Christoph Blumhardt

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Christoph Blumhardt

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (born June 1, 1842 in Möttlingen near Calw ; † August 2, 1919 in Jebenhausen near Göppingen ) was a Württemberg Protestant theologian, pastor and hymn poet, later also a member of the state parliament for the SPD . He is considered to be the founder of the religious-social movement in Switzerland and Germany .

Life

His father Johann Christoph Blumhardt was also a pastor and represented a strong pietism , which counted on the power of the Holy Spirit in everyday life. He became known nationwide for the wonderful healing of a woman who was considered incurable. In 1852 he acquired the Kurhaus in Bad Boll . He and later his son were buried in the local cemetery.

Bad Boll

After studying Protestant theology in Tübingen and subsequent vicariate, Christoph Blumhardt came to Bad Boll in 1869 as his father's assistant and secretary. During his studies in 1862 he became a member of the Normannia Tübingen Association . In 1870 he married Emilie Bräuninger, the daughter of a farmer. After the death of his father in 1880 he took over the management of Bad Boll. As a pastor and eloquent penitential preacher, he gained a reputation far beyond his homeland. One of his guests in 1892 was the young Hermann Hesse , who had run away from the evangelical-theological seminar in Maulbronn and came to Bad Boll at the request of his parents. It was not until October 1896 that Blumhardt experienced a kind of " revival " which made him certain that he had to preach the message of God's boundless love for the world. It was said in his Christmas sermon in 1896:

“The love of God melts everything bad, everything common, everything desperate; the love of God also compels death. But it must be a love of God; a love that also loves enemies; a love that constantly strides through everything like a hero and does not allow itself to be insulted, despised or discarded; a love that strides through the world with the helmet of hope on its head. Up to now we have not dared enough to say: Jesus was born and that is why all creatures are loved. ... Jesus wants to be understood as the limitless love of God. In this love he wants to be the flame we burn ourselves to. It is only love, only the mercy of God, that takes us into his judgment, so that we can become free from everything that now makes us slaves and unhappy people who live today and tomorrow disappear in the darkness of death. "

Turning to socialism

As a result of this impulse, Blumhardt junior took an ever greater interest in the acute everyday problems of workers and the “ social question ”. In 1899, at a workers' meeting in Göppingen, as a disciple of Jesus, he confessed to " socialism ". After a newspaper falsely reported that he had joined the SPD, he was severely attacked in church circles. He then actually joined the SPD and, under pressure from the church authorities, gave up his pastoral office. In December 1900 he was elected to the Wuerttemberg state parliament for the constituency of Göppingen , where he worked for six years.

Because of this change, Blumhardt lost many of his previous friends and his sphere of activity as a penitential preacher. Nevertheless, in addition to his political work, he remained a preacher and pastor for the guests of the Bad Boll conference center. In poor health he traveled to Egypt in 1905 and 1910, and to Palestine in 1906 . In 1907 he moved to Wieseneck in Jebenhausen with Anna von Sprewitz , the “God sent” partner in his last years (Elisabeth Schönhut, great-granddaughter of Emilie Blumhardt) and limited his pastoral work, but continued to take an active part in current affairs. He commented on the outbreak of World War I as follows:

“In the beginning, because things are supposed to be different all over the world. The darkness will break on our Lord Jesus Christ, the hero of victory. "

Blumhardt clung to this eschatological hope until his death. In October 1917 he suffered a stroke but remained a prayer for the church of Jesus and the salvation of the world:

“One day the day will come, and soon the day of our Lord Jesus Christ will come. You will understand your life there, you will rejoice over everything that has been difficult, you will thank you for yourself and others, for your present and for your past. "

After death

In 1920 the heirs of Christoph Blumhardt donated the Kurhaus, with the church hall, in Bad Boll to the Moravian Brethren .

Appreciation

Blumhardt's radical expectation of God's kingdom - "once and soon" - and his decision for socialism were rejected by the bourgeoisie and the church of his time. But it was precisely this pre-war outsider who influenced the theologians who shaped public theological debate after 1918: above all Karl Barth , but also Hermann Kutter , Leonhard Ragaz and Eduard Thurneysen .

Today the Evangelical Church in Germany commemorates Blumhardt with a memorial day in the Evangelical Name Calendar on August 2nd . Various street names, for example in Pforzheim and institutions, such as the community center in Sternenfels, are named after Christoph Blumhardt or father and son Blumhardt.

