Helmut Thielicke

Helmut Thielicke, 1973

Helmut Thielicke (born December 4, 1908 in Barmen ( Wuppertal ), † March 5, 1986 in Hamburg ) was a German Protestant theologian . His ethics are best known among theologians, and he was valued as a preacher by the public.

Life

School and study

Thielicke grew up in Wuppertal , attended the old-language Wilhelm-Dörpfeld-Gymnasium there and passed his Abitur in 1928 . He then began studying Protestant theology and philosophy in Erlangen , but shortly afterwards had to undergo an operation on the thyroid gland . Despite the negative outcome ( pulmonary embolism , tetany ), which caused complications for another four years, Thielicke managed to finish his studies and in 1932 to receive a doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on the relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic . After extensive restoration of health, Thielicke then heard Karl Barth in Bonn , whose teaching he particularly criticized the exclusion of natural anthropology , and finally in 1934 he became involved in a work on history and existence that was supervised by Althaus in Erlangen . Foundation of a Protestant theology of history also doctorate in Protestant theology.

Appointment and dismissal during the Nazi era

The habilitation with a paper on revelation, reason and existence. Studies on Lessing's philosophy of religion were carried out in 1935 under increasing pressure from the Nazi regime , which then denied the theologians working in the Confessing Church an appointment to Erlangen. In 1936 he received a professorship for systematic theology in Heidelberg . It was here that Thielicke met his future wife Marie-Luise Herrmann. They married in 1937. The marriage had four children.

After repeated interrogations by the Gestapo since the mid-1930s, Thielicke was dismissed in 1940. Thielicke was called up, but after nine months, with the support of Regional Bishop Theophil Wurm , he was able to take over a pastor's office in Ravensburg in 1940 and from 1942 to hold a theological office in Stuttgart , from where he made many proclamations and lecture tours until the end of the war. , Publication and sermon bans on the part of the government were made difficult.

In Stuttgart he gave a series of popular Thursday lectures that appeared after the end of the war as The Faith of Christianity , a kind of “lay dogmatics”. Critical remarks contained therein about what happened during the Nazi era - for example the mention of killing by gassing or euthanasia injections - were probably only added after the end of the war. For during the Nazi era such direct statements would have been very provocative, and there are no political references in other of his sermons from those years.

In 1943 Thielicke published a critical theological opinion on Rudolf Bultmann's essay on the demythologization of the New Testament, as a result of which there was a respectful but inconclusive correspondence between Thielicke and Bultmann. Thielicke also got in touch with the resistance group Freiburger Kreis , but without actively participating in the overthrow plans.

The bombing of Stuttgart in 1944 drove Thielicke and his family to Korntal , from where he continued his lecture tours and preaching services in the following years, which were anonymously translated into many languages ​​in Switzerland and read on the various fronts of the war.

Professorships in Tübingen and Hamburg

Gravestone Helmut Thielicke, Ohlsdorf cemetery

Immediately after the end of the war, Thielicke traveled to Frankfurt am Main with a group of delegates from the church and was involved in talks with the military government about the establishment of a new faculty and the start of studies in the political and academic vacuum of the post-war period. In 1945 he took over a chair for systematic theology at the newly established Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen and was elected Rector of the University and President of the West German Rectors' Conference in 1951. In 1954 he was called to Hamburg to found a theological faculty , where he worked as dean , professor and preacher at St. Michaelis , one of Hamburg's main churches . Among his students were Hans Conzelmann and Jörg Zink .

He met Billy Graham on lecture tours in the USA and was received by Jimmy Carter in 1977 . Thielicke toured Asia, South Africa and Latin America as well as Australia and New Zealand in the sixties and seventies. After his retirement he founded the project group Faith Information (today Other Times ), through which he wanted to pass on his experiences from the pulpit and support young preachers.

Helmut Thielicke died on March 5, 1986 at the age of 77 in Hamburg. His grave is in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg, grid square AF 36 (northwest of chapel 9).

The Thielickestieg behind the Hamburger Michel and the Dr.-Helmut-Thielicke-Park in Wellingsbüttel were named after Thielicke .

