I attended the 2017 gathering in Wittenberg. On the Friday of repentance towards the Anabaptists, Margret and I identified very strongly with the “victims” at first. Back in the early days we were viewed as outsiders, as “enthusiasts,” by the established churches. This is similar to how they responded to the Anabaptists.

But then God showed me that I had to take a stand as well as a representative of the Evangelical Lutheran church. For the last six years now, I have been the Chairman of the Church Congregational Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in our city of Herbrechtingen. God showed me I had a responsibility even for events before my time. I could and should ask for forgiveness, stand in the gap, where I and my church had sinned.

It was shortly after Wittenberg that about 25 leaders from 4 different Christian churches met to consider what joint actions and events we could put on together as Christians in our city to reach people. It was the first such meeting with representatives of the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church of Germany, the City Mission (a non-denominational church) and the New Apostolic Church.

I asked God for wisdom and He clearly showed me the deep chasms of our past that had only been superficially covered, like a dangerous pit in the ground hidden by a thin layer of grass.

Still deeply moved by the experiences of reconciliation between the various groups that I had been able to share in shortly before this in Wittenberg, I dared to bring up our reciprocal guilt and the accusations from our past. I confessed my own prejudices and my negative thinking and speech. Several persons were immediately impacted. They responded by speaking of hurts such as discrimination on account of mixed marriages, which were mostly prohibited from the Catholic side. One woman had tears in her eyes as she told how she had suffered at that time.

I was then encouraged to discuss the divide in a public ecumenical church service at the New Year’s Reception in January 2018. In this church service, I was able to say that I was sorry for where I and where we as a church had hurt others. From our Evangelical Lutheran point of view, the Catholics were often thought of as hypocritical. In turn, from their point of view they were the only ones who held the true faith. The Chrischona Community, which is now the City Mission, were perceived as overly pious – both Catholics and Lutherans sometimes called them bigots. The New Apostolics were considered a cult.

I apologized, and was able to say that we have a common hope in Jesus, and that now I was pleased that we had this variety among churches. I got a positive response from several attendees after this service.