Brazil in the 1930s. Nazi mission director Eppelein equips the Brazilian Luteranos with the tools they need to fight against influences from outside the state church: apologetic combat strategies. Among his students is Lutheran pastor Georg Weger. He will demonstrate a strong sense of mission and present himself as an ardent multiplier of the Luther-Hitler-complex. Three decades later, students at the Theological Seminary in São Leopoldo will be trained to that effect in the “thorough study of the other Christian churches and cults in Brazil”1. One of them is student Rubens Horst, who was to meet pastor Georg Weger and his granddaughter Carin Wunderlich in São Paulo a few years later. Rubens and Carin get married in 19702 – a fusion of two Luteranos, highly explosive material in the fight for German-Lutheran ideology.
In the 1990s, they fight this battle within the scope of a partnership program in Bayreuth financed by the ELKB3. Doctrine, way of life, language, culture, the ideology of the Luther-Hitler complex – what was brought across the ocean many years ago is now returning to its origins.
Bayreuth, March 1990: The regional synod of the Protestant-Lutheran Church in Bavaria holds a meeting. In his inaugural speech Luterano Rubens Horst boasts about his German roots:
In Brazil we say “Prezados Irmãos em Christo”, literally translated: dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. Before I start, I would like to share something personal: Since the 1st of March, I have been working – together with the family – in the parish of St. Georgen, Bayreuth and will stay for six years. […] But I have to say that I did not accidentally end up in Bayreuth, or Franconia. It was our wish, the wish of the family. You might ask why. There are two reasons: Firstly, because my wife’s grandparents, the Weger family, Pastor Georg Weger, came as a pastor from Neuendettelsau to Brazil in 1922, and secondly, because almost all of the German pastors we knew in Brazil were from Bavaria or Franconia, respectively. These pastors, who baptized and confirmed us, did not only bring the word, the sermon, the doctrine, but they also brought their way of life – language, culture – to Brazil. This marked us, gave us courage to leave everything behind, and to bring some of the experience of the faith as we live it in Brazil and practice it here. We now want to make available to the church work in Bayreuth what has shaped us in Brazil. […]
Excerpt from the inaugural speech of Pastor Rubens Horst, regional synod of the ELKB, March 1990, in Bayreuth
1 Report about the Theological Faculty São Leopoldo, 1969
2 In: Joinville Luterano Nov/Dec 2016
3 ELKB: Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern (Protestant Church in Bavaria)
Picture credits:
Cover picture: Bayreuth
