Pneumatology and Theology of the Cross in the Preaching of Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt: The Holy Spirit between Wittenberg and Azusa Street 9780567660565, 9780567645913

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FOREWORD

It is remarkable that a number of able young American theologians have studied the life and work of two charismatic German ministers, Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–1880) and his son Christoph Friedrich (1842– 1919). Both Blumhardts, father and son, had a profound influence on Karl Barth. Others, such as Emil Brunner, Friedrich Gogarten, and especially Barth’s close friend Eduard Thurneysen, owed much to Christoph Blumhardt. The main interest of Barth scholars was—and is—generally focused on Barth’s theological and philosophical teachers. Barth’s thought was much shaped by them in his early years, but turned against them during the First World War. This was a most interesting development, and the Blumhardts played a decisive role in it. Barth visited the younger Blumhardt in 1915 and was deeply impressed by his and his father’s message of genuine Christian hope. The message of the Blumhardts resonates in Barth’s writings not only in what they actually had to say, but also in the trajectory of their thought, starting at Christ’s death on the cross, moving from “what has happened” and “what has been accomplished,” and leading towards the completed Kingdom of God. Barth’s last quotation of the Blumhardts appears in the fragments of the last part of his Church Dogmatics, published in 1976 under the title The Christian Life. Barth even referred to them indirectly in his final phone call to Eduard Thurneysen, speaking of his confidence in God ruling the world in spite of all cruelty, misery, and confusion. In 2009, Christian T. Collins Winn published his book on the influence of the Blumhardts on Barth (“Jesus is Victor!” The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth, Princeton Monograph Series 93, Eugene, OR [Wipf and Stock] 2009). He is currently preparing a series of English translations of the writings of both Johann Christoph and Christoph to be published in the United States. Simeon M. Zahl’s treatise is concentrated on selected parts of the work of Christoph Blumhardt, especially his theology of the cross. He examines Blumhardt’s preaching and counseling as well as his engagement in politics, especially his hope for new spiritual experiences. He then moves on to compare them with Martin Luther’s theology of Holy Spirit mediated exclusively by the Word of God, and to the Pentecostal claim on immediate experience of the Spirit. vii

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Zahl provides a substantial, thorough and convincing exposition of the work of Christoph Blumhardt. He has delved deeply into the primary sources as far as they are published and provides very good translations for parts of them. He has mastered a wide range of secondary literature both on Luther and the Blumhardts as well as on topics not directly linked with them. Thus he has produced an independent, detailed and well-argued exposition of Blumhardt’s development and of the major themes of a decisive phase of his mature theology. He has coped with the enormous difficulty to appropriately transfer the genre of Blumhardt’s writings—often reports of listeners of his sermons and of his devotional speeches—on a level appropriate for theological reflections. In addition, Zahl provides a valuable constructive contribution to some urgent questions of contemporary theology. He shows that Blumhardt’s practice of “living with the Bible” is distinct from Pietist Biblicism. Also he offers helpful insights on the character of spiritual experience. I welcome this interesting and productive piece of historical and theological research. Professor Gerhard Sauter University of Bonn (Germany)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without help and support from a great many sources. First and foremost, I am grateful to my doctoral supervisors, Ben Quash and David Ford, who gave me both the freedom to discover and pursue my interests, and the practical guidance needed to transform ideas and research into actual words on a page. I could not have proceeded with this research without the generosity of the Panacea Society and the electors of the Crosse Studentship at the Faculty of Divinity. Gerhard Sauter and Mike Higton, who served as the examiners of the original dissertation, provided both encouragement and very helpful constructive feedback. I will forever be grateful also for Professor Sauter and his wife’s gracious hospitality in hosting the examination in their home, and for Dr. Higton’s willingness to travel so far for it. Additional special thanks are due to James Carleton Paget for encouraging me to continue on to Ph.D. work, and for helping to make the transition possible. Many people and groups provided helpful commentary, support, resources, and encouragement at various stages, both academically and personally, from the beginnings of the dissertation in my undergraduate thesis to the published version. They include: Nick Adams, Charles Anderson, Jamin Brophy-Warren, Tom Calhoun, the Cambridge 1405s, the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme and its staff, the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Joseph Clair, Wayne Coppins, Charitini Douvaldzi, Rolf Erler, Deborah Ford, Jason Fout, Nick Gibson, Tom Greggs, the Harvard College Research Program, Ben Hett, Jenny Hinson, Colton Houston, Dieter Ising, Jady Koch, Tom Kraft, Michael Leary, the Alisdair Charles MacPherson Fund, Mark Mattes, Pat McLeod, David McNutt, the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies, Mockingbird Ministries, Jürgen Moltmann, Charles Moore, Heinz-Dieter Neef, George Newlands, Paul Nimmo, Peterhouse, Debra Prager, Ryan, Charlotte, and Zoë Reeves, Justin Reynolds, Russell Schlecht, Notger Slenczka, St Bene’t’s Church, Cameron Taylor, Kevin Taylor, John Christopher Thomas, Angela Tilby, Tyndale House, Giles Waller, Michael Ward, Christian Collins Winn, Bruce Winter, the Württembergische Landesbibliothek, and many others.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Particular thanks are also due to my two families: to Paul, Mary, John, David, Deirdre, and Cate Zahl, and to K.T., Vivianne, and Nicholas Poon. I am also most grateful to my son Thomas, who obligingly waited until I had submitted the dissertation version before deciding to be born, and who has brought such joy while I prepared it for publication. Most of all, however, I would like to thank my wife, Bonnie Poon Zahl, who has been the most crucial supporter. These themes are Bonnie’s as much as they are mine. This book is dedicated to her.

