Wilhelm Bäumer (clergyman)

Wilhelm Bäumer (born November 17, 1783 in Halver , † May 13, 1848 in Arnsberg ) was a Protestant theologian of the Reformed Church and Prussian consistorial councilor.

Life

Bäumer came from a pastor's family in County Mark . His parents were the pastor Johann Peter Bäumer (1753-1833) and Maria Agnes Engels (1758-1825). He attended elementary school in Lünen and then the grammar schools in Dortmund and Hamm . He studied theology in Frankfurt an der Oder . Afterwards he was first tutor to the Barons von Plettenberg on Haus Heeren , before he took over a pastor's position in Fröndenberg in 1808 . In 1809 he married Elenora Engels (1782–1849). With this he had several children. His great-granddaughter later became the women's rights activist and politician Gertrud Bäumer (1873–1954).

From 1813 Bäumer was pastor in Bodelschwingh . In the following years Bäumer was active in church leadership positions. Between 1827 and 1830 he was superintendent in Dortmund . He was also President of the Brandenburg General Synod between 1821 and 1824 and between 1829 and 1831 . From 1832 he was consistorial councilor in the district government in Arnsberg . As such, he played a key role in founding the Rhenish-Westphalian preacher's seminary in Soest.

Bäumer was in correspondence with theologians such as Krug, Natrop , Schleiermacher and Tzschirner . He also corresponded with Karl Freiherr vom Stein . While Bäumer was hardly of greater importance as a theologian, he played an important role in church politics. Bäumer was the spokesman for the Reformed parishes in County Mark.

He tried their presbyterial-synodal structures against the summepiscopal plans of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. to preserve. Although he agreed to the Union of Lutheran and Reformed Congregations, he enforced the reservation at the first synod of County Mark in 1817, according to which a union should only apply if the presbyterial-synodal constitutional principle was guaranteed to continue.

At the first Westphalian Provincial Synod in Lippstadt in 1819 and subsequently, he was instrumental in enforcing the Rhenish-Westphalian Church Order of 1835 as a compromise against the initial resistance of the state. In addition to theological justifications, he also resorted to elements of the contemporary political constitutional discourse.

Although Bäumer and the West German Church achieved certain successes, they ultimately failed not only because of Friedrich Wilhelm III, but also because of the monarchical principle in the German Confederation . A self-governing church was rejected by the state as a way towards political constitutionalism.

Bäumer is buried in the Eichholzfriedhof in Arnsberg.

Works

• The Presbytorial Constitution presented in its justification and its value . Hamm: Schulz & Wundermann, 1823
• Draft of an agenda for the synodal area of ​​Grafschaft Mark / on behalf of the d. Synod of Baeumer, Rauschenbusch a. from Oven. - Essen: Bädeker, 1829. Digitized edition of the University and State Library in Düsseldorf

literature

• Albrecht Geck : Wilhelm Bäumer's publications on the question of the church constitution (1808–1823) . in: Jürgen Kampmann (Ed.): From the land of the synods . Festschrift for Wilhelm Heinrich Neuser 's 70th birthday, Lübbecke 1996, 54–111.
• Albrecht Geck: Church independence movement in Prussia at the beginning of the 19th century . In: Yearbook for Westphalian Church History . 90: 95-119 (1996).
• Albrecht Geck: Wilhelm Bäumer's share in the Lippstadt resolutions of 1819. A contribution to the understanding of a rare document in the library of the Institute for Contemporary Church History of the Recklinghausen Church District . In: Günter Brakelmann , Peter Burkowski (ed.): On the trail of contemporary church history. Festschrift for Helmut Geck on his 75th birthday . Recklinghausen Forum for the History of Church Districts 3, Münster (LIT-Verlag) 2010, 351–381.
• Albrecht Geck:  Bäumer, Wilhelm. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 738-743.