Jean Lasserre

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Jean Lasserre (1978)

Jean Lasserre (born October 28, 1908 in Geneva , † November 22, 1983 in Lyon ) was a Swiss-French pastor and pacifist . He was pastor of the Reformed Church in France , peace theologian, travel secretary of the French branch of the International Union of Reconciliation and editor of the Cahiers de la Reconciliation , its French-language magazine. His book War and the Gospel (French original 1953) made him known internationally.

Life

origin

Lasserre's father, Henri Lasserre (born July 4, 1875 in Geneva, † May 26, 1945 in Toronto , Canada ), was Swiss . His family came from Pont-de-Camarès (France) as Huguenots , but emigrated to Switzerland in 1749. Henri Lasserre took an early interest in Tolstoy's thoughts and community life and later emigrated to Canada. Jean Lasserre dedicated his book War and the Gospel to the memory of his father.

His mother, Marie Schnurr (born January 12, 1878 in Lyon; † February 19, 1960 there), was an artist and botanist. After his parents divorced, Jean Lasserre lived in Lyon from 1909. In 1930 he became a French citizen.

Study and meeting with Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jean Lasserre studied theology in Paris from 1926 to 1930 and then in New York until 1931 . From September 1930 Lasserre was a seminarian at Union Theological Seminary in New York. There he met two other European scholarship holders, Erwin Sutz and Dietrich Bonhoeffer . Dietrich Bonhoeffer had attacked the Versailles Treaty a short time before . Even so, he showed no resentment towards the French roommate. The joint visit to the film Nothing New in the West, based on the novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, changed the relationship between the two of them lastingly, and “archenemies” became friends. After the academic year, Jean Lasserre and Dietrich Bonhoeffer traveled together in the car to the United States and Mexico and, as former "enemies", gave lectures on the question of peace in Victoria (Mexico). The meeting with Lasserre is likely to have given Bonhoeffer the decisive impetus to fathom the message of the Sermon on the Mount in his book Nachfuhrung from scratch after his return to Germany .

In the following years the two met on various occasions: in 1931 at the ecumenical conference in Cambridge , in 1932 in Les Houches in the Chamonix valley , in 1934 at the Ecumenical Youth Conference of the World Federation for Church Friendship Work on Fanø and in the same year in Jean Lasserre's workers' congregation in Bruay- en-Artois. At least until Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in April 1943, they kept in touch by letter through the German Wehrmacht soldier Heinrich Gellermann. Jean Lasserre burned the letters during the German occupation of France out of concern for himself and his family.

Act

Parish, family, resistance and the fight against alcoholism, racism and prostitution

After completing his theology studies, Jean Lasserre was pastor from 1932 to 1938 in the reformed workers' congregation of Bruay-en-Artois. Here he married Geneviève Lasserre-Marchyllie in 1938 (born March 8, 1912 in Calais , † April 11, 1991 in Lyon). They had three children together. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited him there, he had his first experiences with a street sermon among workers. Lasserre fought against alcoholism and racism in the community .

From 1938 to 1949 Lasserre was pastor in Maubeuge . During the Second World War "he entered his regiment against his pacifist convictions [...], knowing full well that 'I will be unfaithful to my master' '". He hid two radio receivers for the Resistance that had been prepared from London to sabotage ammunition transports. Nobody was killed in the explosion. After the end of the war, the local mayor used him as a defender in an improvised and illegal court case against collaborators . He managed to avert the death penalty in at least one case .

In 1946 he started a campaign against prostitution (see his book Comment les maisons furent fermées , 1955).

From 1949 to 1953 Lasserre was pastor in Épernay . Here he wrote his first book on theology of peace with The War and the Gospel . From 1953 to 1961 he was pastor of the Fraternité in St. Etienne and from 1969 to 1973 pastor in Calais.

Peace work for the International Union of Reconciliation

As a member of the French branch of the International Union of Reconciliation, which was founded in 1921 by Henri Roser and others, Lasserre became travel secretary of the International Union of Reconciliation in 1961. When Martin Luther King jun. Jean Lasserre was one of the organizers, giving a speech to 5,000 people in Lyon on March 29, 1966. He took part in the fight against the war in Algeria and in the fight against torture , defended conscientious objectors in trials as a witness and worked closely with Jean Goss , Hildegard Goss-Mayr's husband .