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1 christoph blumhardt and the contemporary pneumatological impasse

One of the salient questions for Protestant theology at the beginning of the twenty-first century falls under the domain of pneumatology. In an age when the Pentecostal movement,1 in all its various stripes and colors, is rapidly becoming the dominant expression of global Christianity, what is the relationship of this new, pneumatologically driven manifestation of the Christian message to classical Reformation conceptions of the Holy Spirit and its activity? At first glance, the obvious answer is that there is not much relationship at all: The foundational Reformation doctrine of justification by faith, and the sola scriptura teaching developed alongside it and to safeguard it, as traditionally understood, stand in opposition to a theology whose fundamental expression and motivating energy is “unmediated” spiritual experience of God in worship.2 Likewise, affectively charged Pentecostal theology is inherently dubious of what is seen as the cold rationalism and propositionalism of classical Protestant theology. It is the view of this study that the theology of Lutheran pastor and healer Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842– 1919) is uniquely suited to exploring the apparent impasse between classical Protestant critiques of “enthusiasts” (Schwärmer) and the primary theological distinctive of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity—the centrality 1

2

I follow Allan Anderson in using “Pentecostal movement” and “Pentecostalism” “in an all-embracing way to include the Charismatic movement and new Pentecostal or ‘neocharismatic’ churches of many different descriptions” (Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 1). See the following for a theological definition of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in distinction from classical Protestantism. For a full discussion of the terms “mediated” and “unmediated” experience as they will be used in this study, see the following under the heading “Württemberg Pietism,” as well as the discussion in Chapter 4.

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of a certain conception of personal experience of the Spirit. Blumhardt was able to hold together a form of the experiential pneumatology associated with what is now called Pentecostalism with a version of classical Lutheran theologia crucis, with its attendant radicalized concern over the problem of Christian spiritual self-deception. The theological line in the sand between Pentecostal Christianity and the classical Reformation is drawn above all in the domain of pneumatology: It is a question of the locus, nature, and function of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. Appropriately, it is Christoph Blumhardt’s pneumatology that can provide both a mutual critique and a way forward through this central impasse between the old Protestant tradition and what is rapidly becoming the new. ******* When in the 1520s Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt and other early members of what is known as the Radical Reformation claimed unmediated communication with God, Martin Luther argued in response that any claim to activity of the Spirit in the inner life of a believer that does not take place strictly through the external mediation of the Word of God (in preaching and the sacraments) is heresy, and must have not God, but sin and the devil as its true source. Since then, defenders of the classical Reformation tradition have usually kept the door firmly closed against any theology that smacked of Schwärmerei, and have done so in the name of their doctrine of scripture. The resort to sola scriptura over and against theology of direct personal experience of God in the Spirit was grounded in the concern, expressed at the very beginning by Luther, that the proclivity to self-deception intrinsic to all inheritors of original sin might be the explanation behind such experiences, not God: The difficulty in knowing for certain that we are truly hearing the word of God in our inner thoughts and affections, and not a word we, or the devil, have subconsciously invented for ourselves. In Luther’s view, God has said all he needs to say to us in his Word, in scripture,3 and to ask for or claim more is the attempt of the old self to wriggle free of the painful, awesome clarity of the one true divine communication. Sola scriptura safeguards Christians against the tendency within ourselves, both conscious and unconscious, to want to control God, and even to be gods unto ourselves. Foundational to the doctrine of justification by faith is precisely this sort of radically “low” anthropology4: It is because of the power of 3

