than anyone else decides which minorities are seen as victims and which ones are leprous and themselves held accountable for the situation?

Reformed interest in recent decades has mainly concentrated on the teaching of John Calvin (1509-1564) and Theodore Beza (1519-1605). Their mentors, Martin Bucer (1491-1551) of Strasbourg and Henry Bullinger of Zürich (1504-1575), though pioneer Reformers, are almost forgotten and their doctrines neglected. This neglect has often led to a severe misunderstanding concerning the origin and development of the Reformed faith. Bucer and Bullinger were seen traditionally as the fathers of what is now called doctrinal Calvinism and the theological foster-fathers of Calvin and Beza. The Genevans never attained to the scope and depth of their mentors’ more irenic and thorough-going Reformed teaching. Bucer and Bullinger refused to sign the Melanchthonian Augsburg Confession which Calvin and Beza accepted as Scriptural in all points. Calvin did sign the Reformed Consensus Tigurinus in 1549, after ten years of opposition to Reformed teaching, but rejected it at once under pressure from Beza who proposed a more Lutheran formula. Beza’s ambiguity regarding the Lord’s Supper left Cardinal Lorraine thinking that Rome and Geneva agreed. Calvin and Beza’s understanding of the Word of God and the Canon likened those of Luther and Zwingli and lacked the fullness and clarity of Bucer’s and Bullinger’s doctrine.

It was thus with great expectations that I opened my courtesy copy of Bucer’s ‘Von der wahren Seelsorge’, translated under the new English title ‘Concerning the True Care of Souls’. I pitched into the book at once. The late David Wright gives an excellent Historical Introduction to the background of Bucer’s 1538 work, showing how Bucer was awakened in the birth-years of the Reformation  and quickly took a leading part. When Calvin entered the field over a decade later he soon became a Buceran, moulding his thoughts, works, evangelical practice and teaching on Bucer’s writings. Wright mentions the difficulties involved in understanding Bucer’s quaint language and style but it was no different in 1538. When speaking at a Zürich conference that year, Bucer’s fellow-members complained that he was incomprehensible. Being familiar with Bucer’s original, I must praise Beale for doing a terrific work of translation. Bucer’s Early New High German in its insular Strasbourg form is no easy code to break. Readers may download a full copy of Bucer’s original work at hardenberg.jalb.de free of charge.

Bucer’s work starts with a definition of the Church showing that her rule must be by the Church and for the Church. He declared, ‘We have separated from the Antichrist, not from anyone in authority over the Church,’ finding his guidelines in the epistles to Timothy and Titus. He thus maintained that any secular rule is unscriptural. The Strasburg Council eventually reacted to this by forcing Bucer into exile. In a Biblical form of church government, ministers must abide by the Word under Christ or be declared hirelings. Bucer sought for ministers who preached repentance and faith, essentials neglected by the papists. The author then deals with the fellowship and duties of Christians to one another and to the community at large, emphasising Christ’s sole rule in His Church. Anyone who emphasises his own governing authority in the Church, Bucer claims, merely scatters the sheep. All pastors, teachers and carers of the poor must be appointed and commissioned by the congregation. The term elders, for Bucer, incorporates a wide variety of offices within the pastoral ministry. Some elders are to be chosen as bishops who elect further elders to their various appointments. He calls ministers  to the poor, ‘deacons, archdeacons and subdeacons’, each with special tasks. There was no welfare state in those days. Bucer gives Bible sources and adds lengthy comments to back up what he is saying, stressing the pastoral care expected of each office-bearer. His words on the care of wives for their husbands is a lovely mixture of Bible truths supported by common sense. English Reformer John Jewel recommended a plurality of bishops and elders in the local church but Bucer goes even further, imagining churches composed almost entirely of Christians actively engaged in the ministry. Though Bucer objects to secular rulers managing the church, he nevertheless had to require the presence of civic rulers at church elections. The Emperor liked to keep his eye on what was going on.

