# Der Lutheraner_Frankfurt am Main_Mai 1949_S58
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Page 58                                    May 1949                                    Number 5

[Image: Illustration with young people sitting in a circle, above it the caption "We speak our minds"]

The letters published here represent the opinion of the sender. They are not
represented in all points by the editorial staff.
With letters to the editorial staff, consent to full or excerpted publication
is assumed, unless the sender expresses other wishes. The editorial staff
reserves the right in every case to shorten submissions according to
editorial necessity.

Also a Way?

In the essay bearing this title in the March issue of "Der Junge Lutheraner,"
Helmut Höller says at the end: "You will discover that with modest means and
a bit of variety you can offer all the children something ... And is that not
also a way to carry out practical youth work that is truly constructive?"
Since this way that is shown or proposed is supposed to be the way of our
youth groups, we must first of all be fundamentally clear about whether we
want to carry out Christian youth work or whether we want to carry out club
work. If our concern is Christian youth work, does it then depend on
"something being offered"? Does it then depend on "activity" and on "getting
something going"? Is there really nothing more important to do in our
Christian youth groups than to play parlor games, perhaps even ones of a very
controversial kind? This is not meant to say that a light, relaxing
entertainment might not also take place occasionally. But do we really have
so much free time available in our youth groups that we can afford to kill
the time available to us with entertainment?
Do the questions that arose in the question-box of one of our industrial
youth groups (see "Junger Lutheraner" No. 3) not give us much food for
thought? If in one of our own, that is, in a Christian group, it still
remains among the unanswered questions whether there is a resurrection, why
young Christians are confirmed, whether Adam and Eve lived, etc. — can we
then, as leaders or coworkers of a youth group, really still justify playing
games even for one single hour on our evenings? Do we not rather have the
obligation to use every hour that we spend together with the young people
entrusted to us for the things of our faith, so that we all become ever more
certain in it?
There have formerly been great and powerful Christian youth movements. Let
us think only of young men's associations like the CVJM. When the total
claim to authority of the state also reached out toward the young people and
our work was forbidden, what was the situation then? Down to quite small
remnants, our youth groups were suddenly scattered like chaff before the
wind! Why was that so? Should the Word of God have proven too weak or too
unmodern to hold the young people fast? No! But field games were also played
in the Jungvolk, museums and art exhibitions were also occasionally visited
in the Hitler Youth, joint walks were certainly undertaken sufficiently both
in the HJ and in the BDM. And that was, after all, only what had previously
been carried on by most youth groups! Anniversary celebrations were held,
outings, trips, camping trips were undertaken. But that every single one
should have been led with demanding seriousness under the Word of God, or
that every single one of the young Christians in his youth group should have
been made clearly conscious of the responsible obligation of his
confirmation vow and his faith — that has, if it happened at all,
unfortunately been the case only in very isolated instances. And so it could
happen that the German people were shown a film "I Accuse!" and the
overwhelming majority, precisely of the youth, said "Yes" to euthanasia.
Everyone who is permitted to serve in the youth work of our church in a
leading or assisting capacity cannot take the responsibility he bears
seriously enough! For we shall one day have to give account also for every
idle word that we have spoken! (Matthew 12:36.) This is not meant to
pronounce a verdict of rejection over every kind of game and relaxing
entertainment. But mark well: relaxation! Not entertainment or outings at
any price, for their own sake, perhaps even because we were previously too
mentally lazy to work out a proper program, or even because we had to show
consideration for those young people who do not know what to make of the
Word of God! Let us be clear about this: for the mass of the people the word
of the cross remains foolishness, and for the mass of young people our
Christian faith is a laughable matter! We must of course not let these young
people fall and withdraw from the outer world into a circle of the
"morally better" (compare what was said in No. 3 of "Der Junge Lutheraner"
by Lutz Poetsch about our responsibility!). But we should at last let go of
all little faith and have trust in the Word of God, which is indeed much
stronger than all parlor games. We should at last trust that God creates
faith through the Gospel. If in our group the Word of God, the personal
working through of the Bible text, the common reading of the Bible is not
practiced, we need not be surprised if even our young people consider it too
boring to read in the Bible! In my opinion, that is the way we should go,
regardless of whether it concerns Sunday school children or our youth group.
Of course we must come into personal contact with the young people entrusted
to us, but we must guard against the mistake that is often made today: that
over the personal we forget the main thing and the only important thing.
"One thing is needful!" (compare Luke 10:38–42). Gn.