4

The relationship in Luther’s theology between the general category of the “Word” and its specific form in the text of scripture is discussed in Chapter 7. Here and in what follows, the term “low anthropology” refers broadly to a view of human nature that acknowledges a relatively greater ongoing power of sin, egoism, and proclivity to self-deception in human beings, while “high anthropology” signifies the reverse. The terms are most significant for our purposes in relation to the anthropology of the Christian specifically: Blumhardt will be shown to develop a “low” view of the

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original sin, which lies behind the problem of self-deception, that salvation must take place by faith alone and not by works. This Reformation move can be seen as an anticipation of the potential problems Ludwig Feuerbach, and his later kindred spirits Marx and Freud, exposed in Christianity. In Feuerbachian language, Luther believed that any kind of direct spiritual experience apart from the verbum externum, whether in terms of clear communication, or of a murkier, primarily emotional experience, would merely be the projection of deep inner desires, if not of the devil himself—such a God would be our own personal idealization, and not the God of Jesus Christ. Sola scriptura was seen to describe God’s chosen antidote to this inherent human inclination. Pentecostal Christianity, in its determinative distinctiveness from other Christian expressions, is grounded first and foremost in personal and communal spiritual experience, including highly affectively charged conversion experiences, speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, miraculous healing, prophecy, prophetic visions, dreams, “words of knowledge,” ecstatic experiences of intimacy and partnership with God, and divinely given insight into the true meanings of scriptural passages, all in the context of joyful communal worship. Central for most Pentecostals is the concept of “Spirit baptism”: a specific personal moment in which the Holy Spirit enters a person in a new and unprecedented way (whether at the same time as water baptism or after), unlocking the above revelatory and ecstatic possibilities, with the object of sending the baptized forth to proclaim the good news and share their baptism with others, often with a concern over the imminence of the Eschaton. Although terms like “Pentecostalism” and “charismatic Christianity” are difficult to define with much precision—the large variety of views on key issues like speaking in tongues and Spirit baptism, to name just the two most significant ones, render all characterizations merely approximate—theologically it can nevertheless be said that the sine qua non for this form of Christianity, particularly in distinction to the major streams of classical Protestantism, is the central role played by unmediated personal and communal experience of the Holy Spirit. It must be noted that charismatic Christianity tends overwhelmingly to see the testimonies of the Spirit and of the written Word not to be in conflict, but as a constructive and interwoven unity. As Steven Land puts it—in what Christian, that is, relatively little optimism about the degree to which regeneration and sanctification take place in the life of “believers,” in contrast to a relatively “high” expectation of demonstrable sanctification among, for example, Pentecostals. The terms “optimistic” versus “pessimistic,” when modifying “anthropology,” will carry a similar range of meaning, generally signifying “optimism” about Christians’ capacity to do good and refrain from evil as opposed to “pessimism” about the same. Finally, also when modifying “anthropology,” the terms “positive” and “negative” will carry a similar range of connotations.

