Fritz Buri

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fritz Buri-Richard (1907–1995), reformed pastor and professor of theology. Elsa Buri-Richard (1907–2007) grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel.
Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel

Fritz Buri-Richard (born November 4, 1907 in Kernenried in the canton of Bern , † January 30, 1995 in Basel ) was a Swiss Reformed pastor and theology professor .

Training and professional activity

Born the son of a miller, Fritz Buri attended local schools. During this time he was busy reading Albert Schweitzer's reports from Africa. They aroused an initial interest in natural theology . After graduating from the Burgdorf high school , he studied theology at the universities of Bern, Marburg and Berlin. In 1929 he completed a vicariate in Więcbork (Vandsburg), Poland ; his access work at the University of Bern on faith and history with Wilhelm Herrmann was awarded, but remained unpublished.

In 1931 Fritz Buri took over the deputy in Lauperswil and in the same year became pastor in Walperswil and from 1934 in Täuffelen . His inaugural lecture in 1935 at the University of Bern was titled: Sein , Sinn und Eschaton .

After the war, Fritz Buri became pastor at St. Alban's Church in Basel in 1948 and held his inaugural lecture at the University of Basel in 1952 . From 1957 to 1968 he held a position as pastor at Basel Minster and was finally accepted as a full professor (ad personam) at the University of Basel in 1968.

Numerous stays abroad and guest professorship positions abroad began. In 1969/70 Fritz Buri took up a visiting professorship at the International Christian University in Mitaka near Tokyo, followed by lectures in Korea and Australia. After a renewed visiting professorship in 1971 at the Religious Department of Syracuse University , he went again in 1978/79 to lectures in Korea and India (at the invitation of the Japan Foundation, Kyoto ) on a trip. The 1982 visiting professorship in Denver was followed by his third stay in Korea and Japan in 1983.

theology

Fritz Buri's theology is essentially shaped by the discussion with Albert Schweitzer and Karl Jaspers . While other faculties want to accept Buri as a university professor, the path to the theological faculty is difficult for him. Coming from the same canton as Karl Barth , the life paths of the two opposing theologians intersect at the University of Basel. Here the famous theologian encourages him to write his own dogmatics after years of coexistence.

Buri's work as a liberal theologian was initially linked to the Bernese theologian Martin Werner . He was also a companion of Ulrich Neuenschwander for many years .

Rudolf Bultmann's theology of demythologizing does not go far enough for Buri: he also calls for the sermon to be decerygmatized . As the title of his dogmatics says, prayer and sermon for Buri is about an existential interpretation of the traditional statements of faith. He succeeds in combining traditional words with the conscious perception of life; or: Christology , as it is known by the old Protestant theology, and contemporary philosophy (as with Schweitzer or Jaspers) find mutual interpretation. In Buri's theology, the reference to the responsibility of the believer has special weight; the collection of essays on the theology of responsibility gives an insight into his work. Buri has become groundbreaking for a new form of self-understanding within a theology that symbolically understands traditional dogmas.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in his statements in Europe, while overseas it has always been there (writings in English, Japanese and Korean). His open-minded thinking was reflected primarily in Catholic theological research. The International Fritz Buri Society for Thought and Belief in the World Horizon, which existed until 2008, continued the intercultural conversation that Buri had started with his work.

Voices on Buri

When Buri sent Karl Barth the second volume of his Dogmatics , Barth replied in a letter dated December 18, 1962:

I sincerely admire the work you have done in addition to your work in the “main parish office” according to these 500 pages. (...) I also sincerely admire your heroic courage, so to speak, to sit between all stools, so to speak: to annoy your former liberal friends with the orthodox robe in which you wrap yourself, the positive ones with its undeniable transparency ... But Now you will not be surprised if I continue: that for the sake of the matter and also for your person's sake (...) I regret that so much work and character are not on the plan in the service of a better cause see. Your Christology, like a piece of chocolate wrapped in the silver paper of your anthropology, is (...) quite “unbelievable” to me.

