Heinz-Dietrich Wendland

Heinz-Dietrich Wendland (born June 22, 1900 in Berlin ; † August 7, 1992 in Hamburg ) was a Protestant theologian and social ethicist . Wendland was one of the most important representatives of a conservative scientific social ethic.

Life

Wendland came from a pastor's family. Shaped by the “German national tradition of the Protestant rectory”, he belonged to the “ Wandervogel ” youth movement since 1913 and to the “ Wingolf ” since 1919 . In 1921 he was a co-founder of the Young National Federation and published its federal magazine. From 1919 he studied theology and philosophy in Berlin, Hamburg and Heidelberg . In 1924 he obtained his licentiate and was awarded his doctorate by Willy Lüttge via Alois Emanuel Biedermann .

From 1925 to 1929 Wendland worked as a tutor at the New Testament seminar in Berlin under Adolf Deissmann . From 1926 he was also a research assistant at the Apologetic Central of the Central Committee for the Inner Mission . At the same time he taught social ethics as a lecturer at the Evangelical Social School at Johannesstift in Berlin-Spandau . In 1926 he signed the Berneuchen book and was later a member of the Evangelical Michael Brotherhood .

Wendland received his habilitation from Martin Dibelius in Heidelberg in 1929 with The Eschatology of the Kingdom of God with Jesus and was a private lecturer for the New Testament and social ethics. He was press spokesman for the rector Willy Andreas during his rectorate and worked from 1934 to 1936 as a student pastor. In 1936 he initially represented a New Testament chair at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel , which he took over as a full professor in 1937.

From 1939 Wendland did military service as a naval pastor. He returned from Soviet captivity in 1949 and in 1955 took over the first German chair for Christian social sciences at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, which he held until 1970. Here he built the Institute for Christian Social Sciences.

Wendland had also been on the German Ecumenical Study Committee and the Evangelical Marxism Commission since 1950 , in which Günter Brakelmann , Trutz Rendtorff , Hermann Ringeling and Christian Walther were also active. In 1957 he was a co-founder of the journal for Protestant ethics . He was a member of the Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (ÖAK) for years and contributed to publications.

plant

Wendland, who in the 1930s still adhered to a National Socialist ethics of order and imperial theology, developed a social theology after 1945 that was committed to the work of Hans Freyer , Arnold Gehlen and especially Paul Tillich . His “Theology of Society” promoted the sociological turning point in Protestant ethics after 1945.

Social ethics is not a “timeless system of social-ethical truths”, but “appropriate social analysis”, which eschatologically claims the distinction between society and the kingdom of God with “real utopia”. Wendland saw the modern “functional society” as one of “alienation”, “decay and destruction”, “demonia” and “perversion” characterized by a “technological mass world”. The task of the church is the "diaconal" work, which is based on the guiding principles of "justice, freedom, peace". Its goal is the "humanization" and "progressive reform of social institutions".

Fonts (selection)

• The eschatology of the kingdom of God with Jesus (1931)
• The letters to the Corinthians (1932, 12th edition 1968)
• The Empire Idea and the Kingdom of God (1934)
• The Church in Modern Society (1956, 2nd edition 1958)
• Introduction to Social Ethics (1963)
• The Church in Revolutionary Society (1967)
• On the theology of sexuality and marriage , in: Ders./ Ratzinger / Greeven / Schnackenburg : Theologie der Ehe , publishers Friedrich Pustet Regensburg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen, 1969
• Paths and detours. 50 years of experienced theology 1919–1970 (1977)

literature

• Katja Bruns, Stefan Dietzel: Heinz-Dietrich Wendland (1900–1992). Political-apologetic theology (= Edition Ethik . Vol. 18). Edition Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8469-0289-9 .
• Karl-Wilhelm Dahm , Wolfgang Marhold: Theology of society . In: Journal for Evangelical Ethics. Vol. 34, 1990, pp. 174-191.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Graf : Wendland, Heinz-Dietrich . In: Religion Past and Present . 4th edition. Vol. 8 (2005), Col. 1455 f.
• Martin Honecker : Obituary for Wendland . In: Yearbook of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Künste. 1992, pp. 63-66.
• Dietz Lange: Ethics from a Protestant Perspective. Basic questions of Christian life practice. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, pp. 78–82.
• Lexicon of persons on German Protestantism 1919–1949 , edit. by Hannelore Braun u. Gertraud Grünzinger. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, p. 272.

Web links

• Heinz-Dietrich Wendland's estate in the University and State Library of Münster

Remarks

1. ↑ Heinz-Dietrich Wendland: ways and detours , 1977, p. 18
2. ↑ Theology of Marriage . At the 29th conference with contributions from Rudolf Schnackenburg , Heinrich Greeven , Joseph Ratzinger , Heinz-Dietrich Wendland; List of members of the working group, documents of the churches on marriage and marriage, publishers Friedrich Pustet Regensburg and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen, 1969
3. ^ Cf. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf: Wendland, Heinz-Dietrich . In: Religion in Past and Present , 4th edition, Vol. 8, Tübingen 2005, Sp. 1456

predecessor	Office	successor
Heinz Bittel	Rector of the University of Münster 1964–1965	Friedrich Klein