Works

• The prayer that spans the world. Speeches about the Lord's Prayer from 1944/45. With a dialogue on the question: How was National Socialism possible in Germany? 4th edition. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1991.
• Questions of Christianity to the Modern World - Investigations into the Spiritual and Religious Crisis of the Occident. JCB Mohr Verlag, Tübingen 1947.
• Theology of Contestation. Collected Essays. Tübingen 1949.
• But I tell you ... - Interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount in Stuttgart church services. Quell-Verlag , Stuttgart 1949
• Nihilism. Tubingen 1950.
• The Faith of Christianity. Our world before Jesus Christ. 3. Edition. Göttingen 1955.
• What i believe in The foundation of Christian certainty. 4th edition. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7918-2005-2 .
• The picture book of God. Talking about the parables of Jesus. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1957 (6th edition 1991, ISBN 3-7918-2003-6 )
• Encounters. Furche-Verlag , Hamburg 1957
• Theological ethics. Volume I: Principles. Dogmatic, philosophical and controversial theological foundation Tübingen 1958, Volume II: Entfaltung. 1. Part: Mensch und Welt , 1959, 2. Part: Ethik des Politischen 4. durchges. u. essential exp. Edition. 1987, III. Volume: unfolding. Part 3: Ethics of Society, Law, Sexuality and Art , 1964.
• Seen from the ship. Diary of a trip to East Asia. Stuttgart 1959.
• How the world began. Man in the prehistory of the Bible. Stuttgart 1960.
• About spiritual speaking - meeting Spurgeon. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1961, ISBN 3-7918-2009-5 .
• To the Germans. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, Tübingen 1962.
• The silence of God. A book of hours. Today's questions about the gospel. Furche, Hamburg 1962.
• Of the freedom to be human. Rainer Wunderlich-Verlag, Tübingen 1963.
• The individual and the apparatus. Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1964.
• Conversations about heaven and earth. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1964.
• Suffering from the church. Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1965.
• On the pulpit and chair. Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1965.
• Small exercise for theologians. Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1965.
• Theological thinking and insecure faith. Herder, Freiburg 1967.
• The Christian in an emergency. The little book of hope. Herder, Freiburg 1967 (new edition 1977, ISBN 3-451-07600-4 )
• How modern can theology be? Four models of today's proclamation. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1967.
• The Evangelical Faith. Basics of dogmatics. Volume I: Prolegomena: The Relationship of Theology to Modern Thoughts , Tübingen 1968, Volume II: Theory of God and Christology , 1973, Volume III: Theology of Spirit , 1978.
• Who can live? Ethical problems of modern medicine. Goldmann Verlag , Munich 1970
• The secret question about God . Background of our mental situation. Freiburg im Breisgau 1972, ISBN 3-451-01929-9 .
• The laughter of saints and fools. Thoughtful about wit and humor. Freiburg im Breisgau 1974, ISBN 3-451-01991-4 .
• Between God and Satan. R.Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1978.
• Who can die? Borderline issues in modern medicine: euthanasia, bedside truth, the right to suicide, organ transplantation, high-performance sport and medicine, the hospital crisis. Freiburg im Breisgau 1979.
• Faith as an adventure. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980.
• A guest on a beautiful star. Memories. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-455-08232-7 . (New edition: Piper, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22377-X )
• God's silence - faith in an emergency. Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1988.
• Belief and Thought in Modern Times. The great systems of theology and philosophy of religion. 2nd Edition. Mohr, Tübingen 1988.
• In search of the lost word. Thoughts on the future of Christianity. Luebbe Verlagsgruppe, Bergisch Gladbach 1988, ISBN 3-404-60219-6 .

literature

• Björn Krondorfer: Protestant theologian autobiographies and coming to terms with the past: Helmut Thielicke as an example of a post-war German discourse on suffering. In: Coming to terms with the past in French Catholicism and German Protestantism. 2008, pp. 202-222.
• Lutz Mohaupt : Art. Thielicke, Helmut. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 33 (2002), pp. 421-425.
• Wolfdietrich von Kloeden :  Helmut Thielicke. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 11, Bautz, Herzberg 1996, ISBN 3-88309-064-6 , Sp. 1106-1113.
• Lutz Mohaupt: Helmut Thielicke. In: Wolf-Dieter Hauschild (Ed.): Profiles of Lutheranism. 20th Century Biographies . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-00386-0 .
• Hinrich CG Westphal (ed.): The Helmut Thielicke reading book . Quell-Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-7918-1750-7 .
• Fabian F. Grassl: In the Face of Death. Thielicke - Theologian, Precher, Boundary Rider, Eugene: Oregon 2019, ISBN 978-1-5326-5547-0 .
• Silke Bremer: The business ethical approach in the theological ethics of Helmut Thielicke. Presentation of the basic positions and comparative comparison of economic conceptions of order with special consideration of A. Müller-Armack and FA v. Hayek . Market economy and ethics 4. Lit, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-3082-9 .
• Friedrich Slowly: Helmut Thielicke. Concretion in sermon and theology . Calwer Theological Monographs C / 26. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7668-3468-1 .
• Norbert Friedrich: Helmut Thielicke as the antipode of social movements. In: Upheavals: German Protestantism and the social movements in the 1960s and 70s. Göttingen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-55748-8 , pp. 247-261.
• Hans Wollschläger : Helmut Thielicke. The starting theologian. In: Who teaches at German universities. Edited by Karlheinz Deschner. Wiesbaden: Limes 1968, pp. 9-54.
• Hans Wollschläger: The starting theologian. In: The presence of an illusion , pp. 49–114, Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1978, ISBN 3-257-20576-7 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Helmut Thielicke  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Helmut Thielicke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Helmut Thielicke  in the German Digital Library
• Other times

Single receipts

1. ↑ In addition, Thielicke expressed himself in connection with the euthanasia about the "empty madhouses" (p. 131, 103), and he made statements that Jews, Aryans and others are in principle on a similar level (p. 122 and others).
2. ↑ Thielicke himself states in the foreword ( Der Glaube der Christenheit. P. 7) that the lectures at that time were stylistically revised, but without any substantive changes.
3. ↑ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer refers to a series of sermons and books without political references : From the “Limit of the Possible” in the Third Reich. Criticism of the national in the unique collection of sermons of the Viennese Baptist pastor Arnold Köster. In: past and present. Quarterly issues for contemporary history, social analysis and political education. 18, 1999, pp. 13-35, there 18.
4. ↑ Celebrity Graves