Jochen Teuffel
Jochen Teuffel (* 1964 in the Black Forest ) is a German theologian , pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and author.
Life
Jochen Teuffel was born in the Black Forest and came to Senden with his family in 1971 , where he was also confirmed. He was involved in local youth work and has been a member of the Association of Christian Scouts (VCP) since 1974 . From 1974 to 1980 he attended the Nikolaus-Kopernikus-Gymnasium in Weißenhorn before he switched to the business high school in Ulm . After completing his apprenticeship as an industrial clerk, he did his community service in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Josefinum Catholic children's clinic in Augsburg-Oberhausen . In 1986 he studied Protestant theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg . After completing his master's thesis on the law of the parish in the legal system of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria , he became a research assistant at the Institute for Systematic Theology and Christian Social Ethics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Later he worked alongside his work as an assistant to the management of a medium-sized company in Wasserburg am Inn as the parish priest of the local parish.
In 1999 he received his doctorate with his dissertation On Theology. The art of good speech from God in accordance with the scriptures read . Teuffel spent the period from 2002 to 2008 in China, where he lectured in systematic theology at the "Lutheran Theological Seminary" in Hong Kong and as a visiting professor at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou . He then took on general church tasks in the "Mission Intercultural" department of Mission EineWelt of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Neuendettelsau . Since 2009 he has been pastor in Vöhringen (Iller) in the Augsburg parish . In addition, since 2016 he has been a teacher for Protestant religious studies at the Gymnasium Kolleg of the school brothers Illertissen .
Plant and positions
Teuffel emphasizes the importance of spiritual community life , most recently in his pamphlet “Save the Church” published in 2014. He sees his book as “a wake-up call in view of the lack of prospects that I perceive in the regional churches. Too much is vested and too little is trusted in the gospel . As long as I am not convinced of something else by the Bible and the evangelical doctrine, I insist that the church tax contradicts our evangelical teaching ”. For him, the tax is an example of a wrongly interwoven church and state. The failure of the Protestant regional churches is "preprogrammed". Only the church tax keeps the constitutional Protestantism alive. The Volkskirche does raise a claim to validity for society as a whole, but it has increasingly lost touch with its members. Teuffel formulated his ideas for reforming the church tax in 12 theses. However, the abolition of the church tax is by no means a panacea to save the church.
A pulpit ban for the Vöhringen Church by Teuffel, the regional bishop of the Northern Church and leading bishop of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany (VELKD), Gerhard Ulrich , received public attention in May 2016. The background is theological differences of opinion: Ulrich had in an Easter contribution for The print edition of the Evangelische Zeitung of March 27, 2016 stated that Jesus' disciples had understood after the crucifixion and the first shock that Jesus was dead. “His body will perish like every human body.” In Teuffel's opinion, Ulrich has broken his ordination promise that he is “in contradiction to the gospel and the doctrinal confessions of our church”. According to the constitution of the VELKD, the leading bishop has the right to preach on all pulpits of the member churches. Teuffel, on the other hand, relies on Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession . Teuffel declined an offer to talk to him previously made by Ulrich in April 2016.
Teaching
Using the biblical and European concepts of God, Teuffel claims that European culture is still unconsciously strongly influenced by Greek metaphysics and philosophy . The Old Testament , the Hebrew Bible, has a different understanding of God. There is a general concept of God like Elohim , which can be understood as a generic name. The actual and more common name of God, on the other hand, is YHWH , mostly vocalized as Yahweh . Often it is translated as “I am who I am”, but that is only an incomplete and unsatisfactory translation. Because it was an exclusive name with which he revealed himself to Moses , showed something of his being and freed the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt through his powerful actions. YHWH is thus an absolutely determinant God who commands people, peoples, powers, the world and the cosmos and sets up instructions that we have to obey in order to live just, well and long. He is a god we do not fully understand and not a self-made god we can dispose of. In contrast to other deities of the time, he does not support unjust structures of rule and power relations.
