The Missional Future of Free Churches in a Secular Context: A German Case Study

Abstract

Similar to most Western nations, Germany has experienced a history of secularization, resulting in church decline. However, some Christian communities have been less affected by decline. The historical free churches (Freikirchen), usually of an evangelical nature, have not only developed a more explicit missionary identity than the mainline churches, some of them have also been able to experience church growth against the larger trends. In this paper quantitative and qualitative data are presented based on a study of the Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden (BFeG) in Germany. These data show that general church growth and conversion growth are correlated, that young churches grow better (in both respects) than older churches, that the net conversion growth (conversions minus decline) of younger and older churches is overall largely the same, and that growth results in Berlin outperform the results in other cities and in the BFeG as a whole. These results are put into context by extended case studies of two churches, one old and one young, and they are discussed with a view to existing studies of (free church) mission in the West.

Lusophony Pentecostal Churches in Berlin: Religious Identities Between Integration and Transatlantic Boundaries

“…The German political system can be characterized as an inclusive model of religious governance in which recognized mainline churches are treated as institutional partners of the state and are entitled to certain rights, resources, and privileges (Kortmann 2020 ). Given the present situation, this explicitly political role of the mainline churches challenges the situation of minor religious organizations on different levels, and the unequal balance of power and visible presence of new religious actors have in some cases caused new conflicts (Paas and Bartholomä 2020 ). Especially the city of Berlin has been a notable place for proponents of the rational-choice theory to demonstrate medial, clerical, and governmental stigmatization and discrimination against new religious actors, such as US Pentecostalism (Stark and Finke 2000 ).…”