Rüdiger Beile

Rüdiger Beile in conversation with an Orthodox priest in Meteora

Rüdiger Beile (born October 28, 1932 in Karlsruhe ) is a German Protestant pastor, youth leader, school dean and theologian. In the post-war period in Baden-Württemberg he was the new founder of groups that followed the tradition of the Bundische Jugend , the dj 1.11. stood. In the ecclesiastical field, he actively campaigned for ecumenism , for dialogue among the Christian churches and for reconciliation with Islam. He is a theologian and book author and received his doctorate at the age of over 70 with a historical interpretation of the Revelation of John . Rüdiger Beile has lived in Wertheim since 1981 .

Life

Childhood and youth

Beile spent his childhood as the son of Alfons and Ilse Beile in Karlsruhe. The father died early (1939). Towards the end of the war, the mother and her son were evacuated to Östringen . In the Protestant community there, Rüdiger Beile had been a member since 1946 and head of the youth group from 1948. After graduating from high school in Karlsruhe in 1952, he first worked for a year as a private tutor at the Zinzendorf grammar school of the Brethren in Königsfeld . Theology studies followed in Heidelberg from 1953 to 1959 .

Youth movement

Beile was the founder of a Bundische Horte in Karlsruhe in 1955, which joined two other groups from the Kirchheimer Jungenschaft and a group in Dirmstein on November 1, 1956 at the 1.11. (Protestant youth 1.11.) united and followed the tradition of the dj 1.11. posed.

→ Main article : Evangelical youth

Private life

Rüdiger Beile married Gertrud Schuler in 1961 and the couple had seven children. Son Markus Beile followed in his father's footsteps and became a pastor and book author. The wife Gertrud Beile died on January 13, 2011.

Church career

“He found his first position as a parish vicar in Pforzheim [1959], and he was a parish vicar in Schopfheim for a year and a half [1960/1961]. (... Then) he worked for three and a half years as a religion teacher at the grammar school and business school in Mannheim. "

Jestetten

From May 1, 1965, he was the parish administrator and, from August 1, 1965, pastor of the Jestetten - Grießen church district in the Waldshut district , "a diaspora congregation with 18 villages, 6 preaching stations without an assistant, as well as head of the southern Baden, ecumenical study group of the regional church and participation in the Synodal Committee for Ecumenism and Mission, participation in the Frankfurt Conversation . ”(according to curriculum vitae). The official inauguration of a Protestant pastor on September 8, 1965 was an event at that time for which dignitaries from the German and Swiss environment, including the dean and district administrator, came together. In August 1965, as part of his commitment to the ecumenical movement , Rüdiger Beile initiated a joint service with the Old Catholic pastor of Dettighofen , an idea that the Catholic community of Jestetten soon followed.

Hella drive 1968 ejg 01.11., Group picture in front of Mount Olympus -Hütte Spilios Agapitos

In the eastern district of Waldshut near the Swiss border, Rüdiger Beile founded the Evangelical Youth Grenzland (1st November) with an after-school care center, local groups and, for the first time, a 'mixed youth group'.

Engagement in ecumenism

In the 1960s, Rüdiger Beile belonged to the generation of “young pastors” who were involved in youth work and, from this environment, in the ecumenical movement . In addition to the theological search for common ground, practical cooperation with first Old Catholic and then Roman Catholic clergy was also successful in joint services with a liturgy developed here 'from below' - for example in the marriage of “mixed marriages”. Beile shaped the ecumenical activities of the church base in the Karlsruhe / Mannheim area through the establishment of the Rotenburger Kreis .

See: Ecumenical Movement in Germany

Further stations

In January 1971, Beile was appointed pastor to Leimen near Heidelberg, where he re-established youth work and continued his commitment to ecumenism.

In 1976 he was called to Lauda-Königshofen , where he reacted to the changes of the times in youth work, let traditions come to an end and accepted the more socio-political orientation of the new generation towards the environment and alternatives. Beile now referred to the school sector in addition to community work and became school dean of Adelsheim, Boxberg and Wertheim.

