Claus Harms

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Claus Harms, drawing by Julius Fürst around 1895

Claus Harms (* 25. May 1778 in Fahrstedt ; † 1. February 1855 in Kiel ) was a German Lutheran pastor in Kiel, who as profiled pastoral theologian the Neo-Lutheranism was the 19th century impulses.

Life

Birth house of Claus Harms in Fahrstedt

Claus Harms was born the son of a mill owner. Since 1791 Pastor Friedrich Ernst Christian Oertling from Sankt Michaelisdonn , where the family had moved, taught him ancient languages ​​and other sciences, according to Harms' memoirs, "Years of the rising, penetrating, shining sunlight of rationalism ". In order to support his sick father, Harms first completed an apprenticeship as a miller . After his father's death in 1796, he ran the mill with his brother, but soon decided to sell it and worked as a farmhand for his brother until he had enough money to go to university. In preparation for university studies, Harms attended the Latin school in Meldorf since autumn 1797 . In the winter semester of 1799 he began to study theology at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel with Johann Friedrich Kleuker , a representative of supranaturalism . But Friedrich Schleiermacher's speeches about religion also had an influence on Harms. After completing his studies, he worked from 1802 as a private tutor for Pastor Johann Georg Schmidt in Probsteierhagen . In 1806 Harms first became a deacon in Lunden . Thanks to the mediation of the Kiel professor of theology , August Twesten, and his father-in-law, the Husum bailiff Siegfried Behrens , who was largely related to him, he was given the position of archdeacon in Kiel's Nikolaikirche in 1816 .

In 1817 Harms published 95 of his own theses together with a reprint of Luther's theses for the anniversary of the Reformation . In his theses Harms attacked theological rationalism as the idol of reason , which has been put in place of God. In addition, Harms rejected the Prussian Union operated by the Prussian king between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches to form the Evangelical Church in Prussia (see the dispute on the agenda ). His pointed theses caused a flood of writings, counter-writings and the like. a. from the rationalist pastors Friedrich Marquard Meyer and Jasper Boysen , but also support z. B. von Behrends and Twesten. The so-called theses dispute 1817-1819 made Harms one of the founders of the emerging neo-Lutheranism . In this he impressed and influenced his student Wilhelm Heinrich Koopmann , who, as a Holstein bishop, turned away unionist efforts in Holstein and Schleswig in 1867 . Harms received u. a. Opposition from Friedrich Schleiermacher, an opponent of the forced union, as well as from the theologian and philosopher Christian Schreiber , was on the other hand defended by the rationalist Christoph Friedrich Ammon .

Schreiber described Harms as follows: “Harms, who apparently is not lacking in genius, even if he is philosophical, preached a few years ago [...] near me with great applause. There is something apostolic about him. Young preachers could learn a lot from his speeches if they always knew how to properly distinguish his natural eloquence from his artificial dogmatics. "

A call to St. Petersburg , which he received in 1819, and a second call to the Trinity Church in Berlin in 1834 as Schleiermacher's successor, Harms did not accept. In 1835 he was appointed chief pastor in the Nikolaikirche and provost of the Kiel provost . In 1841, on the occasion of his 25th anniversary in office, he was appointed senior consistorial councilor .

From 1830 Harms published his influential pastoral theology (three volumes, 1830/31/34), in which he described the pastor in his threefold role as preacher (proclamation), priest (baptism and Lord's Supper) and pastor (pastoral care and confession). Michael Baumgarten was an important student of Harms' .

Harms' grave was originally located in the St. Jürgen cemetery in Kiel near the main train station. After the Second World War , the destroyed St. Jürgen Church was demolished in 1954 and the cemetery leveled. Harms' bones were reburied in the south cemetery.

Awards

memory

  • In Marne on Claus-Harms-Straße there is a monument in the form of a bust . There is no reference to the sculptor.
  • A monument in the form of a millstone is in Sankt Michaelisdonn .

