Kerygmatic theology

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The kerygmatic theology ( kerygmatic 'belonging to the preaching', 'preaching', 'preaching'; also preaching theology ) explains the content of the Christian message (of the gospel ).

Features of kerygmatic theology

The kerygmatic theology emphasizes the unchangeable truth of the kerygma (the proclamation , the message ) in relation to contemporary demands that arise from a certain situation or circumstances, or demands that the respective zeitgeist formulates. This means that kerygmatic theology is often opposed to adapting to the zeitgeist - in contrast, for example, to the religious nationalism of the “ German Christians ”.

The kerygmatic theology subjects all theological and orthodox thinking to the criterion of proclamation . The preaching is contained in the Bible , but not identical to the Bible, since the preaching is an expression of the classical tradition of Christian theology .

Carsten Barwasser describes the character of a kerygmatic theology (here: Theology of Annunciation ) as follows:

“With regard to theology, this means an emphasis on the salvific dimension of Christian faith, in contrast to a more speculative dogmatics, which endeavors to gain theoretical insight into the truth of faith. In theological practice, however, this leads to a clear separation between a 'scientific theology' and a theology of preaching, which should always be related to one another, but still form two different areas.

Kerygmatic Theology in the Protestant Church

Philosophical and kerygmatic theology with Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich bust

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) differentiates between philosophical theology and kerygmatic theology. It is important that in this context the term “philosophical theology” is not to be equated with “ natural theology ” or “ philosophical doctrine of God ”. Philosophical theology in Tillich describes a theology that is based on the kerygma (the message), but which justifies the content of the kerygma in close interrelation with philosophy . On the other hand, a kerygmatic theology according to Tillich attempts to present the content of the Christian message in a systematic and orderly manner, without including philosophy.

According to Tillich, philosophical theology and kerygmatic theology need one another, since kerygmatic theology, for example, has to use philosophical methods and terms because it can not do without ontological terminology. Otherwise, the kerygmatic theology would not be a “theology”, since the term “theology” in its first part of the word already refers to the kerygma in which God reveals himself. The second part of the word describes the possibility for human reason to receive and interpret this message.

Kerygmatic theologians: Martin Luther and Karl Barth

Martin Luther (1529)

Important examples of kerygmatic theology are Reformation theology ( Martin Luther (1483–1546), Johannes Calvin (1509–1564)) and the so-called New Reformation theology of Karl Barth (1886–1968) and his school. In their time, both Luther and Calvin, as well as Barth, were massively attacked by the Orthodox. Paul Tillich is therefore of the opinion “that it is not entirely correct to call Luther 'orthodox' and Barth 'new orthodox'. Luther was in danger of becoming Orthodox, and the same goes for Barth, but neither of them wanted to. Both are seriously concerned with rediscovering the eternal message in the Bible and tradition and opposed it to a distorted tradition and mechanical abuse of the Bible. "

At the time, Luther criticized the attitude of the Vatican, its conception of levels of salvation and the conveyance of beliefs. He countered this attitude of the Roman Catholic Church with the unchangeable truth of the kerygma (proclamation, message): Luther emphasized the biblical categories “ grace ” and “judgment”, he rediscovered the Pauline message and pointed to the unequal “values” of the biblical books - this is considered kerygmatic theology.

Barth, on the other hand, criticized the neo-Protestant-bourgeois connection between modern thinking of that time and the Christian message (the kerygma). He countered this with the Christian paradox - together with his interpretation of Romans and his radical distancing from liberal theology and the historical-critical method. This is also considered kerygmatic theology.

What do Luther and Barth have in common? Both contrasted the eternal truth of the kerygma with the respective human situation and its demands. In their time this produced a "prophetic, deeply shaking and transforming violence."

Kerygmatic Theology in the Catholic Church

In the 1930s, parts of the Catholic Church criticized the theology's lack of experience because its relation to the practice of church preaching was hardly recognizable. This was the basis for the emergence of "kerygmatic theology" or "theology of proclamation" in the Catholic Church in the German-speaking area. From the 1930s onwards , various clergymen devised a theology "... which is entirely devoted to the pastoral-practical concern of mediating between the kerygma of Christianity and the needs of contemporary people, with the exclusion of scholastic theology."

The foundation for this kerygmatic theology put Josef Andreas Jungmann (1889-1975) with his 1936 book, The Good News and our evangelization . He is considered to be the father of the Innsbruck preaching theology and wanted to react with this text to the situation of Christianity at that time, which he felt as "habitual Christianity " and which should be brought back to the essential core of the faith through a new preaching .

In addition, Hugo Rahner (1900–1968) and other theologians of his time in the Catholic Church , including his brother Karl Rahner (1904–1984), tried to develop a theology that was entirely at the service of preaching . He published his ideas and basic ideas in this regard in his book Eine Theologie der Verkendung , which appeared in 1939. Other representatives of kerygmatics included Romano Guardini (1885–1968) and Franz Xaver Arnold (1898–1969), who wanted to strengthen catechetics in its original form.

Karl Rahner went so far that he put his entire theology in the service of preaching , so that with Rahner the clear separation between school and preaching theology was abolished. With this, Rahner laid the foundation for a new anthropocentric theology - “from below”, so to speak. This subjectivism and anthropocentrism were the starting points for all other theses of Karl Rahner, which Pope Pius XII. (1876–1958) and the Holy Office , the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were clearly criticized.

Since then, this form of kerygmatic theology has been judged positively on the one hand, because it tried to overcome neo-scholasticism . On the other hand, it is under criticism because it wanted to separate the two theological areas.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e f Paul Tillich: Systematic Theology. Vol. 1/2, Reason and Revelation; His and God; Existence and Christ, Vol. I / II (Hardcover), De Gruyter, Berlin 1987.
  2. ↑ a b c Carsten Barwasser: Theology of culture and hermeneutics of the experience of faith: on the question of God and responsibility for faith in Edward Schillebeeckx. Series Religion - History - Society. Volume 47. Lit Verlag, Münster 2010.
  3. ↑ a b Werner Schüssler: “What concerns us necessarily”: Studies on theology and philosophy of Paul Tillich. Lit Verlag, Münster 2004.
  4. ↑ a b David Berger (ed.): The encyclical "Humani generis" Pope Pius XII .: 1950-2000. History, doctrine and topicality of a prophetic textbook, with a foreword by Leo Scheffczyk. Editiones Una Voce, Cologne 2000