(Speech by Pfr. Dr. Stefan Felber on Nov 1st, 2025 in Wittenberg, Germany)

Occasion and context

The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck said in 1864 to his closest friend:

‘Courage on the battlefield is commonplace among us, but you will often find that even very respectable people lack civil courage.’

Do we have the courage to contradict? According to Bismarck, there is courage when we face life and death on the battlefield, but in ordinary life the German is rather of a harmony-seeking kind that prefers to join the majority. But this is something that makes him prone to political adventures. It was for this reason that Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor after 1945, ascertained during a speech in Cologne that the biggest problem of the Germans was their subservience to the authorities—and this resulted from a ‘wrong understanding of state, power and the position of the individual’.

A week ago, a small house search was carried out because of an ironic tweet posted almost two years ago by media scholar Norbert Bolz. The legal scholar Volker Boehme-Nessler commented on this and similar procedures as follows: ‘We are on a slippery slope from a state governed by the rule of law to a state of intimidation’. That makes it all the more important that we encourage one another not to withhold the truth and to be ready to risk imprisonment and expropriation when necessary, if eternity is more important to us than worldly possessions. 

However, courage does not only matter for eternity, but also for our earthly freedom. If, during this time of remembrance of the Reformation, we examine the path of the Church in the 16th century, we will quickly notice that without the boldness to be critical of ecclesial and worldly authorities there would have been no progress towards the freedom and ultimately the prosperity of our country. It was not just Luther, but also the Jewish and Christian martyrs, the persecuted prophets of the Old Covenant, the stoned deacon Steven, and the persecuted Christians of our time, who shed their blood for the liberating truth and so fertilised the ground for our freedom.

The Christian boldness to preach the Word of God without fear of men was the most efficacious root of our civil freedom. The Greek efforts to achieve a democracy, which we learn about in history class at school, sunk in the military dictatorships of the Greeks and the Romans. Whereas the Roman emperors demanded divine veneration, Christianity required from the state a religious restraint. It took long until the kings and emperors realised that they should not play a role in the election of bishops. This process is not yet completely over—the regional governments still have a certain right to mention their preference in the election of the corresponding bishop. See how today’s thesis number 90 speaks against this. Nonetheless, the development of our Churches is moving in the wrong direction again. We just need to remember the process against Olaf Latzel in Germany and Päivi Räsänen in Finland (which was transmitted online a few days ago, by the way). This is why it is so important that we gain clarity today about what Christian freedom means. What we need is civil courage, not a civil religion steered from the top! Whoever wants to secure our democratic societies, will promote biblical Christianity. But whoever advocates for a state-controlled civil religion promotes old totalitarianism.

According to our Basic Law (Art. 4), religious freedom is the most strongly secured right in Germany. But when Christians lose their courage to use this freedom, this right is emptied out sooner or later. There are many signs of this. During his speech in Munich, the US vice president J.D. Vance pointed out to this problem in our society, but he reaped more misunderstanding than approval. One could expect a significant understanding from the EKD, whose slogan for this year’s congress was ‘courageous – strong – resolute’. However, signals are coming from church offices that are more reminiscent of the slogans of certain political parties than of the biblical message, ranging from gender ideology to a new warmongering.

As we will soon see from some Bible verses, there have always been shortcomings among God’s people, particularly in confessing something different from what the majority believes!

Biblical Foundations for Boldness

Those who search the Bible for inspiration on our topic will find in the Old Testament the task of the prophets to speak the word of God unadulterated to the people and to the spiritual and secular authorities, and in the New Testament the concept of “boldness,” in Greek parrhēsia, which stands for openness, courage, and the courageous proclamation of the truth. The prophet Micah could say (3:8):

But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

The work of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel could serve as a positive example; each of them would deserve a separate presentation!

However, for the sake of brevity, let me open just three small but insightful windows into biblical themes: one Old Testament example, one New Testament example, and one example encompassing the entire Bible.

Old Testament: Lamentations 2:14

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.

“Your prophets” – how so? The verse shows that the prophets whose words made it into the Holy Scriptures were only a minority. The majority simply told the people what they wanted to hear.

The Lamentations of Jeremiah look back on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The temple is destroyed, the king and the upper class have been led away into exile. So, is there hatred and condemnation of the Babylonians? No! Filled with sorrow and self-reproach, Israel blames herself for the loss of its freedom. It is an extensive litany of repentance.

