Christian Geyer (theologian)

Ludwig Karl Christian Geyer (born October 1, 1862 in Manau , † December 23, 1929 in Nuremberg ) was a German Protestant theologian . He is considered an important representative of liberal Protestantism.

Live and act

Christian Geyer came as the third child of the Protestant pastor Karl Ludwig Geyer and his wife Johanna Ida, geb. Nacke, to the world and spent the first years of life in Manau. At the age of seven, his family moved to Dachsbach in Central Franconia . Geyer attended grammar school in Windsbach from 1874 to 1876 , then in Ansbach , where he graduated from high school in 1880. He then studied Protestant theology in Erlangen and Leipzig . In Erlangen he joined the Christian student union Uttenruthia in the Schwarzburgbund in the winter semester of 1880/81 . His most important academic teachers were Franz Hermann Reinhold Frank , Theodor Kolde , Albert Hauck and Karl Hegel . After completing his studies, Geyer completed his military service as a one-year volunteer with the infantry body regiment in Munich and entered the Munich seminary in 1885.

In autumn 1886 Geyer became vicar to his father in Röckingen , and in 1887 he moved to Nördlingen as vicar . After passing the employment examination, Geyer married Anna Eleonore Johanna Fritz (1864–1928) in 1887 and took up his first pastor's position in Altdorf . In the autumn of 1889 he returned to Nördlingen, where he was able to work his way up from the third to the first pastorate over the years. In 1895 Geyer went to the newly established teacher training college in Bayreuth as prefect . There he completed his dissertation on the Nördlinger church ordinances of the 16th century, with which he received his doctorate at the University of Erlangen in the subjects of history, education and the history of philosophy. In 1902 Geyer was sent to the General Synod in Ansbach as a member of the Bayreuth deanery, where he made such an impression in a sermon that he was called to Nuremberg as chief preacher that same year. Geyer held the position of main preacher of St. Sebald until his death.

Geyer worked primarily as a preacher, who succeeded in addressing the liberal Nuremberg bourgeoisie through his modern style, which took up the intellectual currents of the time. Together with Friedrich Rittelmeyer , who has been a preacher at the Heilig-Geist-Kirche since 1902, he shaped a liberal Protestantism, which is also known as the “Nuremberg direction” of free Protestantism. Both preachers worked far beyond the Nuremberg city limits through lectures and publications. Since their common book God and Souls. A vintage of sermons published in 1906 both came into conflict with the conservative church leadership , which was influenced by neo -Lutheranism. The disputes dragged on until the First World War and led, among other things, to Geyer resigning as chairman of the regional association for internal missions in Bavaria, which he had assumed in 1904 . The establishment of the liberal journal Christentum und Gegenwart by Geyer and Rittelmeyer in 1910 must also be seen against the background of internal church conflicts.

Mediated by Rittelmeyer, Geyer has been intensively involved with anthroposophical literature since 1916 and in the following years approached Rudolf Steiner's teaching . He gave numerous lectures on anthroposophy in Germany and Switzerland. Unlike Rittelmeyer, Geyer did not join the Christian Community founded in 1922 , but returned to his Protestant roots. In the last years of his life he approached Karl Barth's dialectical theology .

Geyer was awarded an honorary theological doctorate from the University of Jena in 1914 , and in 1927 he was given the title of church councilor . In the 1960s, a nursing home of the Nuremberg City Mission was named after Geyer.

Christian Geyer was buried in the St. Johannis cemetery in Nuremberg.

Fonts (selection)

• The Nördlinger Evangelical Church Regulations of the XVI. Century. A contribution to the history of the Protestant church system. Beck, Munich 1896.
• (with Friedrich Rittelmeyer ) God and the soul. A vintage sermon. Kerler, Ulm 1906.
• Rudolf Steiner and religion. Kaiser, Munich 1921.
• Cheerful and serious things from my life. Kaiser, Munich 1929 (autobiography).

literature

• Walther von Loewenich : Christian Geyer. On the history of "free Protestantism" in Bavaria. In: Yearbook for Franconian State Research 24 (1964), pp. 283-318.
• Andrea Schwarz: Christian Geyer (1862–1929) ... was a fascinating liberal preacher in conservative times. In: Thomas Greif (Ed.): Kaiser, Chancellor, Rummelsberger. 21 footnotes of German history. Accompanying volume for the exhibition in the Diakoniemuseum Rummelsberg. Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg im Allgäu 2017, pp. 165–177, ISBN 978-3-95976-088-1 .
• Matthias Simon:  Geyer, Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 355 ( digitized version ).
• Auguste Zeiß-Horbach: Intercession for the Jews. The Nuremberg main preacher Christian Geyer and the Association for Defense against Anti-Semitism. In: Journal for Bavarian Church History 76 (2007), pp. 215–232.

Web links

• Gerhard Wehr : Christian Geyer (kulturimpuls.org)

Remarks

1. ^ Christian-Geyer-Heim of the Nuremberg City Mission