Thank God Baumann

Thank God Baumann

Gottlob Baumann (born October 10, 1794 in Besigheim , † October 3, 1856 in Kemnat ) was a German pastor in Notzingen and Kemnat. He belonged to the group of Swabian Pietists and participated in Albert Knapp's Evangelical Song Treasury, which was published in 1837, and in the selection of Protestant hymns for Württemberg at the regional synod in 1841 .

Life

He was the third of five sons of the Besigheim Latin School Preceptor Johann Friedrich Gumbert Baumann and Christiane Friederike Rivinius. The father became a deacon in Besigheim in 1805, he was followed as a Preceptor by Mr. Breuning, with whom the young Gottlob completed his schooling. Since he showed little inclination towards science, his parents decided for him to have a commercial education. He spent his apprenticeship in Stuttgart , where he was housed in a religious house, which had a lasting impact on him.

After seven years of commercial activity, he moved to the Stuttgart high school in 1815 and then completed a theology degree in Tübingen with Professors Flatt , Bengel , Wurm and Steudel . In the first year of his studies he lived with his older brother, who was also studying theology. After completing his studies in 1819, he came to Kemnat , where he acted as vicar for his father, who had been pastor there since 1808 and who had since become ill. After his father's death in the spring of 1821, he stayed in Kemnat for a few months and then moved to a parish vicarage in the parish of Notzingen and Wellingen . There he also took in the widowed mother.

In Notzingen he benefited from his commercial training, so that he succeeded in having a new rectory, a new church and a new Protestant school built there. From Notzingen he was a frequent guest of Duchess Henriette von Württemberg in Kirchheim. One of his confidants was the Kirchheim deacon Albert Knapp . He assisted him with the publication of the Evangelical Song Treasury, which contains almost 4,000 sacred songs .

Shortly after his mother's death in 1839, he moved to the vacated pastor's post in Kemnat, which he had left 18 years earlier. In 1841 he was a member of the regional synod and took part in the deliberations on the design of the new regional hymn book, advocating the inclusion of songs by Gottfried Arnold , Ludwig Friedrich Richter and Gerhard Tersteegen . Not all of Baumann's suggestions were heard, so that he included the songs that had not come into play in his Christian Hausbüchlein , which had a circulation of 30,000 copies by 1865 and was later reprinted several times. In Kemnat he remained in contact with Albert Knapp; his confidants there also included the Birkach pastor Romig, the Ruither pastor Haas and the Waiblinger dean Bührer.

In 1842 he took in his niece Emilie Baumann as housekeeper, who remained connected to him until his death. In 1844 he was elected to the board of the children's rescue center in Plieningen . In 1850 Baumann broke his leg and was then handcuffed to crutches for about a year, so that his activities decreased noticeably. In 1855 he suffered a stroke, which was followed by other ailments. Shortly before his 62nd birthday he died in the rectory in Kemnat. Albert Knapp gave the funeral address at his funeral on October 7, 1856 in Kemnat. Knapp published a posthumous tribute to Baumann. Baumann's friends posthumously published a collection of his sermons in 1865.

Fonts

• Christian house booklet
• Seventy-nine sermons on the Gospels , Stuttgart 1865

literature

• Albert Knapp: Monument of love for M. Gottlob Baumann, pastor in Kemnath , Stuttgart undated (approx. 1856)