  • Marne monument

  • Monument Sankt Michaelisdonn

Theses from 1817 (selection)

Theses against theological rationalism, the " religion of reason ":

  • Thesis 1: When our Master and Lord Jesus Christ says: “Repent!” He wants people to form themselves according to his teaching; but he does not shape the doctrine according to people, as is now done, according to the changed spirit of the times. 2. Tim. 4.3
  • Thesis 3: With the idea of ​​a progressive Reformation , as one has grasped this idea and is supposedly reminded of it, one reforms Lutheranism into paganism and Christianity out of the world.
  • Thesis 11: Conscience cannot forgive sins, in other words, the same thing: Nobody can forgive sins on their own. Forgiveness is God's.
  • Thesis 21: The forgiveness of sins cost money in the sixteenth century; in the nineteenth you have it completely free, because you serve yourself with it.
  • Thesis 24: “You have two places, oh man,” it said in the old hymn book. In modern times the devil has been beaten to death and hell has been closed.
  • Thesis 27: According to the old belief, God created man; According to the new faith, man creates God, and when he has finished him he says: Hoja! Isa 44: 12-20.
  • Thesis 32: The so-called religion of reason is bared either from reason or from religion or from both.
  • Thesis 37: I know a religious word of which reason is half powerful and half not: "Feyer" ... if the word is transformed into "solemnity", it is immediately removed from reason, too strange and too high. ... Language is so full and life so rich in things that are just as remote from reason as from the bodily senses. Their common area is the mystical, religion is a part of this area. Terra incognita for reason.
  • Thesis 71: Reason is racing in the Lutheran Church: pulls Christ from the altar, throws God's word from the pulpit, throws feces in the baptismal water, mixes all sorts of people in the godfather, wipes away the address of the confessional, hisses the priests out, and all the people after them, and has been doing so for so long. Are they still not tied? Rather, it should be genuine Lutheran and not Carlstadian!

Theses 54–62 are directed against the Altona Bible , published by Nikolaus Funk in 1815 and provided with rationalistic comments:

  • Thesis 53: ... The Bible Societies should organize a revised Lutheran translation of the Bible.
  • Thesis 54: A German translation [sc. the original Luther translation] with explanations of German words means: to regard them as the original language of Revelation. That would be papist and superstitious.
  • Thesis 55: Editing the Bible with such glosses / which emend the original word / means: correcting the Holy Spirit, / following the Church, / and who believe in it, lead to the devil.

Theses against the union between Lutherans and Reformed:

  • Thesis 75: As a poor maid one would like to make the Lutheran Church rich through copulation . Do not perform the act over Luther's bones! He comes to life from it and then - woe to you!
  • Thesis 77/78: To say that time has lifted the dividing wall between Lutherans and Reformists is not pure language. ... (78) If Christ's body and blood were in bread and wine at the Colloquio in Marburg in 1529 , it is still in 1817.
  • Thesis 92: The Evangelical Catholic Church is a wonderful church. It is held and formed primarily on the Sacrament.
  • Thesis 93: The Evangelical Reformed Church is a glorious church. It adheres and develops itself preferably on the word of God.
  • Thesis 94: The Evangelical Lutheran Church is more glorious than either. It holds and forms in the Sacrament as in the Word of God.
  • Thesis 95: The other two are formed into this, even without human intervention. But the wicked way passes away, says David, Ps. 1,6.

Publications

Remembrance day

Naming

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harms: biography written by himself , p. 28.
  2. ↑ See the contemporary overview by Franz Adolph Schrödter: Archive of Harms' theses or characteristics of the writings that have appeared for and against them: mostly in their own words, with brief appraisals attached. Altona: Hammerich 1818, S. digitized
  3. ↑ Biography of Christian Schreiber , in: Karl Wilhelm Justi Basis for a Hessian Scholar, Writer and Artist History from 1806 to 1830 , continuation of Strieder's Hessischer Gelehrten- u. Writer's story and addendum to this work. Garthe, Marburg 1831, p. 833 ff. ( Digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A10735230~SZ%3D851~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D ).
  4. ↑ Gerd Stolz: Small guide to the south cemetery in the state capital Kiel . Published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church District Kiel. Kiel 1996, p. 41 f.
  5. ^ Joachim Schäfer: Claus Harms. In: Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints. Joachim Schäfer, November 18, 2014, accessed on September 19, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Claus-Harms-Gemeinde ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.claus-harms-gemeinde.de
  7. ↑ Friends' Association - Board elected! Friends of the Claus-Harms-Kapelle Reinsbüttel eV, March 2007, accessed on January 29, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Harms, Claus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harms, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lutheran pastor in Kiel
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1778
PLACE OF BIRTH Fahrstedt
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1855
Place of death Kiel