And Mormons use the words JESUS CHRIST on their buildings, too.
I don’t see that anyone in this thread has mentioned this, but I’m sure it’s crossed some people’s minds and it should be pointed out - The journalist being referred to in this article really is not a former evangelical Christian. What he actually was would be closest to a former mainline Protestant in America.
Remember, this is Europe we’re talking about, and specifically, Germany.
As we know, the heretical Evangelical Lutheran Church of America uses the word “evangelical.”
In Fleishhauer’s article, he mentions that he used to belong to the “EKD,” the “Evangelical Church of Germany.”
What is the EKD/ECG? “A federation of twenty Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and United (Prussian Union) Protestant regional churches and denominations in Germany, collectively encompassing the vast majority of Protestants in that country.”
And it has an interesting history. There were attempts to unify the Protestant churches in Germany during the Weimar Republic, and then Hitler tried to do so as well:
“When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, his administration tried to reorganize the old confederation into a unified German Evangelical Church as Hitler wanted to use a single Protestant church to further his own ambitions. This utterly failed, with the Confessing Church and the German Christians-led Reichskirche opposing each other. Other Protestant churches aligned themselves with one of these groups, or stayed neutral in this church strife. In 1948, the Evangelical Church in Germany was organized in the aftermath of World War II to function as a new umbrella organization for German Protestant churches.”
And differences between denominations have been largely erased:
“The member churches (Gliedkirchen), while being independent and having their own theological and formal organisation, share full pulpit and altar fellowship...”
Churches are even restricted from competing with one another:
“The regional Protestant church bodies accept each other as equals, despite denominational differences. No member church runs congregations or churches in the area of another member church, thus preventing competing with each other for parishioners.”
And theologically, the EKD is heretical.
” Ordination of women is practised in all 20 member churches with many women having been ordained in recent years. There are also several women serving as bishops. Margot Käßmann, former Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and Chairperson of the Council of the EKD from 2009 until February 2010, was the first woman to head the EKD. Blessing of same-sex unions is practised and allowed in 18 of 20 member churches.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany
And Mormons use the words JESUS CHRIST on their buildings, too.
Interesting.....
The newest thing going on there though is churches that fall outside of that structure and are Free Churches. Those religious communities are much more vibrant than the state sponsored churches.