70 years ago today, a Protestant pastor addressed ARD viewers for the first time in the Word for Sunday. Over the years, the Christian preaching mission has changed.
In the beginning there was a break. A cable break in the television studio briefly prevented the Catholic prelate Klaus Mund from Aachen from being able to speak the first word live on Sunday. That was on May 1, 1954. Seven days later, a Christian preaching program was broadcast on German television for the first time.
On May 8, 1954, the Protestant pastor Walter Dittmann addressed the audience for the first time from the former high bunker on Hamburg’s Heiligengeistfeld. “You have seen and heard a lot this evening,” were the first words of the new TV format.
The war, the Nazi dictatorship and its murderous crimes were just nine years ago. But the anniversary of the end of the Second World War was not a topic in the first televised sermon, which lasted ten minutes and was broadcast live.
Second oldest still existing broadcast in Germany
In his word for Sunday, Dittmann called for a “certain attitude” in order to be able to interpret the world’s numerous images and sounds from a Christian perspective. “If we have an eye for a tormented human face and an ear for a silent complaint, then we have learned to see and hear.”
Even today, 70 years after the first word on Sunday, the statements made back then seem to have lost none of their relevance. That’s the word for Sunday after daily News the second oldest still existing program on German television.
Since its launch in 1954, the format has been ecumenically responsible. Today, the total of eight speakers from the Catholic and Protestant Churches take turns on a weekly basis.
Pastor Horst Greim from Eisenach was the first speaker of the Sunday word from the GDR in the 1990s.
The churches are responsible for the content
At Easter Vigil 2020, in the middle of the corona pandemic, there was an ecumenical premiere: for the first time, two speakers, Bishops Georg Bätzing and Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, were in front of the camera. At that time, due to the protective regulations during the Corona crisis, no public services took place. It was a historic word for Sunday.
The churches are responsible for the content of the Christian proclamation program. Due to state broadcasting agreements and corresponding laws, as corporations under public law, they are entitled to special broadcasting times on public broadcasting.
The Protestant media bishop and church president of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau, Volker Jung, said with regard to the 70th anniversary of the word on Sunday: “It does not provide ready answers, but rather offers Christian interpretive horizons for current social questions.” The broadcast is timely and timeless.
His Catholic brother, Cardinal Reinhard Marx from Munich, added that speaking about God also opens up important horizons for central questions of the present. “It gives support and hope from a Christian perspective.”
Value-oriented Offer of meaning
Today, according to its own claim, the Christian proclamation program would rather provide a value-oriented offer of meaning to current questions of the time and not present ready-made answers. The large churches have lost their moral authority to interpret.
The preaching style of the 1950s and 1960s is now history when it comes to Sunday. The Christian faith, its traditions and rituals are no longer self-evident in a secular and diverse society today. While in 1954 more than 90 percent of the population in Germany was Protestant or Roman Catholic, today the number of members of the two large Christian churches is below 50 percent of the total population.
The word on Sunday must also face this. The Protestant spokeswoman Annette Behnken from Hanover emphasizes that although church membership is dwindling, interest in religious issues is not. It’s about speaking to people directly and simply, about life, about longings and hopes, about everything that deeply concerns people, says Behnken.
The priest and theologian Michael Sievernich from Frankfurt was also one of the speakers of the word for Sunday in the 1990s.
An average of 1.24 million viewers
Over the decades, the length of the format has also changed. The original ten minutes have now become four, which are now after the daily topics and will be broadcast before the television film late Saturday evening.
On average, 1.24 million people are watching today. That is significantly less than in the early decades of the word for Sunday. Back then, more than ten million watched. But the word for Sunday attracts more spectators on a Saturday evening than go to the football stadiums of the German professional leagues on a weekend.
More than 300 speakers have coined the word Sunday over the past 70 years. It took three years until Erika Schwarze was the first woman to speak about the Christian message on television.
Popes addressed the public twice in the Word on Sunday: John Paul II in 1987 and Benedict XVI. shortly before his visit to Germany in 2011. Other prominent speakers included: Hans Küng, the nun Isa Vermehren, Heinrich Albertz, Hanns Lilje and Otto Dibelius.
The Catholic priest Stephan Wahl was the spokesman for the Word on Sunday for twelve years.
Open horizons and provide food for thought
The speakers repeatedly had to react to current events. After the “Landshut” plane was hijacked in Mogadishu on October 15, 1977, the Protestant pastor Jörg Zink changed his word about Sunday at short notice. And the then Berlin bishop and council chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Martin Kruse, spoke on the First in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Commenting on current developments and events from a Christian perspective and interpreting them in a practical way is still the aim of the speakers today. The program director for culture Bavarian Radio and ARD– Coordinator for Religion, Björn Wilhelm, judges that the word for Sunday has moved with the times and at the same time has retained its core. In times of multiple crises, it is important to open horizons, give life support and provide food for thought, says Wilhelm.
By the way, the word for Sunday is broadcast once a year on Saturday evening before 9 p.m. That’s the case again this weekend – namely before the start of the live broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmö, Sweden. And millions will be watching and listening.