Works (selection)

  • The Significance of the New Testament Eschatology for Modern Protestant Theology. An attempt to clarify the problem of eschatology and to a new understanding of its real concern , dissertation 1934 (recognized as habilitation)
  • Demythologizing and de-kerygmatizing theology , 1952
  • Theology of Existence , 1954
  • Dogmatics as Self-Understanding of the Christian Faith , Volume 1: Reason and Revelation , 1956
  • Dogmatics as the Self-Understanding of the Christian Faith , Volume 2: Man and Grace , 1962
  • God in America , two volumes, 1970/1972
  • On the theology of responsibility , collection of essays, 1972
  • Dogmatik im Dialog (together with Heinrich Ott and Jan Milic Lochman ), three volumes, 1973–78
  • Dogmatics as Self-Understanding of the Christian Faith , Volume 3: The Transcendence of Responsibility in the Threefold Creation of the Triune God , 1978
  • Taking Responsibility , Reader, 1987
  • The Buddha-Christ as the Lord of the true Self. The Kyoto School's Philosophy of Religion and Christianity , 1982
  • Existential philosophy and Christianity. Correspondence with Albert Schweitzer 1935–1964 , ed. by Andreas Urs Sommer, 2000, ISBN 3-406-46730-X

literature

  • Imelda Abbt : Tradition - Christ - Existence. Fritz Buri's understanding of Christ , Hamburg 1977 (Diss. Theol. Lucerne)
  • Imelda Abbt, Alfred Jäger (Ed.): Open-mindedness of the Christian faith. Fritz Buri in honor , Bern / Tübingen 1987
  • Günther Hauff : Reread Buri , in: Fritz Buri. To take responsibility. A reading book , ed. by Günther Hauff, Bern / Tübingen 1987, pp. 149–156
  • Odilo Kaiser : Fritz Buri (* 1907). Existential Theology of Transcendence . In: Stephan Leimgruber / Max Schoch (eds.): Against God forgetting: Swiss theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries , Basel / Freiburg / Vienna 1990, pp. 344–368
  • Werner Raupp :  BURI, Fritz, ev. Theologian. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 106-123.  ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive ) (with detailed bibliography).
  • Satoshi Okada: philosophy and / or theology of existence. Karl Jaspers and Fritz Buri: Stations of an Encounter , in: Yearbook of the Austrian Karl Jaspers Society, Vol. 29, Vienna 2016, pp. 161–179.
  • Hans Saner : Unanimity and Difference. On the philosophical encounter between Fritz Buri and Karl Jaspers , in: Bulletin 1 (1998) of the International Fritz Buri Society for Thought and Belief in the World Horizon, Lucerne 1998, pp. 23–41
  • Florian Schuller : The grace of responsibility. Value and problematic of the theology Fritz Buris , Rome 1983 (Diss. Theol. Papal University Gregoriana)
  • Peter Schulz, Andreas Urs Sommer : Fritz Buri: His way. Life - Thinking - Belief . Göttingen: V&R unipress / Friborg i. Ue .: Academic Press Friborg, 2007. ISBN 978-3-89971-314-5 / 978-3-72781-606-2 (a comprehensive presentation of life and work based on unpublished sources).
  • Andreas Urs Sommer : Existential Philosophical Self-Assertion of Liberal Theology? Albert Schweitzer and Fritz Buri in correspondence . In: Theologische Zeitschrift, Vol. 56 (2000), Issue 4, pp. 325–341; also reprinted in: Bulletin 3 of the International Fritz Buri Society for Thought and Belief in the World Horizon, Lucerne 2000, pp. 8–26
  • Andreas Urs Sommer: “Between all stools?” Fritz Buri in Basel . In: Thomas K. Kuhn / Martin Sallmann (eds.): Religion in Basel. A reading and picture book. Ulrich Gäbler on his 60th birthday , Basel 2001, pp. 89–92 ( PDF file; 32 kB )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  HERMANN, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , column 750.
  2. ^ Posthumously published correspondence ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Chats ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Subject: Sölle @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-greifswald.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.theoforum.de
personal data
SURNAME Buri, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Buri-Richard, Fritz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pastor and professor of theology (ev.-ref.)
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Kernenried
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1995
Place of death Basel