{"id":25307,"date":"2016-10-19T06:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T10:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=25307"},"modified":"2016-10-18T10:38:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T14:38:45","slug":"profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile of Muslim converts & their church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Atlantic<\/em> has a profile of Muslim converts in Germany<\/a>, with special emphasis on the congregations they are attending. \u00a0The focus is on Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, a SELK congregation in fellowship with the LCMS. The pastor, Gottfried Martens, studied at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.<\/p>\n

They have around 1,000 baptized members who are ex-Muslims, with 300 on a waiting list, apparently being catechized. \u00a0(The Atlantic<\/em> reporter doesn\u2019t quite understand Lutheranism. \u00a0It\u2019s kind of amusing to see how she describes catechism and her confusion about crossing herself. \u00a0But kudos to her and also to her publication for significantly ramping up its religion coverage.) \u00a0The story describes Germans and ex-Muslims (who outnumber the former) having tea after service, their children playing together, all taking part in the normal workings of a congregation.<\/p>\n

\n\n

From Laura Kasinof,\u00a0<\/span>The Christian Refugees of Germany \u2013 The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first met Mattias in July at a refugee shelter just north of Berlin, he went by the name Mohammed. He had arrived in Germany from Iran the previous fall, along with thousands of other asylum-seekers\u2014sometimes up to 10,000 arrived in a single day<\/a>. After the German government assigned him to this shelter, he converted to Christianity. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I was a Muslim\u201d before, he told me. \u201cI didn\u2019t go to a mosque for an entire year. Now I am going to church every week.\u201d He expects it will take about three weeks to get off his church\u2019s waiting list to be baptized. Perhaps once he\u2019s more settled in Germany, he\u2019ll be able to change his name legally to Mattias, his chosen Christian name.<\/p>\n

We sat together in a sparse dormitory room at the shelter with three other Iranians who had converted from Islam to Christianity. They attend a Protestant church together, but asked that I not provide the exact location nor give their full names. Two of them said they became Christian while living in Iran. Another, like Mattias, had converted after arriving in Germany as an asylum-seeker.<\/p>\n

Throughout Germany, the pews of churches like theirs\u00a0are filled increasingly<\/a> by asylum-seekers. Though two umbrella church organizations told me that they couldn\u2019t provide exact statistics or comment on the nationality of the asylum-seekers attending church, Christoph Heil, a spokesman for the Protestant Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia\u2014which includes 1,300 parishes\u2014confirmed the pattern. \u201cNormally we don\u2019t count the number of asylum-seekers who are baptized because we don\u2019t differentiate between who is an asylum-seeker and who isn\u2019t, but [asylum-seekers asking to be baptized] appears to be a new trend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . .]\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Atlantic has a profile of Muslim converts in Germany, with special emphasis on the congregations they are attending. \u00a0The focus is on Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, a SELK congregation in fellowship with the LCMS. The pastor, Gottfried Martens, studied at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. They have around 1,000 baptized members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,24],"tags":[918,4875,4569,1513],"class_list":["post-25307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-islam","tag-germany","tag-lutheran-evangelism","tag-muslim-immigrants","tag-muslim-to-christian-converts"],"yoast_head":"\nProfile of Muslim converts & their church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Atlantic has a profile of Muslim converts in Germany, with special emphasis on the congregations they are attending. \u00a0The focus is on Trinity Lutheran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Profile of Muslim converts & their church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Atlantic has a profile of Muslim converts in Germany, with special emphasis on the congregations they are attending. \u00a0The focus is on Trinity Lutheran\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-19T10:00:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-10-18T14:38:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/\",\"name\":\"Profile of Muslim converts & their church\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-10-19T10:00:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-10-18T14:38:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"The Atlantic has a profile of Muslim converts in Germany, with special emphasis on the congregations they are attending. \u00a0The focus is on Trinity Lutheran\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/10\/profile-of-muslim-converts-their-church\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Profile of Muslim converts & their church\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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