It was founded at Frankfurt am Main in 1863 by a number of distinguished clergymen and laymen of liberal tendencies, representing the freer parties of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of the various German states, amongst whom were the statesmen Bluntschli and von Bennigsen and the professors Richard Rothe, Heinrich Ewald, D. Schenkel, A. Hilgenfeld and F. Hitzig.
The following may serve as illustrations: The creeds of the Protestant Church shut the doors on the past only, but open them for advance in the future; it is immoral and contrary to true Protestantism to require subscription to them.
One of the objects of the association was to some extent obtained by their organisation of the Evangelical State Church in Prussia when Dr Falk was Prussian cultus minister, on the basis of parochial and synodal representation, which came into full operation in 1879.
But the election for the general synod turned out very unfavourable to the liberal party,[1] and the large orthodox majority endeavoured to use their power against the principles and the members of the association.
In 1882 the position of the association was rendered still more difficult by the agitation in Berlin of Dr Kalthoff and other members of it in favour of a people's church on purely dissenting and extremely advanced theological principles.