Wolfgang Schweitzer (theologian)

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Wolfgang Schweitzer (born July 8, 1916 in Potsdam , † February 25, 2009 in Eckardtsheim ) was a German Protestant theologian and university professor for systematic theology .

Life

Schweitzer was the son of Carl Gunter Schweitzer, a pastor at the Potsdam Garrison Church . His mother Paula was a pastor's daughter from Herford . As a teenager he was organized in the German Youth Union . After the father had started a superintendent position in Wustermark , he became a member of the Christian Association of Young Men (YMCA). When the Nazis came to power, the family suffered persecution through house searches and interrogations because some of the relatives had Jewish ancestors and the father belonged to the Confessing Church (BK). The Grüber office helped his father to emigrate to England in 1939 .

This imprint by the parental home prompted him to take up a theology course at Bethel , which he was unable to finish because of the war. He was drafted into the Reich Labor Service and then into the Wehrmacht . During the campaign against France in 1940, however, he was eliminated from the troops as a “ half-Jew ” because of “ unworthiness for military service ”. By means of a ruse, he succeeded in enrolling at the University of Tübingen , which was actually not allowed because of his Jewish origins. After receiving his doctorate in 1944, he became vicar in the Württemberg regional church . When he was threatened with arrest as the war approached, he fled to the US troops in Belgium and was used by them as an interpreter for internees .

After the liberation and the end of the war, he returned to Württemberg as a youth pastor of his church. At the suggestion of Martin Niemöller , the EKD's new head of the external office , Schweitzer was appointed as secretary in the study department of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva. There he was immediately involved in the extensive preparations for the foundation of the World Council of Churches. His special task was to formulate a theological justification of social ethics for the Protestant world church that was being constituted. His later habilitation on “Scripture and Dogma in Ecumenism”, which he submitted to the Heidelberg theologian Edmund Schlink, grew out of this work . The Stuttgart confession of guilt of 1945 served as a new basis for the relations between the German churches and the WCC . Through his work, he helped ensure that this sentence was included in the final report of Section IV Amsterdam : "According to God's will, war should not be."

In 1952 he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg , where he held a. a. the lecture “ Marxist Weltanschauung and Christian Faith”. In 1953 he became a member of the Marxism Commission of the Evangelical Academies , which u. a. also IRING FETSCHER , Jurgen Habermas and Helmut Gollwitzer belonged. Because of irritations about the financial ties between the commission and the finances of the Adenauer cabinet, but also after the confiscation of Marxist writings by the secret service , he gave up his work again. In 1955 he was appointed professor of systematic theology at the Bethel Church University . During this time he also dealt thoroughly with sociology , because he wanted to stay up to date as a theologian. Conflicts with conservative theologians were inevitable. In 1956 he was one of the founders of the Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik and became one of its editors.

The church brotherhoods from the former BK, to which he felt connected, were among the staunch opponents of the nuclear armament of West Germany during the Cold War . In April 1958, Wolfgang Schweitzer spoke to 20,000 people at a rally in Bielefeld . He declared the threat of weapons of mass destruction to be incompatible with the confession of Jesus Christ , and he understood the warning of atomic death as an invitation to believe in Christ. Schweitzer was a member of the Christian Peace Conference . He withdrew again when Warsaw Pact troops marched into the CSSR .

In 1960 he joined the editorial team of the magazine Junge Kirche . In the 1960s, when the international legal recognition of the Oder-Neisse border and the reconciliation with Poland was being struggled, he passionately participated in these discussions. Schweitzer supported the WCC's anti-racism program . In 1978 the Solidarity Church of Westphalia was formed , in which he worked.

Even in his retirement, Schweitzer kept in contact with the Ecumenical Council in Geneva as well as with the brotherhoods of his Württemberg church. He saw himself with his church as an advocate of human rights, which primarily demand a just world economic order.

Wolfgang Schweitzer was married to the doctor Marianne ("Nana") Schell and the father of six sons.

Publications

  • Dark shadows - bright light, Stuttgart: Radius-Verl., 1999
  • The Jew Jesus and the Peoples of the World, Berlin: Inst. Church and Judaism , 1993
  • Open your mouth for the mute, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1986
  • Obedience to God and official loyalty, Stuttgart, Achardweg 4: I. Anger, 1982
  • The Testimony of the Church in Contemporary States, Frankfurt am Main: Lembeck, 1979
  • The church contribution to development , Stuttgart: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Evang. Churches in Germany V., Services in Overseas, 1970, 2nd ed.
  • The demythologized state, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1968
  • Christians in rapid social upheaval today, Stuttgart: Evang [elischer] Missionsverl., 1966
  • The Christian faith, fetter or liberation of our Ostpolitik , Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1965
  • Authority and spiritual authority . Stuttgart: Evang. Mission Edition, 1965
  • Justice and Peace on Germany's Eastern Borders, Berlin: Vogt, 1964
  • Areas of tension in Protestant social teaching , Hamburg: Furche-Verl., 1960
  • Freedom to live, Gelnhausen: Burckhardthaus-Verl., 1959
  • Freedom to Live, Stuttgart: Evangelical Book Community, [around 1959]
  • Scripture and dogma in ecumenism, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1953
  • The Authority of the Bible Today, Zurich: Gotthelf-Verl., [1952]
  • Scripture and dogma in the Oekumene, o. O., [1951]
  • Eschatology and Ethics , Geneva, Route de Malagnou 17: Ecumenical Council d. Kirchen, study department, 1951
  • The rule of Christ and the state in the New Testament, Munich: Kaiser, 1949, 1. u. 2nd thousand
  • The rule of Christ and the state in the New Testament, Zurich: Gotthelf-Verl., 1948
  • The social and political responsibility of Christianity all over the world, Tübingen: Furche-Verl., 1948
  • And if the world were full of devils ..., [Stuttgart]: Württ. Ev. State Youth Parish Office, 1946
  • Childhood to God, rebirth and renewal in the New Testament and in its environment, o. O., [1943]

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.ub-archiv.uni-tuebingen.de/biblio0.htm
personal data
SURNAME Schweitzer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Protestant theologian and social ethicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH February 2009
Place of death Eckardtsheim