Here’s to wishing him success.
Returning post-Enlightenment Germany/Europe back to their roots and cultural/spiritual identity (which means back towards the Enlightenment), while evangelizing the Muslims it has let inside its borders, is a win win situation.
Ghanaian pastor seeks to ‘re-Christianize’ Germany
A reverend from Ghana has turned a former supermarket in Germany into a church. He hopes to fill it with one of Germany’s fastest growing faith groups: evangelicals. But his good-news-only style isn’t quite catching on.
In just a decade, the number of evangelical Christians in Germany has doubled – and Ghana-born evangelical Rev. Edmund Sackey Brown has grand plans to ride this new wave. In 2011 he purchased a former Edeka supermarket in Mülheim an der Ruhr, in the heartland of Germany’s industrial region, and converted it into an evangelical house of worship: The House of Solution.
He is convinced that within 10 years his 600-member congregation, comprised mostly of African immigrants from the surrounding areas, will swell to 5,000. He has pledged his commitment on the number plate of his Mercedes “MH FJ 5000” (Mülheim for Jesus 5000). “Centuries ago, Europeans came to Africa with the word of God. But these days Europe is a godless center. It needs redeeming,” says Sackey Brown, “My mission is to re-Christianize Europe.”
According to Sackey Brown’s vision, Christianity’s sweeping re-embrace of Europe will not come from an increase in African immigration, but from first-generation African-Germans spreading the word of God to their peers. “Hope is with the new generation. They can be disciples of God,” he says. But the children of African immigrants are a minority group within a minority group – hardly the catalyst for a near-future boom – and the fact that the church’s weekly youth service has been scaled back to every other week is a signal that things are not going to plan.
Sad that an African pastor cares more about Germany and it’s spiritual and cultural heritage than many ethnic Germans do. Nevertheless, I’m just happy that someone cares at all, and I wish this man all the best. He’s got his work cut out for him, that’s for sure, but it sounds like he’s got the right attitude and generous outlook to do it.
Had no idea evangelicals were “one the fastest growing faith groups in Germany”. That gives me a little bit of relief that it’s not just Muslims growing leaps and bounds.
Like this pastor, I have a soft spot for Deutschland and the German people, and I sincerely yearn for them to shake off the yoke of Islam. I know they’ve got it in them, and I can’t lose hope in them just yet.