Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Karl Barth - Paul S. Chung страница 23

Название: Karl Barth

Автор: Paul S. Chung

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Религия: прочее

Серия:

isbn: 9781498270311

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ in Switzerland

      Barth’s theology cannot be properly understood without reference to his socialistic activity and Swiss religious socialism. His “Socialist Speeches” and activity until the outbreak of World War I—as has been described above—are themselves reflective of liberal theology, especially when dealing with a relation between theology and political praxis. However, after the war he made a new departure by breaking with his liberal background. To further appreciate Barth’s theology and social praxis after the war, it is first necessary to look at the movement of religious socialism in Switzerland. For understanding the development of religious socialism in Switzerland, it is worthwhile to take note of a historical event beginning with Christoph F. Blumhardt (1842–1919). Although Blumhardt is not depicted as a religious socialist in an authentic sense, the movement of religious socialism in Switzerland has one point of departure in him. Representatives of Swiss religious socialism such as Kutter and Ragaz were strongly influenced by Christoph Blumhardt. Blumhardt, properly understood, is both an example and father of religious socialism in Switzerland. Ragaz, in his book Der Kampf um das Reich Gottes in Blumhardt, Vater und Sohn, und weiter! is full of honor and respect for Blumhardt.

      Blumhardt is spiritually and theologically related to his father, Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–1880). In his parish at Moettlingen the elder Blumhardt was involved for two years in a process of healing a woman who suffered a high degree of hysteria as seen from a medical perspective. As she was healed, a voice sounded out: “Jesus is victor.” Thus, Jesus’s victory became the grounding principle for his healing work in light of the kingdom of God. For him, the kingdom of God had a strong cosmic and apocalyptic dimension rather than being confined to an individualistic and pietistic realm of salvation. The presently real quality of the kingdom of God was bound up with the incarnation of Jesus Christ. However, the reality of the kingdom of God was not restricted to the historical Jesus, but after the ascension the kingdom of God broke into the world in which the healing of a possessed woman was regarded as a sign of God’s in-breaking reality. What is important is that hope for the kingdom of God and the voice that said “Jesus is victor” was understood as an immanent concretization of God’s kingdom.

      According to the elder Blumhardt, the kingdom of God is not shortened or reduced to a spiritual, otherworldly salvation of the soul but is sharpened in concrete-physical and social-material realms. This tendency to integrate the material arena and concrete content into the movement of God’s kingdom finds a strong expansion in the younger Blumhardt. In 1852 Johann Blumhardt moved from Moettlingen to the retreat house in Bad Boll.

      In 1899 Blumhardt arrived at a practical consequence from his understanding of God’s kingdom. In protest against Wilhelm II, he joined the SPD. His entrance into the Social Democratic Party in Germany was not meant to be a sign of his interest in the politics of the party but an expression of his fundamental solidarity with the poor and a practical performance of his idea of the kingdom of God. After Blumhardt’s speech in Göppingen (in June 1899), Eugster-Zuest founded the textile union (Webeverband) in Apenzell, Switzerland. In December 1900, Blumhardt was elected to the Social Democratic Congress in Württemberg. Then in 1889 Kutter came into contact with Blumhardt and paid visits to Bad Boll.

      Hermann Kutter

      In December 1902 when Hermann Kutter (1863–1931) published his work Das Unmittelbare: Eine Menschheitsfrage, he was a pastor at Neumunster in Zurich (between 1899 and 1926). Under the influence of Blumhardt, his work appeared as a philosophical interpretation of Blumhardt’s thought. He characterizes the new life as the living God revealed in Jesus Christ. A turning away from the pure speculative theology to immediacy is identical with a return to the living God or, in the sense of Blumhardt, to the kingdom of God. In this light Kutter noticed in Social Democracy a will to social change, an in-breaking reality of immediacy into an incomplete and deficient society.

      In his book Das Unmittelbare, there is a positive evaluation of the socialistic movement inspired by Blumhardt. The protest of Social Democracy against the old authority, its struggle for a better social order, and its utopia of a new community are, for Kutter, signs of the living God. In a sense, the work of Ragaz was connected to the emergence of Kutter’s theology. In April 1903 Ragaz preached a sermon that came to be known as the “Bricklayers’ Strike Sermon.” In December of the same year, Kutter’s prophetic voice was manifest in his book Sie Müssen! Ein offenes Wort an die christliche Gesellschaft (They Must! An Open Word to Christian Society) (1905).

СКАЧАТЬ