Already the Greek, the Septuagint , and the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate , deviated significantly from this unique divine revelation. In this, YHWH would become kyrios (German: Lord ) and elohim would become theos (German: God ). However, both terms are not identical with the Hebrew words and meanings because they were taken from a different context, the Hellenistic culture, which had already been metaphysically and philosophically charged and occupied differently. Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle developed and coined the concept of God ho theos ; it was not a neutral generic term, but a kind of guiding principle: God as the original principle of all being and as the first immobile mover. Scholastics like Thomas Aquinas would have developed this description of God further; God thus became a timeless being with no real name. However, this had far-reaching consequences for Western theology, church, mission and society. When God no longer has a name, one can no longer properly listen to him and not really obey him. If he had become nameless, how could one remember him, call him, praise and spread the word about his feats of power?
Private
In 2003, Jochen Teuffel married his East Indian wife Naro Keitzer in Hong Kong. The couple have two daughters.
Publications
- From theology: The art of good speech from God in correspondence with the scriptures read (Additional dissertation, University of Erlangen / Nuremberg 1999), Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 978-3-631-35999-0 .
- Edited with Daniel Dietzfelbinger: Heils-Ökonomie? On the interaction between church and economy , Gütersloher Verlagshaus , Gütersloh 2002, ISBN 978-3-579-05304-2 .
- Mission as a name testimony: a criticism of ideology in matters of religion , Mohr Siebeck Verlag , Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-16-149910-4 .
- In the face of the catastrophe: public mourning and supplication services (incl. CD-ROM), Gütersloher Verlag-Haus, Gütersloh 2012, ISBN 978-3-579-05869-6 .
- Save the Church. Abolishes church tax , Fontis-Verlag , Basel 2014, ISBN 978-3-03848-011-2 .
Essays
- NAME MEMORY instead of God thinking. Of the difficulties with the European concept of God . In: Intercultural Theology. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft (ZMiss) 37, 4/2011, pp. 332–348.
- Dietetics instead of creating meaning . In: Uwe Justus Wenzel (Ed.): What is a good religion? Twenty answers , Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56226-6 , p. 102 ff.
Web links
- Literature by and about Jochen Teuffel in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Jochen Teuffel in the German Digital Library
- Evangelical parish Vöhringen / Iller - website
- Jochen Teuffel - Homepage
Individual evidence
- ^ First professor in China, now pastor in Vöhringen , augsburger-allgemeine.de, article from April 7, 2009.
- ↑ Directory of teachers of the College of School Brothers Illertissen , kolleg-illertissen.de, accessed on June 25, 2020.
- ↑ Gospel and church tax contradict each other , freiewelt.net, interview with Jochen Teuffel from Sept. 2014.
- ↑ Paulus was a “freelancer” , In: Christ & Welt, edition 19/2014.
- ↑ Bavarian Pastor: Protestantism no longer has a binding teaching , Idea , article from October 26, 2015.
- ↑ Separation of Church and State? , wdr.de, article from April 20, 2016.
- ↑ Jochen Teuffel: Save the Church. Abolishes the church tax ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , jesus.de, Johannes Renz: Review from 2014.
- ↑ Messages on Good Friday and Easter - "Life stands up against death". Evangelische Zeitung, March 26, 2016, accessed on May 5, 2016 .
- ↑ Gerhard Ulrich - Pastor issues the VELKD's pulpit ban to the leading bishop. idea , May 5, 2016, accessed May 5, 2016 .
- ↑ https://jochenteuffel.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/2016-05-04-schriftwechsel-teuffel-ulrich-bstens-osterbotschaft-vom-27-03.pdf
- ↑ Jochen Teuffel: NAME memory instead of God thinking. Of the difficulties with the European concept of God . In: Intercultural Theology. Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft (ZMiss) 37, 4/2011 (pages 332–348)
- ↑ Jochen Teuffel: Interview from October 22, 2014 , fontis-verlag.com
- ↑ Jochen Teuffel: About Jochen Teuffel. In: Jochen Teuffel's private website. Retrieved April 6, 2018 .
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Teuffel, Jochen |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German theologian, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and author |
DATE OF BIRTH | 1964 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Black Forest |