Bucer now goes on to outline what the principle work of pastoral care entails for the Church as a whole and for each member in particular. He sees this joint task as searching for the lost lambs; caring for the stray lambs; looking after injured sheep; strengthening weak sheep and guarding and feeding the sleek and strong sheep. Bucer then gives sound Biblical advice for each of these pastoral tasks. Chapter 12 is on Christian obedience and Chapter 13 provides a summary of the book. The two appendices are a note on married ministers by Robert Stupperich and one by Bucer on Church Guardians, a group of three members with special oversight over the ministry and church life.

The translator helpfully refers regularly to the pagination in Stupperich’s 1964 ‘official’ critical edition. The natural English title, one would think, should be ‘True Pastoral Care’ as the book is concerned with shepherding. Beale, Bucer-like, prefers what he calls an ‘awkward’ version. The translator drops his usual high style occasionally to use colloquial and stilted forms, probably caused by his use of the NIV, whereas the AV fits better into Bucer’s phraseology and style when translating Scripture. In fact, the AV approaches modern speech, which it has influenced greatly, in grammar and syntax, often far closer than the now antiquated NIV. So, too, the lack of index in a handbook of Christian instruction is a great weakness. These criticisms are only spots on the sun and the book is so good, so useful, so sturdy and so wonderfully cheap that though the eager Christian might have Calvin and Bullinger on his shelves, he ought to have Bucer in his pocket.

The text is also available in quotable form as an MBS-text here.

See further good review of the same book here and here.

With his new book „Racism“, the Evangelical scholar and author Thomas Schirrmacher wants to do away with prejudices – this is something which is still important nowadays. Furthermore, Schirrmacher is convinced: Evangelicals have always vehemently fought against racism.

The core of racism, writes Schirrmacher, is “what is different in the other person” and the belief that this otherness makes people superior or inferior. Nevertheless, in reading his work it quickly becomes clear: Racism is, from a biological point of view, nonsense. The results of modern genetics have unobjectionably demonstrated that there are no different human races, and rather that there is only one species of mankind.” Schirrmacher also justifies this position biblically with the aid of the Epistle of James in the New Testament, saying that even proven differences between human races express nothing about the equal dignity everyone has.

In this passage we find the following “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.” In the United Nations charter the following is stated and holds to Christian tradition: “All human beings belong to a single species and are descended from a common stock. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form an integral part of humanity.”

Evangelicals called for the Abolition of Slavery

In conversation with the Christian media magazine pro, the author empahsized the positive connection between the fight against racism and the Evangelical movement: “Evangelical revivalism was significantly involved in bringing an end to slavery. It was at this point that the designation Evangelicals came about in the first place. This applies to the legal abolishment of slavery in Great Britain as well as to the anti-slavery movement in the USA. Among Evangelicals in general, free church Quakers and Methodists, for instance, played a central role in the anti-slavery movement in the USA. Best known in this connection is the Evangelical classic, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In my book I quote a historian who shows that racism had much better chances in France and Germany, because there are hardly any Evangelicals there. In India William Carey, a British missionary and language researcher whom many view as the father of Evangelicals, fought racism found in Christian churches in India under the caste system in the 18^th century.”

Nowadays the internationalization of the Evangelical movement means that racism does not have a chance, says Schirrmacher. “In my Evangelical environment, from the time I was small, there were Indonesians, Kenyans and Latin Americans whom I got to know as role models, so racism was obsolete before I got to know about it on the school playground. Additionally, the World Evangelical Alliance has repeatedly and clearly taken a position against all forms of racism,” says Schirrmacher. “As far as the present is concerned, I really would not know where racism could be expected to find a home in Evangelical churches. For a long time now we have been used to reading books from all over the world, taking the foremost spiritual leaders from all cultures as role models and welcoming people of all cultures and ethnic groups. Since the majority of the Evangelical movement stems from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, they set the tone in many committees.”

And what about North America, we ask the German professor of the sociology of religion? “The Evangelical movement in the USA”, he say, “is often criticized for having right-wing leanings. But at the same time a lot of people forget that there are not only ‘white’ Evangelicals. Rather, a lot of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians are Evangelicals. Unfortunately, in the USA there is a broad right-wing spectrum that says America is white, English-speaking, and Christian. That has little to do with Christian churches.”

