K a s s e l – The German Baptist Union has a new President: the barrister Emanuel Brandt (Hamburg). In its Kassel sessions the Union Council of Germany’s largest free church union gave the 56-year-old 81,3% of all votes cast, presenting him with a mandate to succeed Pastor Siegfried Grossmann (Seesen). After five years in office, the 69-year-old Grossmann did not campaign again for the position. Brandt is head of the Tabea charity (diaconal) mission in Hamburg. He belongs to the Executive Committee of Germany’s Evangelical Alliance and the Diaconic Council of the Evangelical Church of Germany’s (EKD) diaconal mission (Diakoniewerk). He described the relationship between mission and humanitarian, diaconal work as “two sides of the same coin”. “They are a well-understood mark of the church of Christ in the world.” He hopes to sharpen the spiritual profile of his church “in dialogue with many churches”.

The 629 delegates made two significant financial decisions: real estate totalling 23.400 square metres and the 102 flats for the elderly on the grounds of the church’s Educational Centre in Elstal near Berlin are to be sold for 4,7 million Euros to the Immanuel Diakonie Group (Berlin). This diaconal mission intends to invest an additional 10,5 million Euros to create a centre there for diaconal services. The Union’s central offices are also located in Elstal.

The Union will continue to guarantee two securities totally 840,000 Euros to support the Oncken publishing house in Kassel. A year ago, the Union Council had decided to cede its shares of the publishing house to the Oncken Foundation. Andreas Lengwenath (Elstal) the Union’s Chief Financial Officer, plans to use the monies from the sale of the flats for the elderly to lower the Union’s debt. When the Union was mired in financial crises in 2002, the total debt peaked at 26 million Euros. By the end of 2008 the debt should be reduced to 11,8 million Euros.

Pastor Klaus-Dieter Kottnik (Berlin), President of the EKD’s “Diakoniewerk”, underscored the necessity of additional space in nurseries. The motto of the conference was entitled: “The Family in Social Transition”. Kottnik noted in his lecture that a child from the lowest social class is read to for a total of only 24 hours by the age of six. Yet a child from the middle class is read to for approximately 1.000 hours in the same period. Additional suggestions on how to best improve families’ situations were also made by Kottnik. Centres for child care should increasingly offer highly-accessible counseling options. At the moment, couples struggling with marital, childcare or financial problems have to wait too long a time before gaining access to help and advice: “It therefore makes sense for parents to get help in a place where they already are.” He called on society to work towards a change in male and female roles. Fathers should also be granted vacation for relief from parental stress. Kottnik remarked: “That is still regarded to be unmasculine.” Kottnik also proposed “parental support in the reverse sense”. Children should be granted leave from their jobs in order to nurse ailing parents. Family warmth should also be guaranteed during the final years of one’s life.

Pastor Friedrich Schneider (Oldenburg), head of the Union’s Department for Congregational Development, reported on changing membership tendencies. The church had a slight decrease in membership during the past year because a congregation attended primary by ethnic Germans from Russia withdrew. However, the total drop in membership was only 163 or 0,2%, resulting in a current membership of 85.031. Schneider expressed his discontent with the fact that only 74.600, or 88% of all members had attended church during the past year. The goal of 100% church attendance must remain. The number of baptisms has leveled off at roughly 2.300 per year. During the past year 2.326 were baptised, 39 less than in the previous year.

The Union does not recognise infant baptism and instead practices believers’ baptism. The outgong president, Siegfried Grossmann, rejected the accusation that Baptists have acted as “destructors of unity” by their refusal to accept the mutual recognition of baptism. In late April, 11 German denominations assured in an ecumenical service in Magdeburg that they would fully recognise baptisms in each others’ churches. Grossmann stated: “Churches recognising the importance of believers´ baptisms are no more ‘destructors of unity’ than any other church having differing theological convictions.” According to Baptist understanding, “the baptism of persons of the age of accountability, who desire to profess their faith and be baptised, is the only form of baptism to which the New Testament refers”. Many questions other than than issue of baptism remain unresolved in interconfessional dialogue – the significance of communion for example.

The conference had a surprising beginning: Nine cyclists from Russia were introduced. They plan to cycle from Varel, Germany on the North Sea to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean, a distance of 15.000 kilometres. En route they hope to win others to Jesus Christ.