A selection of his lectures appeared in Lasserre's second book on peace theology Les Chrétiens et la Violence in 1965 ; For the second edition in 2008, Frédéric Rognon wrote a foreword and provided the book with explanations. It was published in German in 2010 under the title Christianity before the question of violence. The time has come to rethink .

From 1957 to 1968 and again from 1977 to 1978 he was editor of the Cahiers de la Réconciliation , the journal of the French-speaking Union of Reconciliation.

In 1966 Lasserre traveled to Africa , especially in contact with the Kimbanguist Church in French Congo (now the Republic of the Congo ) and helped her become a member of the World Council of Churches . - Even after Lasserre retired in 1973, he remained in constant contact with the Larzac struggle (against the expansion of a military training area), the Ark community and in the fight against nuclear weapons . From 1975 Lasserre organized Franco-German meetings with theological studies on the subject of the gospel and nonviolence .

meaning

Together with the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder , Jean Lasserre contributed significantly to the position of the Christian pacifists in the sense of the beatification of Jesus in Gospel of Matthew 5: 9, "Blessed are the peacemakers [Latin" pacifici "], because they become God's children called “to represent in the wake of the Puidoux Conferences. Yoder and Lasserre campaigned resolutely to overcome the trilemma of the ecumenical conference in Amsterdam in 1948 , after which it had been declared that war should not be according to God's will, but three different positions within Christianity on the question of violence were equal the position of the ultima ratio , the reasons of state and the unconditional rejection of killing violence by the peace churches. Lasserre justified the categorical difference between a non-killing and a killing use of force. He created the concept of the Constantinian heresy , which has falsified the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth and his unrestricted nonviolence since the union of state and church as a result of the Constantinian turn to state Christianity. Lasserre turned against the use of killing force both in connection with state wars - he denied the sense of defense wars according to military logic  - as well as in armed liberation struggles against European colonial rule , especially in Africa .

Works (selection)

  • La Guerre et l'Evangile. Paris, 1953. German translation The War and the Gospel ; Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich, 1956 (contained in the Handbook of Christian Peace Theology , CD-ROM, Digital Library, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89853-013-2 ). English translation: War and the Gospel ; James Clarke & Co. Ltd, London, 1962. American translation War and the Gospel ; Herald Press, Scottdale, Penn., 1974.
  • Comment les “maisons” furent fermées , Geneva 1955.
  • Les Chrétiens et la Violence. Editions de la Réconciliation, Paris 1965. Second edition with a foreword by Frédéric Rognon, Lyon 2008. German translation: Christianity before the question of violence. The time has come to rethink. From the French by Dietlinde Haug, eds. Matthias Engelke and Thomas Nauerth. LIT Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10689-6 .
  • Un contresens tenace. Jésus chassant les marchands du temple. Jean 2: 13-17. Paris 1967.
  • Armée ou defense civile non-violente? Ouvrage collectif publié par Combat non violent. La Clayette 1975.
  • La Tour de Siloé. Jésus et the resistance de son temps. Lyon 1981.
  • La Défense Nationale Militaire est-elle crédible? Lyon 1982.
  • Jésus, ce non-violent - Écrits biographiques et théologiques et souvenirs de Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Texts rassemblés by Christiane Lasserre. Éditions Olivetan, 2018, ISBN 978-2-35479-439-2 .

More articles:

  • Questions about chrétien et la guerre . Cahiers de la Reconciliation. Bulletin mensuel d'information du groupe français du Mouvement international de la Réconciliation. No. 11, Paris 1949, pp. 4-6.
  • L'enseignement du Nouveau Testament sur la guerre (thèses) . Cahiers de la Reconciliation. No. 9-10, Paris 1951, pp. 14-15.
  • Le Bien dans Romains 13 . Cahiers de la Reconciliation. No. 1, Paris 1956, pp. 2-6.
  • Non violence et révolution armée . Alternative non violentes. Lyon 4th quarter 1973, pp. 16-22.
  • Non violence et ancien testament . Théologie et non violence. 2nd session. Non violence et ancien testament. Actes de la session tenue à l'Arbresle du 22 au 27 mars 1976. Paris 1985, pp. 3-9.
  • David et la non violence. Compte-rendu d'un groupe de travail . Théologie et Non violence. 2nd session. Non violence et ancien testament. Actes de la session tenue à l'Arbresle du 22 au 27 mars 1976. Paris 1985, pp. 48-50.
  • Notes critiques (on the ensemble de la session). Théologie et non violence, 3rd session. L'attitude de premiers chrétiens face au service militaire. Actes de la session tenue à Orsay. Pâques 1977, Paris 1986; Pp. 108-111.
  • Romains 13, 1-7 . Théologie et non violence, 4th session. Resistance et soumission dans la Bible. Actes de la session tenue au Liebfrauenberg (Alsace) du 9 au 13 avril 1978. Paris 1988; Pp. 86-95. Article 1957–1982: Le Courage de la vérité. June 1957.

