Joachim Beckmann

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Joachim Beckmann at the Free Evangelical Synod (January 1934)

Wilhelm Joachim Beckmann (born July 18, 1901 in Eickel , † January 18, 1987 in Haan ) was a German Protestant theologian. From 1958 to 1971 he was President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland .

Life

Beckmann, son of pastor Julius August Wilhelm Beckmann and Frieda Schmidt, passed his Abitur at the high school in Wattenscheid in 1920 . In the spring of 1920 he began to study Protestant theology and philosophy at the Philipps University of Marburg , but already switched to the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in the fall and finally to the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster in the fall of 1921 , where he in 1923 / 1924 with the religious-philosophical writing The Concept of Religious Experiences at Stange - An Examination of Critical Religious Philosophy for Doctor of Philosophy. He joined the Marburger , Tübinger and Munster Wingolf , to which he belonged until 1938. In 1924 he passed the first theological exam at the Consistory of the Westphalian Church Province of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union in Münster.

Beckmann came to Göttingen in the summer of 1924, where he became inspector of the reformed study house and completed his vicariate. At the Georg-August-Universität he met Karl Barth , who had received an honorary professorship here in 1921 . This encounter was constitutive for Joachim Beckmann's theology as well as for his biography. In 1925 Beckmann did his doctorate under Emanuel Hirsch with the work Vom Sakrament bei Calvin - The Sacramentous Doctrine of Calvin in its relations with Augustine to Lic. Theol. and from then on worked as assistant to the Central Committee for Inner Mission in Berlin at Reinhold Seeberg .

In the spring of 1926 Beckmann passed the second theological exam in Münster and became the state pastor for internal mission and welfare in the Evangelical Church in Nassau in Wiesbaden . On August 1, 1926, he was his father in the St. John's Church in Wanne-Eickel ordained . From 1928 to 1933 Joachim Beckmann was pastor of the Westphalian Women's Aid in Soest .

In 1933 he became pastor of the Düsseldorf Luther Church parish and soon after took over leading positions within the Confessing Church . So he was a member of the Reich Brotherhood Council . In 1939 Beckmann was banned from speaking in the Reich, so that he was not allowed to give any speeches outside the Luther Church until the end of the war. In addition, a special court procedure was initiated against him because he had taken exams for the Confessing Church despite Heinrich Himmler's decree of August 29, 1937, which completely forbade theological training by the Confessing Church.

Since 1945 he was a member of the leadership of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland as senior church councilor, and between 1947 and 1949 he was also chairman of the EKD's brother council .

Joachim Beckmann (in Luther skirt ) together with Richard von Weizsäcker at the German Evangelical Church Congress in 1965

In 1951 Beckmann was appointed full professor of liturgy and systematic theology at the Wuppertal / Bethel Church University . In 1948 he was elected Deputy President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, then in 1958 as President; he held this position until his retirement in 1971.

From 1967 to 1972 Beckmann was also a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany and its commissioner for questions of conscientious objection. Beckmann was one of the signatories of the Tübingen Memorandum , a memorandum that postulated a normalization of political relations with Germany's eastern neighbors and recognition of the Oder-Neisse border . Beckmann was also one of the speakers for the ARD program Das Wort zum Sonntag .

After his retirement on August 1, 1971, Beckmann resumed teaching at the Wuppertal Church University in the 1971/72 winter semester for a decade.

Joachim Beckmann had been married to Hilde Hagemann since 1927, and the marriage had four children.

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Joachim Beckmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See speakers since 1954 .
personal data
SURNAME Beckmann, Joachim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beckmann, Wilhelm Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian, President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Eickel
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1987
Place of death Haan