In the preceding verse 13, Jeremiah asks: To what shall I compare the misfortune of the daughter of Zion? The answer: “Your wound is as great as the sea,” that is, immeasurably great! And the second question: Who can heal you? The answer: no one, no human being (cf. Jeremiah 30:12ff.).

Third question: How did this horrific failure come about? The explicit answer: “They—your prophets—did not reveal your guilt.” Thus, the false prophets failed in a completely indispensable aspect of their mission: they only wanted to convey what was pleasant. They wanted to proclaim peace, they wanted to be loved, they wanted to advance their careers. They should have known and revealed that in lawless behavior lay hidden the rejection of the Creator and thus death. It is revealed in God’s commandments! The Torah pointed the way to life! But the prophets and priests, the church leaders of the Old Covenant, wanted to be loved. So they refrained from preaching repentance and saying: Turn back, seek the Lord and Creator, not the gods of terror, seek the good shepherd, not the gods of fleeting pleasure, flee to the one to whom all money belongs, instead of to wealth itself!

The Lamentations draw upon the words of other prophets:

Isahiah 58:1 – “Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.”

Jereniah 2:8 – “The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit.”

Ezequiel 22:28 – “And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord has not spoken.”

That is also why, dear friends, these new 95 theses are intended to be words of repentance, like Luther’s 95 theses against the sale of indulgences. Our theses are meant to fulfill a duty that has long been neglected by preachers: God’s good commandments are being suppressed, and many sermons are more flattery and psychotherapy than the word of God: Peace, peace – and yet there is no peace. No indulgence, no CO2 tax, no civil religion with its cheap social romanticism will bring peace with God, let alone peace in society. God’s blessing is only found on God’s paths, as the Book of Lamentations clearly states.

New Testament: Acts 4:18–31. Boldness

(…) And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

With boldness (parrhesia, 10 times in Acts [verb + noun]), the apostles declared before the Jewish High Council that Jesus is the Christ and that Jesus is the only name by which salvation is possible (v. 12). The apostles refused to remain silent about this. Using words from the Psalms and their own words, the community prayed for boldness. The prayer is answered, the place shakes, and they are all filled with the Holy Spirit, who is a spirit of bold speech: “They spoke the word of God with boldness.”

Hebrews 10:35: “Do not throw away your boldness, which has a great reward!”

General biblical theme: Fear not!

The divine command, “Do not be afraid,” is repeated approximately 170 times in the Bible. This message should allow us to go through life fearlessly, day after day! We find it most frequently in Isaiah, for example, in the wonderful words of comfort: “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine!” (43:1) This means: You belong only to me, the Good Shepherd—to no one else! A great lineage extends from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Isaiah into the New Testament. They all had the privilege of hearing: Do not be afraid!

Paul may initially have had reservations about preaching in Corinth. This city was a moral cesspool, utterly depraved sexually; countless public prostitutes were employed on the temple mount in the service of the goddess Aphrodite; a third of the population were slaves—people who had little time to think about anything beyond their daily needs. Could preaching possibly make a difference there? Then, one night, Jesus spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you…” (Acts 18:9-10): the Immanuel!

Therefore, we too need not fear catastrophic conditions and depraved minds, neither in the world nor in the church. We have a clear mission and an unshakeable weapon that even defeats the devil: God’s word is like dynamite. It shatters hardened hearts, it can bring the dead back to life and soften hearts of stone. Wherever God’s word is proclaimed, supernatural forces are invisibly at work.

For the last time in Revelation 1, we hear our Lord’s words, “Do not be afraid!”: “Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last and the Living One. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Write what you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this” (verses 18–19).

Spurgeon said: “We leave fear to those who do not have a heavenly Father.”

Luther’s 95 theses and the later 95 theses

In the Wittenberg City Church, Luther delivered his sermon against indulgences (Sermon on Indulgences and Grace); it was also here that the first church service in the German language took place. The legacy of the Reformation also confronts us with the question: Does the recognition of truth also entail a courageous confession of that truth? Or do we keep it hidden from ourselves?

If we were to do that, then everything would have been in vain. Biblical outspokenness, or to put it in secular terms: our civil courage, is an essential part of faith. “I believe, therefore I speak,” Paul tells the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4:13). Mystical introspection is the wrong path. Constantly reassuring modern people, who are so psychologically fragile, is the wrong path—precisely the one that the lamentations so mourn! He writes to the Ephesians (5:10-11):

Find out what pleases the Lord, and do not participate in the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

In his 95 Theses, Luther aimed to expose what was deeply damaging to the faith: He invited academic theologians to discuss whether the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins did not constitute a contempt for the cross of Christ. It caused a huge stir, but there was enormous resistance, and it required considerable further effort before real reforms were implemented, at least in parts of the Catholic Church, which then had to break away from Rome.

