Recherche – Detailansicht

Ausgabe:

Dezember/2021

Spalte:

1231-1233

Kategorie:

Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte

Autor/Hrsg.:

Assel, Heinrich, and Bruce L. McCormack[Eds.]

Titel/Untertitel:

Luther, Barth, and Movements of Theological Renewal (1918–1933).

Verlag:

Berlin u. a.: De Gruyter 2020. 278 S. = Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann, 188. Geb. EUR 86,95. ISBN 9783110610901.

Rezensent:

Brandon K. Watson

Due to the amount of detailed attention each author has devoted to a given topic, edited volumes are often difficult to review. This collection of essays is no different; each individual essay truly de-serves meticulous attention. The volume provides much needed contextualization in English scholarship for scholars of philosophy, theology, and history interested in the dominant voices and developments leading up to, during, and in the aftermath of the end of the Weimar Republic in 1930. While the essays contained in the volume were presented at the 2017 Karl Barth Conference in Princeton, NJ (after the European contributors had workshopped their essays in Greifswald in March of the same year), Karl Barth is not necessarily the focal point of the volume, even being treated tertiarily at times. Following a contextual introduction by Heinrich Assel, the volume is divided into three parts: Anticipations (19–73), Parallel Movements (77–146), and Disruption (149–231). A special feature of the book is a thus far unpublished review of Friedrich Gogarten’s 1926 Ich glaube an den dreieinigen Gott by Rudolf Bultmann (233–259), whose authorship of the review has been under dispute. However, the Einführung written by Heinrich Assel pro-vides sufficient written evidence proving the authorship of Bultmann rather than a speculation about Gerhard Krüger (233–237). Given the complex historical accounts given in each essay, it is impossible to do justice to each of them in such a limited space. Thus, this review will treat each section on its own as a collection of essays to highlight the content of the essays as well as provide a structural evaluation of the cohesiveness of the volume.
The introduction provides a brief historical outline of Luther research during the years 1932–1934 and the political theology de-veloping during this time. As Assel asserts, this renaissance of Luther research finds its origins in two 1921 publications: Karl Holl’s Luther and Karl Barth’s Römerbrief (2). To understand the events in the early 1930s, the discussions these two books sparked must be counted as impactful in several ways. The splits, or as the third section calls them, »disruptions«, between theologians or philosophers who made an oath of allegiance to Hitler is complicated and the state of Luther and Barth research since 1945 is still trying to recover and unravel the intricacies of these disruptions.
The first part does not deal directly with anticipated ideological, theological, or philosophical frameworks. Nor does this first sec-tion present a temporally understood anticipation of the close of the Great War in 1918 as if the remainder of the volume would be dealing with post-1918 events. Rather, two of the three essays contained in this section provide an account of the influence of Kant on both Barth via Hermann Cohen written by Hartwig Wiedebach and Rudolf Otto in his understanding of a religious a priori in his account of the numinous written by Jacqueline Mariña. The two »catalyst« books, as Assel calls them in the introduction, Holl’s Luther and Barth’s Römerbrief, are then placed into conversation with Rudolf Hermann by Christine Svinth-Værge Põder, whereby Barth is understood to be a »mirror« for the differentiated Luther interpretations of Holl and Hermann (71–73). The first section is cohesive and provides an excellent epistemological framework for key figures during this Aufbruch.
The first essay in the second section, written by Henning Theißen, deals only with explicit Luther reception in Barth’s writings. While discussions stemming from such a methodological analysis are interesting in their own right, the method is limited to explicit, textual references and to published material. It would be interest-ing for Theißen’s narrative, for example, to see how Barth’s un-published lectures in 1927 titled Lektüre des Galaterbriefs an Hand der Kommentare Luthers und Calvins might play a role in the in-between period from Barth’s time in Göttingen and starting his work on the Kirchliche Dogmatik. Interestingly enough, Bultmann offered a seminar on Luther’s commentary on Galatians in the same semester (cf. »Bultmann to Barth, 1 January 1927«, in: Barth – Bultmann Briefwechsel 1911–1966, 73–74). These two simultaneous course offerings would also serve as a unifying feature for the closing essay of the section, where David W. Congdon evaluates Bultmann and Barth as potentially representing »two different trajectories internal to Lutheran theology« (126). Given the title is parallel movements, one might want the focus to be on historical or intellectual developments within the same time frame, as is the case with Claire Sufrin’s essay on Martin Buber’s developed understanding of revelation and Volker Leppin’s essay on interpreting Luther as a mystic. However, the compilation of this section does not necessarily provide such a unifying framework.
The closing section begins with an analysis of Martin Heidegger’s 1923 claim of the early Luther »accompanying him« alongside Aristotle, Kierkegaard, and Husserl. Hent de Vries complicates Heidegger’s indebtedness to Luther in focusing on Luther’s theologia crucis and the relation of phenomenology to theology. Friedrich Gogarten takes center stage in Bruce L. McCormack’s and Heinrich Assel’s essays, in conversation with Barth in the former and in a reception dialogue with Barth and Bultmann in the latter. The final essay, written by Christian Neddens, illuminates the thought of two Barth interlocutors, Werner Elert and Hans Joachim Iwand, pro-viding a historical landscape of two Luther interpreters simul-taneously developing varied interpretations of church and state. This section is more conceptual in nature without losing any his-torical attentiveness. As mentioned earlier, the volume contains Bultmann’s unpublished review from 1928 of Gogarten’s Ich glaube an den dreieinigen Gott as an Appendix. The publication of this piece is worth the price of the book. It is not simply tacked onto the end, but gives further historical weight and provides a renewed, energetic impulse for further research into this complicated his-torical moment. It reads less like a review and more like a commentary, Bultmann providing clear insight and correction as he delves into the text almost page by page.
In some ways, this excellent collection of essays can be seen as furthering the life’s work of the editors; Heinrich Assel, having focused significant attention and published widely on the Luther-an Renaissance and Bruce L. McCormack being a renowned scholar of Barth’s early development. The volume expresses their vision for the need to continue uncovering the interwoven narratives of this time period. The book complicates the historical relations and influences surrounding the Weimar Republic and the philosoph-ical and theological undercurrents at play during these years of development amidst global political and economic turmoil. On the whole, the volume fills a gap in English speaking research on the theological and philosophical underpinnings during these crucial years in German history. It is a welcome addition to the English research in this area. Each essay can be read individually, or the work can be read as a whole. Either method taken will leave the reader further interested and hopefully energized to continue the work accomplished in this collection of essays.