This Week in Texas Methodist History  February 18

J. B. Ahrens Laments Problems Facing German Mission Efforts in Texas  1882

The Board of Missions of the MECS met during the General Conference of 1882, and J. B. Ahrens of New Orleans addressed the group on the difficulties facing the German mission work in Texas and Louisiana.  Those two states constituted the only German speaking conference in the MECS.  The MEC, on the other hand, had 8 German speaking conferences in the US and even sent missionaries back to Germany.

Arhrens was born in Germany in 1836.  H immigrated to Texas and attended Soule University in Chappell Hill.  He then went back to Germany and studied at the University of Gottingen.    In 1863 he was admitted on trial in the Texas Conference when it met in Columbus.  His first appointment was Missionary to the Army, but at the next conference he was appointed to Spring Hill and chaplain to the military post in Hempstead.  Hempstead was the site of one of the most famous prisoner of war camps in Texas, Camp Groce.   It is unknown whether Ahrens served as chaplain to the prisoners or to the guards--or both.  

After the war he was appointed professor at Soule, but very quickly was transferred to New Orleans by Bishop Keener.  He basically spent the rest of this ministry in New Orleans as pastor, presiding elder, and editor of two newspapers Familienfreund and later also the Kinderfreund.  

During his pastorate German immigration to Louisiana diminished and Germans became more integrated into US society, so Ahrens oversaw the transition of the largest German Church in New Orleans, Dryades Street from German to English services.  

He attributed the struggles of the MECS in his German work in Texas and Louisiana to the following:

1.  "Educated Germans for some reason or the other, associate our denomination with slavery."  It seems obvious to us today that the MECS was associated with slavery.

2.  German rationalism promoted secularism.  It is true that the critical study of the Bible had been a product of German universities.  German "rationalism" was a favorite bete noire for American Protestants which they conflated with atheism.  I have seen denunciations of this philosophical tradition in Methodist literature used as a reason to enter World War I. 

3.  Lutherans are becoming more organized and attacking us as fanatics.  They have the advantage of a steady stream of well-educated pastors coming from Europe.  It is true that Lutherans were becoming more organized.  The first Lutherans were small immigrant communities, but now they were well established.  

4.  The MEC is building churches right next to our churches!   The presence of two Methodist churches in small towns is confusing to the Germans.  Of course, with 8 annual conferences the MEC could support a much larger publishing effort than could the MECS.  The publishing efforts were located in Cincinnati and headed by William Nast who became quite a celebrity in Methodist circles.  

Ahrens died in New Orleans in 1906.