By Lloyd A Harsch, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
Throughout history, God has chosen the most unlikely of people for His service.
One such person was Johann Gerhard Oncken.
He was born out of wedlock in Germany on Jan. 31, 1800. His mother soon dropped out of the picture, leaving his upbringing to her Lutheran parents. At age 14, Oncken was apprenticed to a Scottish merchant. The merchant’s mother, a devout Presbyterian, made sure that Oncken attended church regularly. It was in Scotland that Oncken first encountered a recent innovation in church life, Sunday Schools.
As part of his job, Oncken traveled in Scotland, England, France, and Germany. On one such trip to London in 1820, he stayed at Mrs. Dallimore’s London Coffee House.
This Congregational family’s devotions drew Oncken toward faith and after a sermon on Romans 8:1 at a Methodist church, he was converted. Oncken immediately began spreading his new-found faith, having as his first convert the black slave of an American merchant.
During the next 50 years of Oncken’s amazing leadership, German Baptists grew from nothing to 31,194 adherents in 165 congregations.
There were an equal number of Baptists throughout Scandinavia, and Central and Eastern Europe, and even more who emigrated to Canada and America. Johann Gerhard Oncken is truly the founder of Continental Baptists in Europe.
Here’s how the work grew: After the Reformation, the church in Germany had became cold and lifeless.
France’s occupation under Napoleon accelerated a move toward Rationalism.
The Continental Society was formed to send missionaries to Germany to re-evangelize it. Upon the recommendation of Baptist evangelist Robert Haldane, Oncken was appointed an agent of the Society to “preach the gospel as he had opportunity along the shores of the German Ocean, in Hamburg, Bremen, and East Friesland.”
Oncken arrived in the city-state of Hamburg on Dec. 16, 1823, and met with considerable success. Within two months, his preaching attracted up to 180 people.
By 1825 he had started the first Sunday School on the continent. Fearing expulsion from Hamburg because of his ministry, Oncken started a small printing business in his home to demonstrate his contribution to the community and in the hope of becoming a Hamburg citizen. On April 25, 1828, he achieved this goal of citizenship.
During a trip to England, Oncken met and married an English woman from London on May 19, 1828. They had seven children, two of whom died in infancy.
Oncken’s wife died in 1845, leaving five young children. In 1847, he married the widow of an English merchant residing in Hamburg, who became a beloved mother to his children.
It was the birth of his children that got Oncken thinking about baptism. Through personal Bible study, Oncken began to question the validity of infant baptism, and eventually arrived at Baptist principles. He asked British Baptists for advice about being baptized. He was advised either to travel to England to be baptized or to baptize himself. Neither option was satisfactory.
A Baptist ship captain brought Oncken’s desire to be baptized to Baptists in America.
Barnas Sears, a professor on sabbatic leave from Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution of Newton, Mass., visited Oncken. Convinced of the validity of his faith, Sears baptized Oncken, his wife, and five others in the Elbe River late in the evening of April 22, 1834. The clandestine service was necessary because believer’s baptism by immersion was illegal in Hamburg, as it was in much of Europe.
The next day the small group formed a Baptist church with Oncken as pastor.
Because Oncken had become a Baptist, the Edinburgh Bible Society and the Sunday Schools that he had established in Germany severed ties with him. Oncken was considered a sectarian, unsuitable for ministry partnership.
On Sears’s recommendation, however, Oncken was appointed a missionary with the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society.
The work spread north to Denmark and east to Berlin, growing in spite of persecution.
Oncken was arrested the first of several times in May 1840, because he “continued to preach, baptize, and administer the Lord’s Supper, according to his own confession, not withstanding the prohibition of the authorities.”
In 1849, the growing number of Baptist congregations formed the German Baptist Union. This was the first Baptist organization on the continent and included congregations in Denmark.
It took as its motto, “Every Baptist a Missionary.”
This focus on every Christian’s responsibility to share the Gospel was a major factor in German Baptist growth. When a German Baptist moved to another city or country, he would begin sharing his faith, start a Bible study and eventually form a church.
Oncken used an innovative church planting strategy. The main congregation in Hamburg had several mission stations or home fellowships associated with it.
By 1870 there were 36 such stations supported by the Hamburg congregation and whose members were part of its membership, much like modern multi-site congregations. Deacons were assigned to oversee the work of each station and preach whenever the pastor was not there. When a station grew to the point where it could be financially self-supporting, it would organize as a separate congregation, choosing one of its members to be its pastor.
Oncken used his publishing business to print the Bibles and tracts that he distributed throughout the city. By 1851, German Baptists had distributed some 410,036 Bibles and 6,237,951 tracts.
Many people were curious about Baptist beliefs, but hesitant to buy a tract.
An effective tract distribution method involved loaning out tracts and following this initial contact with a personal visit.
This second visit allowed the person to ask questions about what he had read in the tract.
The work extended east to Poland and Russia. Oncken made several tours of the area in the 1860s to organize and strengthen churches. Because of his success gathering existing Christians into Baptist churches, he earned the nickname, The Collector.
Due to failing health, Oncken retired from his pastorate in 1881 and moved to Zürich. He died Jan. 2, 1884, and the funeral was held in Hamburg.