Church History Discussion

On 20 April 2022 the Friedensau University Library invited to an event in which Johann Heinrich Lindermann was remembered. Lindermann, born in Neuss in 1802, died in Elberfeld in 1892, is regarded as an important pioneer for the later foundation of the Seventh-day Adventists in the German-speaking world. Who was this person? What shaped his faith?

During the lecture the audience was taken on a journey back in time to the period around 1850. In the Bergisches Land Johann Heinrich Lindermann first worked as a silk weaver, at times also as a freelance evangelist. He dealt intensively with questions of faith, took the Bible as a guide and sounded out all the arguments on adult baptism and the teachings on the Sabbath.

The afternoon's speaker was Stephan Laub, born in 1974, a construction technician, cultural manager and restorer from Baden-Württemberg, who has many family ties to Friedensau/Pabsdorf. He describes himself as an amateur historian who spends his free time researching the history of Seventh-day Adventists in Central Europe. He reported on his discoveries in archives and references to the free church church founders of the Brethren movement and the Baptists.