The Big ‘Danger’
Neuendettelsau, 1931. Friedrich Eppelein finds himself confronted with a serious problem from overseas: In the Protestant Lutheran synods in Brazil, serious efforts are made to merge with the United Lutheran Church in North America. If they did, the synods would be in acute danger of losing their German Lutheranism! To thwart such a merger, mission director Friedrich Eppelein resorts to subtle blackmail and stirs up hatred against North America:
Once America is somewhere with its money, it will also want to be there with its spirit, by all means. America will not be satisfied anywhere with merely serving or at least with serving along. On the contrary, wherever America is, there it wants to rule.
Friedrich Eppelein to the pastors of the Lutheran synods in southern Brazil, 1931
It would makes one’s heart cramp, he writes, if the Neuendettelsau pastors “now simply became the spiritual servants of the Americans”2. In the name of the “German mother church” he threatens the Brazil-pastors. In a personal letter to pastor Georg Weger, grandfather of Carin Horst, he insistently implores him:
Stay faithful to German Lutheranism, the home of the reformation! Do not believe that you can serve two masters and go unpunished.
Friedrich Eppelein to the pastors of the Lutheran synods in southern Brazil, 1931
Our synod of Santa Catharina, Parana, and Espirito Santo must by all means become and remain an independent church. But we fear Americanism no less than the Union – once bitten, twice shy. It is simply utopia to think that there is no difference between German Lutheranism and American Lutheranism.
Letter from Friedrich Eppelein to Georg Weger, 1931
Rubens Horst: Exterminandus est
Hatred and agitation against North American preachers have always been anchored in the life, work, and heritage of the Weger family. This malice grows stronger from generation to generation until, starting in 1993, it unfolds its full power in Weger’s granddaughter Carin and her husband Rubens Horst:
After my time at the university where I studied to become a teacher, majoring in theology, I left this system [the Protestant Lutheran Church], turned away and joined a new church. Then I experienced the entire spectrum of the Luther-cult first hand. My father-in-law is a pastor of the Protestant Church. In the spirit of Luther, who is his role model, he warns against Anabaptists, charismatics, and dissidents who disagree with his own ideas. This applies especially to new churches and people with beliefs other than his own.
Andreas Fischer about his experiences with his father-in-law R. Horst starting in 1993
In Bayreuth, Rhema Christian Center becomes the target of this hatred against non-Lutheran movements, burnt into them by the German-chauvinistic, Lutheran ideology.
In my parent’s home I was exposed to the contempt with which they spoke about faith preachers like Reinhard Bonnke, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Hagin, Oral Roberts, Steve Hill, and Katharine Siegling. My father often made me read defamatory articles from state church magazines to destroy the credibility of these preachers. As a Lutheran pastor, he refused to check the validity of these hostile allegations.
Vivian Fischer (née Horst), the daughter of Rubens Horst, in “Luther – the Source of Anti-Semitism in Germany” – Hope Germany, 2012.
Faith churches or people like Hagin from America, these are the worst ones.
Lutheran pastor Rubens Horst, quoted by Andreas and Vivian Fischer
Associating Rhema Christian Center with the world-wide Word of Faith movement and its internationally renowned, outstanding personalities such as Kenneth E. Hagin, Oral Roberts, Reinhard Bonnke, Benny Hinn, Steve Hill, etc. is correct – and makes Rhema Christian Center a target for the aggressive outbursts of the Luteranos who have been trained in the apologetics of the Nazi Neuendettelsau school.
However, this very Word of Faith movement through its pioneers of faith has produced a tremendous heritage of revivals all over the world for millions and millions of people.
1 see Dreher, Martin Norberto: Kirche und Deutschtum in der Entwicklung der evangelischen Kirche Lutherischen Bekenntnisses in Brasilien, 1978, p. 174
2 Friedrich Eppelein to the pastors of the Lutheran synod in southern Brazil, 1931
Picture credits:
Cover Picture: Old map North America
