Arbeiten zur Kirchlichen Zeitgeschichte: Geschichte eines Grundsatzkonflikts (1945 bis 1989)

There has been an organized evangelical movement in Germany since 1966. And since then a conflict has gone on between the Evangelicals on the one hand and the West German Regional Churches/Protestant Church of Germany on the other hand. The criticism leveled at the theology of the Protestant Church and at the Church itself on the part of the evangelical movement cannot be ignored by the Church’s representatives. The evangelical movement arose from within the official Church and goes back to the discussions surrounding the theology of Rudolf Bultmann and the wave of evangelical thought in the 1940s and 1950s. The repression of the role of the Evangelical Alliance and the Fellowship Movement by the Protestant Church and the ecumenical movement served to emancipate the evangelicals. Gisa Bauer describes the past history of the evangelical movement that ran parallel to many developments within the Church itself. She introduces the reader to the various groups and their conflicts that led to the events of 1966. She then follows the developments of the evangelical movement in the 1970s, which was shaped by many changes in their ways and goals, up through 1989, also taking a look at the relationship between the evangelicals and the West German church leadership. Finally, she introduces the research now going on with respect to the new social movements and thus treats a subject that has previously been relatively neglected in the history of the German church.