Die Erweckung (revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s)

Die Erweckung (literally, "the Revival") is a name for the revival of evangelical Christianity in Germany in the 1800s. It has overlap with the Réveil in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, and also with the second Evangelical Revival in Britain and the Second Great Awakening in America.

The Pietist movement, which began during the Baroque era around 1675 under the leadership of Philip Spener, had waned by the 1730s. By this time, Halle university, originally founded by Pietists and a flagship of the movement, became a centre for rationalism under academics such as Christian Wolff (1679–1754). 

In the interim, Pietism was kept alive in part by a network of small groups (the Diaspora) which followed the spirituality of the Moravian Christians, a movement similar to Pietism but with its own church structures under the leadership of Von Zinzendorf. There was also the Basle-based Christentumsgesellschaft founded by Urlsperger in 1780, a society founded to counter the rationalist theology of the Enlightenment.

Following the French revolution in 1789, the subsequent French invasion of German lands from 1792, and the French dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, a resurgence of Biblical Christianity (sometimes called "Neupietismus" or Neo-Pietism) gained strength in Germany. 

The movement can be traced back to beginnings in the late 1700s. Later, major figures in the Erweckung included Ludwig Hofacker at Stuttgart (1826-8), Daniel Krummacher at Elberfeld and J. C. Blumhardt at Möttlingen. In Berlin, a leading church for the Erweckung was the Bethlehemgemeinde (also known as the Bohemian Church) then pastored by Johannes Jänicke, and located in what is now known as Bethlehemkirchplatz. It is said that for about four decades from 1820, most of the pastors and preachers in Berlin churches had experienced evangelical conversion. For the first part of the 1800s, "die Erweckung" took place mostly within the state Lutheran or Reformed churches. 

Academics associated with the Erweckung include J. A. W. Neander, a Jewish convert and theological professor at Berlin, W. M. L. De Wette, and August Tholuck. Paradoxically, in many cases these and other men had been taught by Schleiermacher, who is often considered a representative of liberal Christianity. 

The work of Robert Haldane with French-speaking seminary students at Geneva and Montauban fed into a similar movement in French-speaking Europe called "Le Réveil". One of Haldane's students, Merle D'Aubigné, came to Berlin in 1817/1818 where he studied at the university.  

From 1830, part of the Erweckung movement was redirected towards a more confessional Lutheranism. A leading figure was Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg. This led to secessions from the state church to form confessional Lutheran churches, or in some cases emigration to the USA and elsewhere. This is the origin of confessional Lutheran denominations in the USA such as the Missouri Synod. 

Later, in some cases, the Erweckung led to the formation of "free churches", for example the Baptist movement begun at Hamburg in 1834 by Johann Onken, or the Elberfeld-based Evangelical Free Church started by Hermann Grafe in 1854 based on the model of the Free Church in Lyon, France founded by Réveil pastor Frédéric Monod and which Grafe had attended while living in France. The Brethren movement (Plymouth Brethren, followers of J N Darby) also spread in Germany from about 1850, a leading figure being Brockhaus.  

An essential characteristic of "die Erweckung" was Christian activism expressed in various charitable works, such as the Berlin-based charity work by Baron von Kottwitz, or the Diakonie work founded by Fliedner. 

Here is a list of areas affected by the Erweckung: "Württemberg, Pomerania, Berlin, Siegerland, the Wuppertal region, Bremen, Hamburg, Minden-Ravensberg, Saxony, and Franconia (mainly what is now northern Bavaria)." 

By 1875, the Erweckung had waned due to a number of factors, including fast-paced social change, and a barrage of new ideas, such as those of Marx, Feuerbach, Nietzsche and later Freud, challenging Christian faith in different ways. 

A precursor to a renewed phase of revival in Germany was the work of Johann Christoph Blumhardt (d. 1880) at Bad Boll.  

The renewed phase of revival in Germany from the 1870s was varied. It included a German iteration of the Holiness movement, mass evangelisation along the lines of Moody, and also an emphasis on physical healing. Prominent figures in the German revival at this time were Theodor Christlieb, Elias Schrenk and later Ernst Modersohn. In 1882 there was a five-month evangelistic campaign in Berlin led by Friedrich von Schluembach. Two organisations which were prominent at this time were the CVJM (German YMCA) and the Gnadauer Verband, the latter also known as the Gemeinschaftsbewegung. 

In the academic sphere, a few scholars, such as Martin Kähler (d. 1912), Adolf Schlatter (1857-1938), and the so-called Erlangen theologians, upheld Biblical truth. 

Sources

Schnurr, J. C. 

https://www.kirche-trupbachseelbach.de/website/de/trupbachseelbach/medien/die-geschichte-der-erweckungsbewegung-im-siegerland

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/11/959

Doron, Avraham. From Contestation to Cooperation: The German Orthodox Church, Neo-Pietism and the Quest for an Alternative Ideal of the Nation