Ton Veerkamp

Antonius "Ton" Veerkamp (born November 19, 1933 in Amsterdam , Netherlands ) is an originally Roman Catholic theologian , former Jesuit , long-time Protestant student pastor in Berlin and former editor of the exegetical journal "Texte und Kontexte".

Life

Veerkamp grew up in Amsterdam as the son of an unreligious construction worker and a Catholic with three siblings. He first learned to be a banker and then studied philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen and Catholic theology in Maastricht and New York City . At first he belonged to the Jesuit order , from which he left during his time in New York in order to be able to live with his future wife Marianne. Because of her, Veerkamp then moved to Berlin. From 1970 to 1998 he was the pastor of the Evangelical Student Community (ESG) for foreign students at Berlin universities. In 1978 he founded the "Association for Political and Theological Education LEHRHAUS eV" with Till Wilsdorf, Magdalena Winchenbach and Jaap von Zwieten de Blom. There he worked for several years as the editor of the exegetical journal “Texts and Contexts”, of which over 100 issues have now been published. He currently lives as a freelance journalist in Schmarsau in Wendland .

Act

Veerkamp is theologically close to the Amsterdam School , he heard from Frans Hendrik Breukelman in Amsterdam and later also worked with the Protestant student pastor and theology professor Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt in Berlin.

One of his special focuses has always been the consideration of the roots of the Christian faith in the Old Testament scriptures and in Judaism . “The Lehrhaus is the place where the Christian community, following in the footsteps of Jewish tradition, takes up a conversation with Scripture and history.” He wanted to go beyond the historical-critical method and get out of the modern impasse and the meaning of the biblical books observe and understand more. He saw the Bible as one of the great narratives postulated by French philosophers. The big story split into a Jewish and a Christian strand, precisely because Christians had started to read and interpret the Old Testament against the Jews.

Veerkamp, ​​contrary to church tradition, advocates a redefinition of the concept of God: “We understand God as a social functional category. That is why we do not speak of God in an essentialist way, i.e. not about some 'highest being'. God is what focuses all social relationships of dependency. "

For Veerkamp it is not the question of whether God exists that is decisive, but the question of what functions as God in our society. At the time of Jesus it was the overwhelming Roman Empire with its divine emperor. Today it is the overpowering capitalist world system against which political action must be taken.

Veerkamp was on October 31, 2008 ( Reformation Day ) alongside Frank Crüsemann , Ulrich Duchrow , Heino Falcke , Christian Felber , Kuno Füssel , Detlef Hensche , Siegfried Katterle, Arne Manzeschke, Silke Niemeyer, Franz Segbers and Karl Georg Zinn, the first signatory of the appeal peace with the Capital? A call against the adjustment of the Evangelical Church to the power of the economy .

In his work Die Welt anders , published in 2012 . Political history of the Great Narrative , he put forward sixteen theses on the origin and development of Judaism and Christianity:

• Great stories are basic stories that last through time.
• According to his name, God is a cipher , not a being.
• NAME: God's “name” means above all autonomy and equality.
• The NAME is more than a realized basic order.
• Torah is more than a cult .
• Ezra and Nehemiah introduced a basic order into the so-called "Torah Republic".
• The "Torarepublik" put the Tanach together.
• The Hellenism was an exploitation right.
• The messianism took shape under Roman oppression.
• Above all, Paul proclaimed the body of the Messiah .
• Above all, Markus noted the deeds - in Hebrew: דְּבָרִים (dewarim) - of the Messiah.
• Messianic communities began to expel Jews.
• After that there was no longer any Tanach-guided reading.
• The unity of the wills is still preserved in the biblical canon.
• The Christians initially refused to go to Rome.
• Christianity as the state religion of Rome moved between refusal and acceptance.

Fonts

In 1999 Veerkamp had already published over 100 articles in various magazines. Important individual works are:

• The destruction of Baal: interpretation of the books of kings (1 Kings 17 - 2 Kings 11) . Alektor-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983.
• Autonomy and Equality: Economy, Politics, and Ideology in Scripture . Alektor-Verlag, Stuttgart 1993.
• World order and solidarity or deconstruction of Christian theology. Interpretation of the first letter of John and commentary. Texts & contexts, ISSN  0170-1096 , Lehrhaus eV Dortmund 1996.
• The Apostle Paul at the Third Congress of the Communist International . Alektor-Verlag, Stuttgart 1997.
• The Gospel according to John in a colometric translation. Texts & Contexts, Lehrhaus eV Dortmund 2005.
• The God of Liberals: A Critique of Liberalism . Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-88619-470-4
• The farewell of the Messiah. An interpretation of the Gospel of John . 1st part: John 1,1-10,21. Texts & contexts, Lehrhaus eV Dortmund 2006.
• The farewell of the Messiah. An interpretation of the Gospel of John . Part 2: John 10.22-21.25. Texts & Contexts, Lehrhaus eV Dortmund 2007.
• The world is different. Political History of the Great Narrative . Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-88619-353-0 .
• Farewell to a messianic century. Political memories . Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2020, ISBN 978-3-86754-406-1 .

literature

• Texts & Contexts , No. 81–82: Texts and sound texts. Festschrift for Ton Veerkamp on the occasion of Ton Veerkamp's 65th birthday , 1999.
• Texts & Contexts , No. 141–143: Thinking ahead. Festschrift for Ton Veerkamp on his 80th birthday. Lehrhaus eV, Dortmund 2014.

Web links

• texteundkontexte.de
• Literature by and about Ton Veerkamp in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1] EYC online, T. Janssen: Do something more for the world. From order member to student chaplain to author: the theologian Ton Veerkamp from Schmarsau. “I know people who completely dispose of their Christian past. I can't live like that, otherwise I would be mentally crippled. "
2. ↑ Texts & Contexts No. 141–143, Exegetical Journal: Further Thinking. Festschrift for Ton Veerkamp on his 80th birthday. Lehrhaus eV Dortmund 2014. ISSN  0170-1096 , page 7
3. ^ [2] Ton Veerkamp: Congregation , Lehrhaus and Liturgy. for the 2003 Bible Year
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 2, 2014 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. Interview with Ton Veerkamp in the magazine Forum, Junge Kirche 2/2012 
5. ↑ The Argument 273, p. 74.
6. ^ [3] Philippe Kellermann: Book review Ton Veerkamp: The world different. Political History of the Great Narrative. Argument, Hamburg 2012
7. ↑ [4] Ekkehart Krippendorff: The world different. Nobody slave and nobody master. The Bible contains instructions for political action against an overpowering world system. This interpretation by the Dutch theologian Ton Veerkamp is also interesting for those who despise religion. The weekly newspaper 50/2012 from December 13, 2012
8. ↑ PDF Peace with Capital?
9. ↑ Bibliography in: Texts and Tontexte: Festschrift for Ton Veerkamp on the occasion of his 65th birthday (editorial texts and contexts, 1999).
10. ↑ The word "Tontexte" is a play on words that connects "contexts" and the first name "tone".