Schirrmacher primarily wrote his book in order to provide enlightenment about racism. This is something that is still important to do today. “First of all, racism is such a seriously mistaken position that there simply cannot be enough written against it. However, you would really be astonished at how few books in the German book market there are on racism. And most of them are very technical, very specialized, and hardly understandable for the man on the street.”

Against ‘Blacks,’ Jews and ‘Gypsies’

In his book the theologian writes about three “types of racism that are the most internationally widespread and can be tracked over the course of many centuries.” They are directed against the co-called ‘blacks’ or people with darker skin color, against Jews, and against so-called ‘gypsies,’ which is to say against Sintis and Romanies. Schirrmacher has determined that it is simply nonsense to speak of ‘racist differences.’ If anyone in Central Europe wants to speak of some sort of race that is in any way stable after all the ‘racial mixing’ that took place in the Roman Empire, subsequent migrations, campaigns of conquest from every direction, the invasion of Asian troops on horseback, and immigration from all over the world, then the only explanation is that the wish is father to the thought and the modern nation state would like to have a biological, religious, or other type of fixed anchoring for its citizens. Studies of Y-chromosomes suggest that the people of Europe have no identifiable origin, but that they all go back to repeatedly new waves of immigration from all different directions.

Thomas Schirrmacher is the head of the Martin Bucer Seminary, a Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the State University of Oradea in Romania, and the Director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s International Institute for Religious Freedom. He received his doctorate in 1985 in Ecumenical Theology in the Netherlands, in 1989 in Cultural Anthropology in Los Angeles and in 2007 in Comparative Religious Studies at the University of Bonn. He has released other works relating to the topic at hand, most recently The Multicultural Society and Hitler’s Religion of War.

From numerous New Testament texts the Pope demonstrates that hope is a central component of faith and that people without God are people without a sustainable hope. He expends considerable time on New Testament texts which say that hope does not rest upon an internal subjective attitude, but rather on objective facts. He just as soundly highlights that hope and salvation in the New Testament are not to be understood purely individualistically. It is rather the case that Christians in community with Christ and as God’s people have hope.

Subsequently, the Pope delineated between the Christian understanding of hope and the subjective conception of hope of the French Revolution, of industrial optimism, of Marxism, and of Humanism and calls for a long overdue ‘self-criticism of modern times.’ “It is not science that saves mankind. Mankind will be saved by love.” (12) Prayer and undergoing suffering belong to the practice of a belief in hope, to which the moralism of atheism and of progress ideologies has no answers.

The encyclical will supposedly not be counted as one of the great encyclicals that will still be quoted one hundred years from now. This is due to the fact that the encyclical neither announces a surprising change within the Catholic Church, nor does it take a stance with respect to a highly controversial topic. Calmly and matter-of-factly it refers to the large difference between Christian hope and the missing or illusory and worldly hope of Western ideas of progress. It highlights that Christian hope is only thinkable because there is salvation in Christ and because there are transcendent linchpins beyond earthly time, such as the final judgment, salvation, and eternal life.

However, in another aspect the encyclical contrasts to earlier encyclicals, namely through its strong concentration on the interpretation of New Testament texts and the practical absence of typical Catholic points of view. The encyclical has this in common with the book the Pope wrote about Jesus, although the book was published expressly as private remarks. This time, however, the encyclical is a doctrinal document.

In the first 47 paragraphs of the encyclical there is no statement that would be conspicuous were it to be heard coming from an Evangelical pulpit. In Pope Johannes Paul II’s encyclicals it was exactly the opposite. One could find almost no sentence where Mary, the salvific role of the church, or another Catholic feature was not mentioned. In paragraph 48 prayers for the dead are briefly mentioned. Maria is not appealed to until the final paragraphs 49-50. And whoever reads this long address to Maria will astonishingly determine that it consists practically of a compilation of New Testament statements about Maria and Jesus. A teaching about Maria that is particularly Catholic is not mentioned. The final paragraphs also seem to indicate that the curia required their inclusion so that the encyclical would not sound completely un-Catholic.

(The systematic theologian and religious sociologist Prof. Thomas Schirrmacher has authored numerous books regarding Catholic teaching as well as the book Hope for Europe.)