Evangelical Social Congress

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The Evangelical Social Congress (ESK) is an association founded on May 28, 1890 by theologians , economists , politicians , lawyers and others, which discusses social problems from the standpoint of Protestant ethics at its annual meetings .

history

The foundation of the ESK fell in the year when the Socialist Law expired and Otto von Bismarck resigned . Important founding members and initiators were, among others, Adolf Stoecker , Hermann Kropatscheck , Adolph Wagner and Adolf von Harnack . The ESK was initially shaped by Stoecker's patriarchal rejection of the socialist movement and founded to curb the growing influence of social democracy .

At its second meeting in May 1891, the ESK set itself the task of "examining the social conditions of our people without prejudice, measuring them against the standards of the moral and religious demands of the Gospel and making them fruitful even for today's economic life" in its statutes. .

In the early years, especially at the 1894 conference in Frankfurt am Main , there were crises within the ESK due to the very heterogeneous composition and the different goals of its members. The so-called younger Christian social groups around Friedrich Naumann , supported by Max Weber , sharply criticized the large landowners in the East Elbe. As early as 1895 this led to the departure of the conservative wing under the leadership of Martin von Nathusius . In 1896, Stoecker left the congress with some of his supporters. The following year a new movement, the Free Church-Social Conference, was founded under his leadership . Also in 1896, the Protestant workers' association movement broke away from the ESK.

Under Presidents Harnack, Otto Baumgarten and Walter Simons, the ESK was able to establish itself as the leading force of the liberal Protestant educated middle class. He was also able to influence legislation, but found little access to the workforce. In 1911 it had 1,631 members, in 1933 more than 1,000.

He published the publications Evangelisch-Sozial (1904–1922 and 1924–1941) and Social Correspondence (since 1927).

During the Nazi era , the ESK lost its importance, although it remained formally independent. In the church struggle he was neutral. After 1945 it was not possible to revive or continue the work of the ESK.

In Switzerland, the Protestant-social workers' associations were first established in Basel in 1894. In 1907 the Swiss Protestant-social benefit fund SESUK was founded. From 1917 the forerunners of today's Evangelical People's Party emerged . In 1920 SESUK mutated into the Swiss Association of Protestant Workers and Employees SVEA , which was merged into the CMV union in 1993 . In 1923 a corresponding association was founded in Germany with the participation of the SVEA.

Quotes

"Christian-social is nonsense"

- Kaiser Wilhelm II. On February 28, 1896 in a telegram to the Privy Councilor Georg Ernst Hinzpeter .

“With Stocker’s departure and the move away from the conservatives, the congress has become more and more a roll-up of all theoretically and practically important basic questions of the ethics of Lutheranism, which is also indicated by the fact that its leadership is in the hands of the leader of progressive Protestant theology , Adolf Harnacks, has passed over. The thought development of free Protestantism, which gradually turned more towards ethics than dogmatics, to be traced from the protocols, is extremely instructive and attractive. Only here we are dealing with the first beginnings of a new approach to the problems behind which the scientific ethics of modern Protestantism is very hesitant and which, with its seriousness, really moves only very small circles. But where do you have really profound social ethics today? "

- Ernst Troeltsch

President

General Secretaries

literature

  • Gottfried Kretschmar: The Evangelical-Social Congress: German Protestantism and the social question . Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlags-Werk, 1972
  • Klaus Erich Pollmann : Evangelical-Social Congress . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 10 (1982), pp. 645–650 (with further references)
  • Harry Liebersohn: Religion and industrial society. The Protestant social congress in Wilhelmine Germany . Philadelphia 1986
  • Sebastian Kranich : The Saxon Evangelical Social Association. From the foundation in 1903 to the beginning of the First World War in 1914. A historical-systematic study . Gütersloh 2006 (Religious Cultures of Modern Age, Vol. 13) - On the most important regional organization of the congress, with a comprehensive literature report on the ESK.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the protocol of the founding congress, in: Collection of sources for the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914 , III. Department: Expansion and differentiation of social policy since the beginning of the New Course (1890-1904) , Volume 1, Basic Questions of Social Policy , edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Darmstadt 2016, No. 52.
  2. ^ Rolf Strasser: Evangelical trade unions in Switzerland. The beginnings . 1996, http://texte.efb.ch/adsvea.htm . (accessed on: February 8, 2012).
  3. ↑ Ernst Troeltsch: The Social Teachings of Christian Churches and Groups , Volume 2. Tübingen 1912, Neudruck Tübingen 1994, p. 593, footnote 294