Here now, on the question of youth work, two views stand opposed to one
another. Which of the two is right? Or how must the youth hours be shaped
when Christian youth comes together? This letter does not represent the
view of "Der Junge Lutheraner." Let us know your opinion and send it to the
editorial staff of "Der Lutheraner," Pastor Hans Kirsten, (16) Oberursel/Taunus,
Altkönigstraße 50, with the note: For "Der Junge Lutheraner."

Religious Instruction in Vocational School

In the last issue of "Der Junge Lutheraner" this question of religious
instruction in vocational school was raised, which is of interest to many
readers not only because they themselves attend vocational school, but even
more because here they have an opportunity to bear a clear witness on this
question toward their work and school comrades.

The Frankfurt church paper "Weg und Wahrheit" carries in No. 11/12 a report
on a survey conducted on this topic in the domestic-science vocational
school of a large city among girls aged fourteen to seventeen, in which the
660 pupils were asked the following three questions: 1. Would you like to
have religious instruction in vocational school? 2. Who should give it?
(Pastor or teacher?) 3. What would you like to hear? "Weg und Wahrheit"
reports the following, among other things, about the result of this survey:
"Of the 660 evaluated papers, 449 spoke in favor of the provision of
religious instruction. That is 68 percent of all the written responses. 36
girls are conditionally in favor of introducing religious instruction. —
What now are the reasons the pupils give for the wish for religious
instruction? A good third of the girls positively disposed toward religious
instruction expect from it an increase in knowledge about religious matters.
It becomes clear from many answers that the girls hope, through better
knowledge, to come again to the faith that they long for. But the
recognition of having learned far too little about religious matters in the
past time is also quite notable. One girl writes: "I have never yet been in
a religion class, I am neither baptized nor confirmed and have never even
been in a church at all. I do not know whether I am even allowed by my
parents to take part in such a thing. I would love to do it terribly much,
for I am rather ignorant in this respect and would also like to learn
something like that." A quarter of the girls hope for help for life from
religious instruction. In one written response it says: "I expect that
religious instruction will hold our thoughts together more firmly again, in
order to find the way into the future more easily." Another writes: "I am
unclear about many questions that I would very much like to have answered."
The answer of a third reads: "I would like to learn about the meaning of
life and about what concerns us young people in particular, how we should
conduct ourselves in the Christian sense in today's time." What many girls
hope for from religious instruction emerges from a written response in
which it says: "Religious instruction in vocational school? Yes, that is
hard to say. In my opinion religious instruction should be given in order
to strengthen the faith that is in the youth and that is not as firm and
steadfast as it should actually be, for instance in my case. I cannot
believe in God, but I would like to." — In contrast to these girls, who are
positively disposed toward the introduction of religious instruction, 175,
that is, 26.5 percent, are against religious instruction. More than half of
them state that they have no interest. Others, about a tenth, state that
they do indeed affirm religion but do not want to have religious
instruction. As a reason for this it is frequently stated that one is
already instructed about matters of religion in church and in a religious
youth group. — 21 girls declare a directly anti-religious attitude. They
constitute a good three percent of those surveyed. Thus one girl writes:
"Religious instruction was already nothing for me back in elementary
school. I have never had any interest in it. For the simple reason that
there is no God. I have never yet had occasion to greet him." — With some
of these 21 girls, however, there also lie behind this experiences that are
shattering in their severity. Thus it says in one written response: "Since
my father fell in 1944, I have turned completely away from religion,
because it was said that if we believe in God, then Father will also come
home. I prayed until he fell. Then I gave up hope. I want to keep my
distance from religious instruction." Another writes: "I personally cannot
believe in God after all the terrible things of the last years. I could not
imagine that there is a God, if he looked on as thousands of innocent
children perished daily. How is one supposed to believe in God, when the
people dearest to one are taken away?" But this girl ends her remarks with
the sentence: "Perhaps religious instruction could convince me of God. I
don't know. Perhaps?" —

So much for the report of the paper mentioned. All this shows us with
urgent clarity what a great and serious responsibility we have as young
Lutheran Christians toward our fellow workers and coworkers in trade and
occupation. You too are called to give an answer, to those who are placed
beside you at the workplace or in vocational school, to the questions that
move them, and to point them, through a quite clear word, toward the right
way that leads to life, and which you know by God's grace. What then do we
have to say on this question: "Should religious instruction be given in
vocational schools?" And what tasks arise for us as young Lutherans from
those opinions and questions of today's youth, as they are expressed in the
report cited above? Heinrich Huebener