  The nomenclature “special student” suits Uwe (pronounced ü-vay) Bilger in more ways than one. As a participant in the year-long Tübingen Exchange Fellowship last year, he was given the status of special student at Princeton Seminary. But beyond this, he is special. There simply were not many Seminary students like Bilger — a rare combination of computer wiz, comedian, and conscientious objector — around at PTS last year. Clad in black jeans and black sneakers, white teeshirt and Garfield socks, he might have been just another ‘twenty-something’ American student. But he wasn’t, and some of the differences were obvious. When he opened his mouth to speak about his youth in the village of Rotenzimmern, close to Stuttgart, his words were punctuated by an appealing German inflection. (An accent that became all the more charming when he imitated the “Spice Girls” or asked questions about American culture.) While some of his adolescent experiences sounded familiar — he found village life boring, longed for a VCR, and resented having to attend church — many demonstrated how different growing up in a different culture can be. For example, in Germany all men are required to serve either in the Army or in social services after completing gymnasium (the German equivalent of American junior high and high school). He chose to do social service, working as a custodian in a retreat house. Why? “I grew up a pacifist,” he says. “My mother and father are older. They grew up in World War II. My grandfather was designated ‘missing in action.’ I have seen so many grieving, suffering people…violence is not a solution.” Also an accomplished musician and a computer wiz, Bilger had a somewhat unorthodox introduction to both fields. As a ten-year-old, he taught himself to play an electric organ keyboard. By the age of sixteen, he was playing the organ in his village church. At seventeen, he earned a certificate in conducting and organ playing, became professional, and played on a regular basis. “At first I resisted,” he admits, “because I didn’t want to be connected with the church. But then, I began to love playing so much, I had to do it.” At about the same time that he was teaching himself to
play the electric organ, Bilger was teaching himself how
to use a computer. Fascinated with the Internet when it first emerged in the early ’90s and with the possibilities inherent in this new form of communicating, he read and asked everything he could about the field. He also worked with Dr. Matthias Schnell at the University of Tübingen to maintain the home page for the Protestant Church in Germany. (Schnell has indicated that he would like to continue working with Bilger in the future.) In his year at PTS, Bilger made significant contributions both to the Seminary’s music program and to its web site. He sang tenor in the Touring Choir, a commitment that not only entailed weekly rehearsals but also required traveling each Sunday to sing in a different church, and told his “story” on two of these occasions. He played the organ at a service in Miller Chapel. He also assisted PTS’s first webmaster, Neal Magee, throughout the year as the Seminary’s web site became a reality, and then took over as interim webmaster until Michael Hommer, the Seminary’s new webmaster, arrived in August. Hommer is particularly impressed by and grateful for Bilger’s expertise. “His knowledge of the PTS web site and Internet technologies in general allowed me to ease into my new position without worrying about web maintenance,” he says. “In addition, Uwe had the rare ability to create web pages not only from a technical standpoint but also from an artistic viewpoint.” Bilger hopes to blend his computer expertise with his commitment to the church, a commitment that, despite adolescent grumblings, has always been there. “Somewhere in my journey with God,” he says, “I decided that I wanted to become a pastor. But there may not be a church for me in Germany, and so my goal is to develop a good Internet ministry. Not the stuff we have now. “At the moment, the church uses the Internet to
communicate information. I think it should do more. I am
not talking about meditating in front of a screen —
personally, I would have a hard time with that — but
we need to think about how we should approach ministry on
the Internet.” “Who knows,” he says. “If I don’t
get a vicarage, maybe I will come back to
Princeton.” Photo: Jay Gardner © Copyright 1998 Princeton
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