literature

  • Fréderic Rognon: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Un modèle de foi chrétienne incarnée et de cohérence entre les convictions et la vie . Lyon 2011, pp. 17-21.
  • Horsta Krum : On the question of violence. Fragments of an unfinished dialogue between Bonhoeffer and Lasserre . In: Gegen den Strom , Berlin 2014, p. 122.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer : Succession ; ed. by Martin Kuske and Ilse Tödt; second revised and corrected edition, Munich 1994, editor's afterword, p. 309.
  2. ^ Geoffrey B. Kelly: An Interview with Jean Lasserre. Union Seminary Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1972, pp. 149–160.
  3. ^ F. Burton Nelson: The Relationship of Jean Lasserre to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Peace Concerns in the Struggle of Church and Culture . Union Seminary Quarterly Review. Volume 40, 1985, pp. 71-84.
  4. ↑ Jean Lasserre: Dietrich was a real friend . Bonhoeffer circular. Communications from the International Bonhoeffer Society Section Federal Republic of Germany. No. 80, 2006, pp. 10-14.
  5. ↑ Fréderic Rognon: Vorwortin: Jean Lasserre: Les chrétiens et la violence . Lyon 2008, p. 12.
  6. ^ Fréderic Rognon: Pacifisme et tyrannicide chez Jean Lasserre et Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Première partie: L'établissement des faits historiques, in: Études Théologiques et Religieuses. Volume 80, 2005/1, pp. 1-23.
  7. ^ Ferdinand Schlingensiepen: Dietrich Bonhoeffer , 1906–1945: a biography. 2005, ISBN 3-406-53425-2 , page 90, online
  8. ^ Geoffrey B. Kelly: An Interview with Jean Lasserre . Union Seminary Quarterly Review 27 (1972), pp. 149-160, here p. 157.
  9. ^ Fréderic Rognon: Foreword in: Jean Lasserre: Les chrétiens et la violence ; Lyon 2008, p. 14; Quote from: Jean Lasserre: Une Église embarrassée ; in: Cahiers de la Réconciliation , No. 4, 1979, pp. 34-38, p. 37.
  10. ^ Geneviève Lasserre: Court martial in Maubeuge. (PDF) International Federation of Reconciliation - German Branch, accessed on March 4, 2016 (translation from French: daughter Christiane Lasserre).
  11. ^ Wolfgang Hertle: Larzac. 1971-1981. The non-violent resistance against the expansion of a military training area in southern France. Kassel-Bettenhausen 1982; ISBN 3-88713-001-4 .
  12. ↑ Jean Lasserre: The War and the Gospel ; P. 136 and so on.
  13. ^ Heinold Fast, Dietrich Fischinger, Heinrich Treblin: What we expect from an evangelical memorial for peace. A theological memorandum of the “Working Group for Church Certificates of Peace” ; in: From the People's Church to the Peace Community among the Nations - An Invitation to Dialogue . Hamburg 1968: p. 69.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The view that Bonhoeffer's turnaround had to do exclusively with contact with black grassroots communities in New York is represented by Karl Martin: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's turn from theologian to Christian - biographical background for Bonhoeffer's ecumenical peace ethics and theology . Responsibility No. 33, 2004, pp. 6–26.
  2. ↑ Confirmed by his daughter to Matthias-W. Engelke, editor of Christianity before the question of violence .
  3. ↑ Named after the first conference venue in French-speaking Switzerland, Puidoux, this is the name for a series of conferences in which representatives of the popular churches , etc. a. advised the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland and the historical peace churches , the Quakers , Church of the Brethren and the Mennonites , as well as the International Union of Reconciliation from 1955 to 1969 on questions of theology of peace, above all on the question of the permissibility of violence and especially the use of military force. A selection of the documents have been published by Donald F. Durnbaugh , editor: On Earth Peace ; Elgin, Illinois, 1978; ISBN 0-87178-660-5 .
personal data
SURNAME Lasserre, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-French pastor and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1983
Place of death Lyon