#German Baptist

[random-brushstrokes]

Johann Baptist Hofner (German, 1832–1913) - Schaf

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Hans Memling (German-Flemish, 1430-1494) Triptych with Saint John the Baptist, 1479 Memlingmuseum, Museum St John’s Hospital, Bruges

[artandthebible]

The Sermon of Saint John the Baptist

Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder  (German, 1472–1553) 

Genre: Religious Painting

Date: 1537-1540

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Bilbao, Spain

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness as one who prepares the way of the Lord. In his preaching he calls for repentance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and he warns that baptism brings with it the call to bear fruit worthy of repentance. (Matthew 3:1-12)

[my-sacred-art]

Anna Lisa Wagner (German, born June 12, 1994). From a photograph by Alex Wilkerson.

Baptism of the Lord, 1605. Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640). Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium.

[andreai04]

Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.

[deedsandcreeds]

At my Anabaptist church, men sit on one side of the building and women sit on the other. Children up to about age five can sit with whichever parent or grandparent they like.

Before I ever went to a church like this, I assumed that this tradition had something to do with avoiding impure thoughts during worship. I don’t know whether that’s how it started, but today I’m here to sing its praises as the most effective church community-building practice I’ve ever seen.

When the service ends, the ministers dismiss the congregation, but only the children get up and leave the room. All of the adults turn to whoever they’re sitting next to and start chatting. Since the church is pretty much full every Sunday, you’re sitting next to different people every time, so you get to catch up with someone new at random, but it’s someone with whom you have at least one thing, and likely many other things, in common. Under those conditions, you can get to know people pretty well, pretty quickly.

Another effect of this practice is that, if you and your spouse and your teenage children and anyone else who came to church with you in your vehicle each gets into a separate conversation, chances are that at least one of you is quite likely to get caught up in a longer discussion that continues as the adults eventually spill out to join the children outside. So then the rest of the family each thinks, well, might as well find someone else to talk to, and more conversations start up.

There is no way a family is just slipping out of there at the dismissal unless they have a reason to.

Meanwhile in my Episcopal church, which, like her sister congregations nationwide, is shrinking so fast that we’re excited about every visitor and desperate for them to come back: I have to strategize and move quickly to intercept visiting families just to say hello and welcome. Because the whole family is all sitting together, they whisper their departure plans to each other, gather their coats and crayons during the last hymn, and make a beeline for the parking lot as soon as they’ve shaken the priest’s hand, or even during the dismissal if they’re close enough to the door to get away with it. It’s rare that a visiting family, standing all together in the lobby with their belongings in hand, accepts an invitation to come to the parish hall for coffee and snacks. I think this is at least in part because they know that, if they say yes to coffee, they might get drawn into a conversation, and the kids might start playing with other kids, and it will be hard to get everyone together again to leave, and they don’t want that. Their lives are that much easier if they walk away from that chance for fellowship, and our church practices are helping them make that choice.

In conclusion, my Old German Baptist church - the community that looks more patriarchal and family-first from the outside - is consistently setting each family member up independently to form many strong connections outside the family. And it’s working very well.

[majestativa]

She feels so unsatisfied, restless, strange, so transformed into desolation. Such a soulless life, so faustinian, so anointed with fear, of such Ovidian sultriness. She has to anaesthetise herself, draw up her ruler’s pride around her, something which before, in voluptuous evil, though actually virginal innocence, she did not need to do. She finds herself at bottom so petty, so petty, so sick and timid. But then again, it is as if something from the past, something deep and great, the blood that was spilt that night, were raising her up from afar, at the same time ennobling her. And when she is old and grey and counts on death, something fearful and soft comes into her thoughts, as if she is to meet again the strange man who rejected her. To meet again?

— Peter Hille, The Dedalus Book of German Decadence: Voices of the Abyss, transl by Ray Furness and Mike Mitchell, (1994)

[sayhowdycountrycritters]

If anyone is interested in the subject content, I have another blog , @amishmennoman , which is a collection of photographs of Anabaptists males; Amish, Mennonites, Hutterites, and Old German Baptist Brethren. There is so much misinformation and misconceptions about the Anabaptist churches, and as this site is mostly visual, if you have questions I’d be happy to try an answer questions or direct you to good academic resources.

[plague-vulture]

a weird part of being more progressive than your parents is sometimes you forget about it and then they hit you with a freezing cold take you moved past like 5+ years ago.

like my parents think that any instance of someone wearing hijab ever is evil oppression and they MUST comment on it and I'm like.. hey can you be normal and not weird ab this. you're being odd.

[amishmennoman]

Old German Baptist man placing an order at McDonald’s.

[empirearchives]

Johann Baptist Drechsler: Blumenstillleben, 1786

Details

[random-brushstrokes]

Johann Baptist Hofner (German, 1832-1913) - Schaf

[thefugitivesaint]

Johann Baptist Zwecker (1814-1876), ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs'' by James William Elliott, 1872 Source

[forestlion]

Arte should give 1899 another chance

[bannedpreaching1611]

Germany: Light Shining in Darkness | Bro. Dillon Awes

[schwazombie]

I'm going to have to explain to the new possible therapist what a Pentebaptist is in order to explain my religious history. Most Germans don't even know what a Pentecostal is