Reformation interpretation dispute

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The intensification of the long-smoldering dissent about understanding, interpretation and historical classification of the Reformation among Protestant theologians is called the Reformation interpretation dispute .

The beginnings can be located as smoldering between the Heidelberg theologian Gottfried Seebaß and the Göttingen Bernd Moeller . In the second generation, the conflict is now being carried out openly between their students, although the polemical severity is mainly presented by the Göttingen theologian Thomas Kaufmann against the Tübingen-based Volker Leppin .

For example, some of Kaufmann's publications can be seen as an extension of the dispute over interpretative sovereignty over the Reformation.

Viewpoints

Volker Leppin

Leppin represents biography of Luther 2006, as the action and thought of Luther in the tradition of the Middle Ages, the child should be he was. Above all, the mystical roots are illuminated and connections to the teaching of Johannes Tauler as well as parallels to his teacher Johann von Staupitz are established. In 2016, Leppin specified and sharpened his understanding of Luther's “mystical roots” in his work “The Foreign Reformation: Luther's Mystical Roots”.

The interpretation developed by Leppin as an alternative to the classical understanding of the Reformation is described by Luther as the “transformation” of medieval elements. This does not emphasize the classic break with the Middle Ages, but rather its continuity.

Ultimately, it is concluded that the force through which the Reformation picked up its speed was drawn less from Luther than more from the “tension energy” of the Middle Ages.

The following polarities are named as tension fields:

  • Outwardness - inwardness
  • Centrality - decentralization
  • Clergy - lay engagement

"Tension energy" was built up mainly by the fact that the church at that time identified both externality with penance and centrality with the Vatican and suppressed lay engagement.

Moeller / businessman

The Göttingen counterpart to the “transformation thesis” is the classic “radical change thesis”, in which Luther's break with the Middle Ages is postulated in all its consequences. This emphasizes the Reformation as the threshold between the Middle Ages and the early modern period and sees Martin Luther himself as a great reformer. With this in mind, Kaufmann can accuse Leppin of shrinking Luther through the transformation thesis: "... he's not good for shrinking German."

Kaufmann's thesis of radical change is developed primarily in his own biography of Luther.

Settlement of the dispute

While the dispute smoldered exclusively in the academic context in recent years and only led to debates and disagreements in the university context alone, the fundamental division in the specialist community of church history on this issue is now reaching the broad masses.

Because how one understands the Reformation essentially depends on one's cultural self-image.

With regard to the 500th anniversary of Luther in 2017, the initially purely academic dispute has expanded to include a struggle over the interpretation of the Reformation. The EKD has not taken any position in advance.

For Kaufmann, what is characteristic of the dispute is the immediate polemical reaction to any publication that is friendly to the transformation thesis. In his review of Leppin's own biography of Luther, published in 2006, he describes the work as "scientifically unsatisfactory" and "disappointing even for laypeople". Since Kaufmann was not aware that Leppin was more cheerful than tragic, he erroneously called him a "tragic Tübingen knight".

However, this is not countered directly by Tübingen and not with such polemics. The peaks towards Göttingen are well placed. The preface to Leppin's “The Foreign Reformation” begins with a swipe at the supposedly heroic effect of the “radical change thesis” on the person of Martin Luther and parodies him based on Jn 1,1: “In the beginning was ... Luther? Hardly - and the reformer Martin Luther himself would not have wanted to say so. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Kaufmann: Books for the Luther year: A ghost called Protestantism . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 27, 2016 ( faz.net ).
  2. ↑ Volker Leppin: Martin Luther . Darmstadt 2006.
  3. ↑ Volker Leppin: The foreign Reformation: Luther's mystical roots . CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69081-5 .
  4. ↑ Volker Leppin: The foreign Reformation: Luther's mystical roots . CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69081-5 , p. 117-135 .
  5. ↑ a b Thomas Kaufmann: Books on the Luther year: A ghost called Protestantism . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 27, 2016, p. 2 ( faz.net ).
  6. ↑ Thomas Kaufmann: History of the Reformation . Publishing House of World Religions, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2009, ISBN 978-3-458-71024-0 .
  7. ↑ Dirk Pilz: Gradual suddenness . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . 2016 ( fr.de - Volker Leppin on Martin Luther).
  8. ↑ Volker Leppin: Martin Luther . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-89678-576-1 .
  9. ^ Archive for Reformation History (ed.): Literature report. 36, 2007, pp. 17-19.
  10. ↑ Volker Leppin: The foreign Reformation: Luther's mystical roots . CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69081-5 , p. 9 .