Hermann Kutter

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Hermann Kutter (born September 12, 1863 in Bern , † March 22, 1931 in St. Gallen ) was a Swiss Protestant theologian and one of the founders of religious socialism there . He was the son of Wilhelm Rudolf Kutter .

Life stations

Kutter came from a Pietist family and studied Protestant theology in Basel , Bern and Berlin . During his student days he joined the Swiss Zofingerverein . In 1894 he became a pastor in Vinelz on Lake Biel . With a thesis on Clemens Alexandrinus , he received his doctorate in Zurich in 1896 as a licentiate in theology. From 1898 until his retirement in 1926 he worked as a pastor at Neumünster in Zurich , where he initiated social projects and worked with the voluntary poor relief worker Elisabeth Luz .

He was instantly known when he wrote You Must! (1903) described the Social Democrats as "God's tools for creating a better future". With Leonhard Ragaz , who took up Kutter's theses, and other comrades-in-arms, the religious-social movement in Switzerland emerged from 1906 .

The theological faculty of the University of Zurich awarded Kutter an honorary theological doctorate in 1923 .

theology

Kutter was strongly influenced by the Württemberger preacher Christoph Blumhardt and combined his expectation of the Christian kingdom of God with German idealism , contemporary philosophy of life and socialist belief in the future. His own image of God emphasized the “immediacy” of religious experience, the “penetration” of the finite through the dynamics of the infinite, so that for him God was the “only reality of life”. In some respects, this idea anticipated the so-called " dialectical theology " of Karl Barth , Emil Brunner and other German-speaking theologians of the time.

Kutter saw human history as a "return to immediate life". For him, this goal combined Christianity and socialism . He saw social democracy as a “tool” of the living God. In his book You Must (1903) he portrayed their followers as unconscious servants of God who must proclaim judgment and the great turning point to the world. “Nowadays,” wrote Kutter in You Must , “the Social Democrats are reviled by all people. I almost believe that something of God has become apparent there. ”The famous last words of the book are:“ God's promises are fulfilled in the Social Democrats: They must. ”However, unlike his companions Ragaz and Barth, he himself did not step into it Social Democratic Party, just as he did not equate gospel and socialism.

Fonts (selection)

  • The Father's World , 1901
  • The Immediate, A Question of Humanity , 1902
  • You need to! An open word to Christian society , 1903
  • The revolution of Christianity , 1908
  • Experience. A boy's Christmas experience , 1915
  • Speeches to the German nation , 1916
  • God's picture book for young and old , 1917
  • In the beginning was the deed , 1923
  • Where is god , 1926
  • Need and Certainty , 1926
  • Plato and Us , 1927
  • My people , 1929.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Jehle: Ever Against the Stream. The Politics of Karl Barth, 1906–1968 . Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene Oregon 2002, ISBN 978-1-62032-094-5 , p. 21.
  2. ↑ Hermann Kutter: You have to. An open word to Christian society , Berlin 1903, p. 6.
  3. ↑ Hermann Kutter, you have to. An open word to the Christian society , Berlin 1903, p. 194.
personal data
SURNAME Kutter, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1931
Place of death St. Gallen