For this month's Recitation, I decided to share my official University greetings to the community of Lutherstadt, Wittenberg. Elizabeth and I, along with Meghan Mason, director of international education, recently visited Lutherstadt to learn more about our Witt in Wittenberg, Germany program, engage with students studying there, connect with some of our international alumni, and further strengthen our partnership with Lord Mayor Zugehör, Christian Eggert, and Stefanie Rieger, all of whom have been pivotal in assisting our students and faculty during their time in Lutherstadt.
Lieber Herr Oberbürgermeister Zugehör, sehr geehrte Damen und Herren.
It is an honor and a pleasure for Elizabeth and me to be with you all, representing both our home city and “twin” town of Springfield, Ohio, and our Wittenberg University. In the spring of 1988, I was studying German in a Goethe Institut in southwest Germany, in a small town called Schwäbisch Hall. My great grandparents were German, and I have cousins who still reside in Seibelsdorf, a town just north of Kronach. While I was studying in 1988, we were granted the opportunity to travel through “die Ostzone” for a week, and I visited Dresden, Leipzig, and Meissen. It is an enduring memory for me. So much has changed for us all over the last 40 years, not least for the people of eastern Germany. I am so thankful to join you now, nearly 40 years later as the president of Wittenberg University.
In 1845, a Lutheran pastor and teacher named Ezra Keller was sent out to south central Ohio to look for a site to establish a college and seminary. At that time, Ohio was the western frontier of the United States, and many died every summer due to fever and infection. Even so, Keller and the Lutheran community were committed to building a school where young people could learn of the light of Christ and to raise up churches in that wilderness.
This was less than 30 years after Universität Wittenberg (founded in 1502) and the Friedrichs-Universität (founded in 1694) merged in 1817. In recognition of the great reformer and his commitment to bringing Christ and education to all the world, it was decided that the college should be named for Martin Luther’s own Universität Wittenberg, and so Wittenberg College was founded. Nearly 100 years later, we became a university, and for over 30 years our students have had the blessing and privilege to study here in Wittenberg, 15 years as a semester-long program. This year also marks the 31st year of the special relationship between Springfield, Ohio, and Wittenberg Germany.
I am a scholar of the Bible and ancient Judaism. I study the people, texts, and cultures that go back over 4,000 years. The United States is a young country and Wittenberg University, while ancient by American standards, is a child compared with the foundations of Die Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. The city of Wittenberg and the people of Saxony have endured for centuries. “Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, but we go on.” When I consider the promises of God, from creation to redemption, when I study the history of the Reformation – the works of Martin Luther and Melancthon – and when I read of the founding of our own little Wittenberg in Ohio, I am inspired and encouraged. We shall endure. We shall all of us, both Wittenbergs, we shall thrive.
In 1845, as he prepared his first report for the Wittenberg College Board of Directors, Ezra Keller wrote in his journal of all the work that he had accomplished over the prior year and the toll it had taken on his spirit and his body. Still, he was confident in his calling, certain in the future of this new Wittenberg. He closed his journal entry writing, “The more toil; the more grace.”
Or, as Martin Luther himself wrote, "Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times.” (Preface to Romans, 1522; WA DB 7,10; LW 35:370).
Vielen Dank für die Ehre und das Privileg, heute bei Ihnen sein zu dürfen. Wir sind stolz darauf, Ihr Partner und Freund zu sein. Danke sehr.
Yours,
Christian M. M. Brady, DPhil (Oxon.)
President
