Johann Gottfried Scheibel

Johann Gottfried Scheibel ( born September 16, 1783 in Breslau, Silesia, † March 21, 1843 in Nuremberg, Bavaria ) was a deacon and later pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Elisabeth and professor in Breslau. He is a Father of the Church, Evangelical Lutheran ( Old Lutheran ) Church in Prussia and its successor, the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Life

Beginnings and study

As the only son of Johann Ephraim Scheibel, rector at St. Elisabeth -Gymnasium in Breslau, Johann Gottfried Scheibel was born on 16 September 1783 in Wroclaw. He studied theology at the University of Halle, he recorded 1801. At Georg Christian Knapp (1753-1825), the young Scheibel learned biblical dogmatics beyond Enlightenment and Pietism. During his studies, he fell into a crisis of faith, which was dominated by the philosophy of nature and the beginning of the Age of Romanticism. He sought and lived through the conflict with the spirit of the times, until he came to a confessional Lutheran attitude. This was just the Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist decisive. The Lutheran view of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist he approached, however, only through intense Bible study before he could repeat this for themselves. So Scheibel also came to the conclusion that a community would not be possible at the altar with Christians of other denominations than the Lutheran.

Activity as a theologian

The young graduates had applied in 1811 for a teaching position at the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelm University and was appointed by the responsible Minister of Education associate professor of theology. In 1818 he became a full professor. With his confessional Lutheran confessional attitude Scheibel was alone in the university landscape. Rationalism had captured the theology and was influenced by it.

Since 1827 Scheibel was deacon of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Elizabeth Church, the main church of the city of Wroclaw. He gathered a staff community that grew to about 900 souls due to his sermon way of initially 115. So Scheibel is regarded as the revivalist of Wroclaw. This community later formed the core and Anvantgarde of Lutheran resistance to the introduction of the Prussian Union.

Introduction of the Union

On September 27, 1817 issued King Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia, in which he desired that the Evangelical Lutheran Church merged with the Evangelical Reformed tradition to a church. Even if this call elicited little response in the parishes, a sacrament between Lutherans and Reformed was celebrated at the University of Breslau. Only Scheibel stayed away from this celebration of the Eucharist. In his sermon on November 2, 1817, he laid out the Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist, which further became widespread due to reprinting. Because of its Lutheran confessional attitude Scheibel was largely isolated in the circle of his university colleagues.

In 1822, by King Friedrich Wilhelm III appeared. elaborate liturgy. However, this liturgy sat down first by not. It came to the agendas dispute. Scheibel said the reformed king from decided to allow them to interfere in the internal affairs of the Lutheran Church. The policy should not determine Church. However, it did not care about seeing off sovereign government of the Church. He was concerned about the self-determination or order of religion and freedom of conscience in the context of Lutheran worship, confession and church. The Lutheran Church must have the right to the standards of their commitment undiminished their services to live independently and without government intervention. With this argument he gave the basis for the opposition to the Prussian Union and promoted the beginnings of the Old Lutheran Kirchwerdung.

1830 this reasoning was important due to the widespread introduction of the Union for the Lutherans of Silesia. His petitions to the king, permission to hold communion celebrations according to Lutheran rite, were rejected. Because he did not want to take over the Union figures saying he was suspended from his post. The king and the Uniate Church authorities hoped that the resistance to the Union could be stopped. Scheibel 1832 removed from office and expelled from the country. Admission he was in Lutheran Saxony, where he continued the confession fight with the means of journalism. He was also active in Dresden as a teacher at free Herrlich of Fletcherschen teacher seminar. This was followed in Prussia a ten-year period of persecution of Old Lutherans from the state with the express approval and funding by the new Uniate country church. However, others took the place Scheibels so that the reorganization of the Lutheran Church in Prussia progress. In 1838 he was expelled from Saxony, because the Prussian government exerted pressure. So he found his new home in Bavaria.

Importance

Scheibel is considered father of the Church of the Old Lutheran Church because he saw himself obliged to Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions in the fight against rationalism and Protestant Union. In the church history of the 19th century thus he occupies an important place, as he pointed the way to the confessional Lutheranism of his time and still does. Because of its commitment to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, he saw himself in opposition to the prevailing spirit of rationalism and the absoluteness of the king. So today Scheibels is deep insight that an indissoluble connection between confession, worship and church consists, groundbreaking.

Johann Gottfried Scheibel and in its wake the Old Lutherans can be regarded as a champion of religion and freedom of conscience in Germany.