From 1981 to 1995 Wertheim was the penultimate station in his church office. In 1995 Rüdiger Beile was retired as dean of school. In the church district, he was still regularly substituting for church services and holidays.

In connection with his Islam studies, Beile gave lectures and was able to use the public interest to found a German-Islamic working group in Wertheim, the CIGIF (Christian-Islamic Society).

From 1991 to 1997 Rüdiger Beile was second chairman of the high church association of the Augsburg Confession .

Retirement activity

In 1998, already in retirement, Rüdiger Beile took over the pastoral office of the Evangelical German / Dutch / French community (Comunita Evangelica Ecumenica di Ispra - Varese ) in northern Italy, a foundation within the framework of the establishment of a research center of EURATOM , which was there after a conflict Had formed prehistory.

Literary work

After a purely archival work on Indian culture and languages ​​as well as the writer Karl May , Beile dealt with Islam from the late 1970s - first with Shitiism , about which he published a book in 1987 and the importance of which he saw in “that he consciously or unconsciously borrowed from the world of Christianity. ”This was followed by an overview of the interplay and contrast between the two Islamic denominations in the volume World Religion of Islam , 1993.

At the age of 69, Rüdiger Beile enrolled in the Philosophical Faculty III of the Bavarian Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg and received his doctorate on January 17, 2003 summa cum laude with a dissertation (opus valde laudabile) on the Revelation of John . The work was relocated a year later (2nd edition 2008).

Criticism
"With his theses on the history of Revelation in stages, closely related to specific events in the last third of the 1st century AD, to the author's biographical situation or, for example, to the reign of Domitian, which was characterized by excessive veneration of the emperors [...] ( Beile) resolutely rejects any dependency or intentional proximity to previous apocalyptic literature: as a generic 'unique', the revelation is rather its overcoming. "

annotation

1. ↑ The community in the greater Milan / Milano area was created in connection with a European research center for the "peaceful use of atomic energy", later EURATOM , which began operations in Italy on October 1, 1960 in Ispra. The circle of affiliation of the community expanded in 1965 from the research center to members of the "numerous industrial companies in the region or the European school", whose children were looked after with religious instruction. A church building was made possible with a donation from the Lutheran Church Office in Germany; the owner of the site and the building owner of the church was the ( ELKI ). The foundation stone was laid on February 6, 1966. In 1997 the parish celebrated the 30th anniversary of St. John's Church in the locality of Coquio-Caldana . (Sources: Community letters / Winfried Becker: Our way to an ecumenical community. , Caldana (May) 1997, p. 4 f. In: Archive Beile, Akt 1998, Wertheim.).

Works

• World religion Islam , Munich series, Evangelical Press Association for Bavaria, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-583-50654-5 .
• The other Islam. The Shiites , Munich series, Evangelical Press Association for Bavaria, Munich 1994, (2nd edition 1996). ISBN 3-583-50647-2 .
• Interjection from Patmos , V & R Verlag unipress, Göttingen 2004, (2nd edition 2008). ISBN 3-89971-145-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alb-Bote , (-ckl): Special commitment in the fight against indifference. , September 4, 1965.
2. ↑ Südkurier : Greeted by believers, mayors and fellow officials. , September 10, 1965.
3. ^ Board of the High Churches Association ( Memento from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
4. ^ Rüdiger Beile: The other Islam. Munich series. Information on the subject of world religions, Evangelical Press Association for Bavaria, Munich 1993, p. 4.
5. ^ Rüdiger Beile: Interjection from Patmos . The historical framework of the Johannes apocalypse and its consequences. , V & R Verlag, Göttingen 2004. ISBN 3-89971-145-9 .
6. ↑ Konrad Huber: A new overall assessment of the Apocalypse of John of Ephesus. In: bbs 5/2008.