Recently, there were only partial successes. This also applies to the theories of later times:

In the 95 theses that the Kiel pastor Claus Harms published for the Reformation anniversary in 1817, he spoke out against the subordination of faith to the spirit of the times, as he already called it back then (his first thesis). He argued that the fact that God had been pulled down from his judgment seat and replaced by each individual’s own conscience could only have happened because the church had failed to fulfill its role as guardian (Harms’s thesis 14). Personal conscience had taken the place of “fear of God”; the idea of ​​divine punishment had thus disappeared (theses 16 to 19). The doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of faith, faith and life, belong together (theses 25 and 26); life must be guided by the word of God and not the other way around; whoever places reason above revelation mistakes the moon for the sun (thesis 33). Thesis 66 expresses a problem that we still face today: “The people cannot trust the chief commissioners of the church, several of whom are under fire for allegedly not even possessing the faith of the church themselves.” Harms already recognized that the lack of courage to profess the old, true faith leads to an exodus of believers without winning over the unbelievers (thesis 81), and ultimately to new divisions.

In 1996, several pastors also nailed 95 new theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In view of rampant moral decay – citing homosexuality, pornography, abortion, euthanasia, and drug legalization (Thesis 27) – they called for a renewed determination on the part of the churches to be light and salt (Thesis 11) and to courageously fulfill their role as watchmen (Thesis 12). These 1996 theses even fear a disintegration of state and society if the authority of the Bible, and especially God’s commandments, continue to be disregarded (Theses 10, 85, 86). The situation described in the Lamentations, which we heard at the beginning, reappears here. A church that adapts itself to the political slogans of the right or the left will become superfluous (Thesis 36). Such a church no longer seeks unity in truth, but rather truth in unity. True unity, however, is only possible if the Bible is once again taken seriously as the Word of God (Thesis 64).

With these new 95 theses of 2025, we place ourselves in this tradition of reforms. We are not withdrawing from the problems of the world and seeking a perfect community that does not exist. No, contrary to the cowardice in our own ranks and the fearfulness of our flesh, we encourage one another and all who hear this: Do not be afraid!

Among the errors and false doctrines that our brothers and sisters have denounced in the past, we now find gender ideology, which demands a strong response and rejection. Thesis 68 (!) states: “Every human being bears the image of God as either male or female.” Because of the increasing relativization of truth, theses 36 to 54 offer a detailed affirmation of Holy Scripture as the infallible Word of God.

All these theses are an expression of a courageous confession of faith – and they call for a courageous confession of faith in return: “If the Church becomes ashamed of the gospel, she crucifies Christ and perishes with the world; if the Church bears witness to the gospel, she is crucified together with Christ and saves the world.” (Thesis 19, of course, this refers to individual members of the world and not to humanity as a whole). And Thesis 87: “It is the duty of the Church to remind the government and all of society that there is a higher, immortal, almighty, and only wise ruler: the triune God. He loves justice, as the holy Scriptures often say, and brings judgement upon the violation of his good commandments.”

Civil courage and biblical boldness

Not only the Bible itself, but also church history is full of examples showing that the courageous confession of faith, even by a minority, is promising. When Emperor Constantine, 1700 years ago, decided to stabilize his world power not against the Christians, but with them, between 5 and 10 percent of the inhabitants of his empire were baptized. This small minority was stronger than the many who did not know whom to listen to or what to live for. Even today, it is not masses of people that are needed, but rather a few who, with prudence, patience, and care, anchor their faith in such a way that it endures, even when the storms of life shake it.

Civil courage today does not mean that we can expect to once again, like Charlemagne, use state power to force people into the church. Anyone who expects that has understood nothing of the New Testament. On the contrary, we expect that those who hold positions of power in the churches will prefer to use state power to get rid of critics rather than repent and shed their civil religion. The Chinese Christians, in their great distress due to an aggressively atheistic state religion, call out to us:

“The true church is not afraid of being homeless; the true church is afraid of being spineless. Christ was hung ‘in mid-air’ on the cross. This shows that the world has no place for Christ. Yet Jesus conquered the world and drew the world to God.”

Therefore, we cordially invite you to sign and disseminate the new 95 Theses. And we call upon synod members and church leaders to provide a biblically sound response! Perhaps it will turn out that Bismarck and Adenauer were wrong in their judgments about the Germans after all, at least as far as Christians are concerned.