Berlin: City of Many Colors, Cultures and Peoples

A bronze chariot pulled by four prancing steeds and held aloft by the six pillars of the Brandenburg Gate guarded the most famous dividing line in the world: the Berlin Wall. Facing towards the eastern sector, the chariot watched over this heavily guarded checkpoint, one of a handful that allowed traffic between East and West Berlin.

Then came that miraculous November night in 1989 when the Wall was pounded into oblivion by euphoric crowds. The smashing of that wall accelerated the implosion of Communist regimes all across Eastern Europe.

Today the chariot looks down on crowds of camera-toting tourists walking freely between the gate’s pillars. The concrete slabs of the wall have long been pulverized into small souvenir pieces sent around the world. A line of bricks in the roads and parks now traces the site of the former wall through the city, inlaid here and there with a bronze plaque reading: ‘Berlin Wall 1961-1989’. Close to the Western side of the Brandenburg Gate a row of white crosses reminds passers-by of those who died attempting to escape to the West.

A City of New Ideas
In many ways Berlin is a forerunner of new ideas. Things that happen in this city inspire and affect the whole of Germany and the nations around the world. This is most obvious in the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that was instrumental in destroying Communism in Europe. Among the things that were developed in the city were the first computers, the splitting of the atom and even the bra, which brought freedom of movement to millions of women trapped in tight corsets.

Berlin is beautiful and ugly, rich and poor and very diverse. We love this city with its breathtaking size and diversity. Every Berliner identifies with his or her part of the city. For some this signifies pride or sadness, longing or rejection.

Here we see people strolling along the Ku-Damm and others pacing in front of the Old Opera House ‘Unter den Linden’. We see people on the way to the concert of the trendy ‘Bread Factory’ in Prenzlauer Berg and the youth hanging around between the prefabricated ‘Plattenbauten’ in Hellersdorf.

Berlin in its diversity reveals itself with a powerful offering of museums, churches, sporting halls, and exhibitions. Berlin has survived difficult epochs of history, and even a wall dividing west and east. There is no one style or fashion, no typical Berliner, each simply lives his way, her style. One of Berlin’s kings encouraged people to choose their own life styles and faith, and Berliners followed his advice. “Individuality” is the motto.

A Lost City
In spite of all the freedom many of the 3,500,000 people feel lost, irritated, lonely, and trapped in situations from which they cannot escape. The people of Berlin, as different as they are, need our advocacy and prayers for healing, blessing, renewal, and desire for God’s love and presence.

Berlin is no better, but also no worse than other cities! If I were to think of Los Angeles or New York, of Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, of Paris or Moscow, of Delhi, or Mecca, there would be many cities that God could hate. This does not excuse or mitigate the darkness and sin that certainly abounds in Berlin.

But God’s unlimited grace is true for Berlin. John 3:16 (paraphrased) “God so loved the Berliners that he gave His only Son for them.”

God loves the often-irritable Berliners with all His heart. He loves Berliners of every type and orientation: the mystics and soothsayers, the many gay and lesbian people, as much as He does church people and deacons, politicians, workers, the 20 percent who are unemployed and on welfare. He loves the poor just as much as the rich, the many Muslims, New Agers, Hindus, and Buddhist. He loves the immigrants and refugees who come from over 180 different nations and who number as many as 850,000, those with legal papers and the more than 100,000 illegals. He loves them just as much as those that adhere to the Christian faith, who count for only 33 percent of this mostly non-religious society.

In short, He loves all the people in this city because it is precisely for these that He gave His only Son. For this reason, we Christians should and can love the people of this city regardless of whether they think and act like us or have very different values and perspectives on life.

How do we do this? We must live out a vibrant and deep relationship with our Father in heaven and offer Him any aversions we might have against these people. We must ask Him for love and patience for everyone. If we want to abandon the “evil world” out there to its own fate, if we want to keep our congregations “pure and holy,” if our Christian agenda is more important to us than the lost, then this city will surely get even darker and more sinful.

In many ways the Church has been withdrawn from Berlin. Only 33 percent of the population consider themselves Christians. Many of these Christians are nominal with only very few who live in deep fellowship with Jesus and his friends on a day-by-day basis. Even fewer share his love with those who do not know Him in a meaningful and practical way.

There are some inspiring initiatives of Christians offering help to children from migrant families or doing youth work. Others are caring for the poor, reaching out to Muslims, and assisting immigrants with German paper work. But still many parts of the city and many social and ethnic groups remain outside the touch of Christians and the gospel.

“That Wall may be gone but there is still a wall in people’s minds and hearts,” says Free Evangelical Church pastor Hans-Peter Pache, of the Luke Church. There are still divisions between those from West Berlin and those from East Berlin, Germans and foreigners, old and young, charismatics and non-charismatics, left-wingers and right-wingers.

God left his “palace in heaven” to come to earth, and probably the biggest challenge the Christians in Berlin face is to leave their “church palaces” to interact with those around them. By doing so all will discover the life in Christ in a new and rich way.

Let’s Pray!
Pray that God’s children in Berlin will boldly go as His ambassadors to the many lost communities that need His touch. Pray that all unreached ethnic groups will have a chance to hear and respond to the gospel in this city where freedom of religion is still possible.

Kerstin Hack is an author, publisher (http://www.down-to-earth.de) and speaker. She loves to pray on the streets of her home city Berlin. http://www.kerstinHack.de