Being Church in a Post-Atheist Culture: Mission in East Germany
Introduction
East Germany, once the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation, is now among the most irreligious regions in Europe. Religious institutions are largely absent from daily life and many people grow up without ever encountering the Christian faith. In this context, how can churches be meaningfully present? And what does it mean to speak of mission in a society shaped by religious indifference?
A Culture Formed by Secularisation
The roots of this reality lie in the era of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, 1949–1990), where religion was systematically sidelined through state-sponsored secularism. Religious education was replaced with ideological instruction, and Christian rituals—especially the Protestant confirmation (a rite of passage into church membership around age 14)—were deliberately supplanted by the Jugendweihe, an explicitly atheist coming-of-age ceremony created to draw young people into loyalty to the socialist state. Rather than persecuting faith, the state normalised its absence. As a result, two to three generations grew up religiously unformed.
After the peaceful revolution of 1989, churches played a vital civic role, but the initial appreciation quickly faded. A new wave of church departures followed, and faith remained largely irrelevant to daily life.
Religious Indifference as the Norm
Today, many people in East Germany describe their post-atheist identity simply as "normal." Religious illiteracy is widespread: many do not know the meaning of the cross or who Jesus is. Christian language is foreign. Yet, this void is not empty, as many turn to spirituality, psychology, or esoteric practices. What is missing is not belief, but Christianity itself.
Mission through Incarnation and Community
In this setting, traditional evangelism is often ineffective. We, missionaries of European Christian Mission in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, have learned to live out our faith incarnationally. Inspired by Sabine Schröder’s work (Konfessionslose erreichen, 2007), we aim to embody the Gospel through shared life, language, and culture.
Community life is deeply valued, especially in neighbourhoods shaped by GDR-era ideals. Many people entering our pioneer church project, Haltepunkt E in Rostock-Evershagen, are first touched not by doctrine, but by the atmosphere—how people care for one another. Through shared meals, prayer, Bible reading, and music, they slowly engage with Christian faith at their own pace.
Each year, we witness baptisms of people with no church background. Behind an indifferent surface, we often discover a person unexpectedly open to Christ. Life together in community becomes the context in which the Holy Spirit works—also within ourselves.
Obstacles to Reaching Post-Christian Europeans
Reflecting on the past 15 years having lived and worked with post-atheist Germans in deprived and so-called ‘white’ working class areas, we have identified several obstacles, which we believe hinder us reaching those Europeans who haven’t been ‘Christianised’.
One of these obstacles is our language: our preaching, our songs, even our prayers require a high degree of Christian knowledge which people in our context do not have. We have to learn to speak ‘normal’ again – avoiding all ‘insider’ words and expressions and using the language of the people to communicate the Gospel. This is hard work – and we might need local non-Christians to help us with that!
Similarly, our music can hinder or even repel. In our context, people neither understood nor liked the best of evangelical worship! So, we asked a local DJ to play music at our Christian events, thus turning them into great parties (doesn’t that fit to the Gospel?) and helping us learn the local music taste. And yes, the DJs musical choices weren’t always that ‘Christian’ – but isn’t that part of what we call discipleship?
Our idea of Christian community might be an obstacle as well. Usually, to become really part of the Christian community, you have to believe and behave well. It took quite some courage to rethink and re-do community in a more missional way: where people first belong and fully participate and then get the opportunity to discover Jesus and be changed. This models the mixed, chaotic and rather awkward group of people who followed Jesus. It focuses on discipleship – both for those who still have to discover Jesus and those who have been following him for many years. Indeed, for us upright and well-behaved Christians participating in such community of ‘sinners, drunks and antisocial’ is a huge discipleship challenge.
In this context, perhaps the biggest obstacle for the church in post-Christian Europe may be its wealth. So many of our (western) churches are predominantly middle class, having lost contact with the poor and the working class. Moreover, wealth – or a comfortable life – is a major threat to discipleship. Jesus is much more critical about money and wealth than we’d like to admit. We have to learn how to connect with (not just serve!) the poor again. Our church has to re-find its place: at the bottom of society, not in the middle! No center church, but rather church on the outskirts, in the banlieue. If some of us had the courage to sell their comfortable houses and move into the poor neighborhood, the European church would regain its transforming power – changing today’s Europe from the bottom-up.
Hard Soil
We often hear fellow Christians complaining about the indifference of their neighbours: ‘people are so closed, they do not come to our events, it is such hard soil’. But perhaps it is our evangelical sub-culture, disconnected (and afraid?) of our contemporary, post-Christian culture, which really is the hard soil. We need courage to radically open our communities to the people around us, to engage them, learn from them, and leave our wealthy comfort zone. It is out there that we will rediscover true discipleship and experience the overwhelming and transformative power of the Holy Spirit. And we do not need to be afraid: wherever we go, Jesus has been there long before us.
Gerrit van Dijk & Christiaan Kooiman
Bibliography
Haubold, A. (2011). Kirche unter Atheisten: Eine Herausforderung – Kirche in einer säkularen Gesellschaft oder privilegierten Diaspora? Dekanats-Pfarrerversammlung, Hermannstadt/Sibiu.
Schröder, S. (2007). Konfessionslose erreichen: Gemeindegründungen von freikirchlichen Initiativen seit der Wende 1989 in Ostdeutschland. Neukirchener Verlag.
Hirsch, Alan (2009): The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church. Brazos Press.
Chester, Tim (2012). Unreached. Growing Churches in Working-Class and Deprived Areas. IVP.