Works

ed. v. Eugene Jäckh:

  • House devotions for all days of the year , 1921
  • From the kingdom of God. From sermons and devotions , 1922
  • Of following Jesus Christ. 2. Selection from sermons and devotions , 1923
  • Evening prayers for all days of the year , 1937
  • From the guidance of God. Letters to Friends , 1955

ed. v. Robert Lejeune :

  • Selection from sermons and devotions , 4 volumes, 1925–32
  • Works , in partial volumes, appeared between 1938 and 1966.

ed. v. Johannes Harder :

  • Words of the Protestant pastor and member of the state parliament Christoph Blumhardt , Wuppertal 1972
  • Christoph Blumhardt - speeches, sermons, speeches, letters: 1865-1917 , 3 vol., Neukirchen-Vluyn 1978

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Christoph Blumhardt. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 630-631.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Joachim Berger: The roots of the theological thinking of Karl Barth in the kerygma of the two Blumhardts about the kingdom of God. Diss. Univ. Berlin 1956.
  • Christian Buchholz: Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt - Kingdom of God in the world Göppingen: Manuela Kinzel Verlag . 2010. ISBN 978-3-937367-43-9
  • I want to learn from Blumhardt that Jesus is the winner. Life and work of Pastor Johann Christoph Blumhardt , ed. v. Erwin Rudert. Oberursel: Verl. 12 u. 12 1996. ISBN 3-930657-36-8
  • Eduard Buess and Markus Mattmüller : Prophetic Socialism. Blumhardt - Ragaz - Barth. Friborg / Switzerland: Ed. Exodus 1986. ISBN 3-905575-22-1
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 100-102.
  • Albrecht Esche, Kingdom of God in Bad Boll - The sites of the Blumhardts and their stories , Edition Akademie Vol. 10, Bad Boll 2005
  • Friedhelm Groth, Chiliasmus and Apokatastasishoffnung in the proclamation of the Kingdom of God by the two Blumhardts , in: Pietism and Modern Times. A yearbook for the history of modern Protestantism, Vol. 9 (1983), Göttingen (1984), pp. 56-116
  • Friedhelm Groth, "bebel- and bibelfest". Eschatological universalism and commitment to socialism in the hope of the kingdom of God of the younger Blumhardt. Hope and its aftermath, Württemberg State Library Stuttgart 1999 ( PDF )
  • Jörg Hübner: Christoph Blumhardt. Preacher, politician, pacifist. A biography , Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2019, ISBN 978-3-374-06049-8 .
  • Dieter Ising: Johann Christoph Blumhardt. Life and Work, 2nd edition, Leibniz Verlag, St. Goar 2018, ISBN 978-3-931155-40-7 .
  • Eugen Jäckh: Blumhardt father and son and their message. Berlin: Furche-Verlag, 1925
  • Werner Jäckh: Blumhardt. Father and son and their world. Stuttgart: Steinkopf 1977. ISBN 3-7984-0323-6
  • Hans Ulrich Jäger: Politics from the Silence. Ernesto Cardenal, Dom Helder Câmara, Martin Luther King, Christoph Blumhardt, Niklaus von Flüe. Zurich: Theologischer Verl. 1980. ISBN 3-290-11442-2
  • Eberhard Kerlen: At the feet of God. Investigations into the sermon of Christoph Blumhardt. Munich: Kaiser 1981. ISBN 3-459-01401-6
  • Hee-Kuk Lim: “Jesus is the winner!” From Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Seed of a cosmic christology. Bern u. a .: Lang 1996. (= Basler and Berner studies on historical and systematic theology; 67) ISBN 3-906756-42-4
  • Klaus-Jürgen Meier: Christoph Blumhardt. Christian, socialist, theologian. Bern u. a .: Lang 1979. (= Basler and Berner studies on historical and systematic theology; 40) ISBN 3-261-04670-8
  • Walter Nigg : Rebels of their own kind. A Blumhardt interpretation. Stuttgart: source publ. 1988. ISBN 3-7918-2021-4
  • Gerhard Sauter : The theology of the kingdom of God with the older and younger Blumhardt. Zurich u. a .: Zwingli-Verl. 1962. (= studies on the history of dogma and systematic theology; 14)
  • Paul Schütz : Secular Religion. A study of their appearance in the present and their idea by Schleiermacher and Blumhardt the Elder. J. Tübingen: Mohr 1932. (= contributions to systematic theology; 2)
  • Elisabeth Schönhuth: "Emilie Blumhardt in the shadow of her environment" 2010, Manuela Künzel Verlag
  • Heinz-Horst Schrey :  Blumhardt, Christoph Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 334 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Martin Stober: Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt the Younger Between Pietism and Socialism. Pouring u. a .: Brunnen-Verl. 1998. (= Church history monographs; 2) ISBN 3-7655-9423-7
  • Eduard Thurneysen : Christoph Blumhardt. Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich 1926.
  • "Cast out demons!" From Blumhardt to Rodewyk. On the work of Catholic and Protestant exorcists , ed. v. Lisl Gutwenger. Stein am Rhein: Christiana-Verl. 1992. ISBN 3-7171-0956-1
  • Paul Walser: Christoph Blumhardt, the Protestant. Bern: Haupt 1946.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ history. Retrieved February 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Blumhardt in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Blumhardt, Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blumhardt, Christoph Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Württemberg theologian and pastor
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1842
PLACE OF BIRTH Möttlingen
DATE OF DEATH August 2, 1919
Place of death Jebenhausen