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is perhaps the best discussion of the movement’s theological distinctives by a Pentecostal scholar to date5—speaking of his assertion of “the Holy Spirit as a starting point for a distinctive Pentecostal approach to theology and spirituality”: Does this . . . mean that Pentecostals place the Spirit above the Word and thus elevate experience from the category of source for theology to that of norm? The answer is “Yes” and “No.” Yes, the Spirit is prior to the written Word of God, but the Spirit inspires, preserves and illumines that Word within the communion of those who are formed corrected, nurtured and equipped by that Word. Yes, the Spirit does not exist only to illumine Scripture and apply the benefits of salvation to the believer. . . . The signs and power of the Spirit are not an optional addition for a church that would engage principalitites and powers and suffer unto death. However . . . the person and work of the Spirit is [also] in salvific continuity with the person and work of Christ, [although] it is not exhausted therein.6 Pentecostal and charismatic theology and practice seek to bring the Spirit and the Word together, as distinct but mutually necessary elements in God’s interaction and communication with his people. Land quotes approvingly and more pointedly from James Jones in clarifying the relationship between Spirit and Word: “The Bible has no significance when ripped from the context of the experience of the Spirit. Refusing to subsume the Spirit under the Word frees the Spirit to do more than confirm the text and shut up”; “The Spirit does not contradict the Scriptures but his job is more than just repeating what we can find by reading there.”7 Land and Jones’ concern is not with taking the Word very seriously, which they are happy to do, but with “subsum[ing] the Spirit under the Word,” which they are not. Spirit and Word should rather be seen at least as equal and mutually necessary partners, and indeed the Spirit is in some sense “prior to the written Word of God.” The quotations from Jones make clear that the Spirit here is meant in the specific (but not exclusive) sense of communicating more than just what is stated in the written Word, without contradicting the scriptures— the Spirit communicates to believers something in addition to “what we can find by reading there.” There is thus an epistemological and revelatory element, albeit within the confines of agreement with scripture, in the Spirit’s distinctive and additional action, as well as an affective one. The means by 5

6 7

Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom, vol. 1, Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993). Ibid., 39. James W. Jones, The Spirit and the World (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1975), 98–9. Quoted in Land, Passion, 40.

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which the additional communication takes place is unmediated personal experience of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of whether Land and Jones are correct to reorder Spirit and Word in this way, there is no doubt that Luther rejected any such reordering. For Luther, Word must always come first: Now when God sends forth his holy gospel he deals with us in a twofold manner, first outwardly, then inwardly. Outwardly he deals with us through the oral word of the gospel and through material signs, that is, baptism and the sacrament of the altar. Inwardly he deals with us through the Holy Spirit, faith, and other gifts. But whatever their measure or order the outward factors should and must precede. The inward experience follows and is effected by the outward. God has determined to give the inward to no one except through the outward . . . Observe carefully, my brother, this order, for everything depends on it.8 For Luther the Spirit cannot precede the external Word, and neither can the two work together in a mutual way. The external Word always precedes the internal testimony of the Spirit; the latter cannot take place other than as a consequence of the former. Put differently, the question at hand is not whether, in Land’s terms, Pentecostals “elevate experience from the category of source for theology to that of norm,” but whether experience can be a source for theology at all. Luther’s unequivocal answer is that it cannot. To be a “source” in any sense would be to come first in the ordering of the external and the internal. It should be clear, therefore, what Luther would have made of Pentecostal and charismatic expressions of Christian faith, despite the fact that the Word maintains a hugely important place within them: Schwärmerei! In Luther’s day, the Schwärmer “problem” was a relatively minor one— such groups, assuming they did not soon self-destruct, as the Müntzerites did, never succeeded in attaining much more than a fringe status in comparison to the dominant Lutheran and Reformed schools. In the past 100 years, however, the situation has changed drastically. Since the inauguration of the Pentecostal movement at Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906, no Christian movement has spread or enlarged as rapidly as charismatic Christianity. As Allan Anderson puts it, even if one is skeptical about some of the more startling statistics that have been put forward, “in less than a hundred years, Pentecostal, Charismatic and associated movements have become the largest numerical force in world Christianity after the Roman 8

Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments, 1525, trans. Conrad Bergendorff, and Bernhard Erling, Luther’s Works 40 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1958), 146.

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Catholic Church and represent a quarter of all Christians.”9 Pentecostal and charismatic expressions of Christianity have become a major force in global Christianity, and their growth shows no sign of abating. Should Protestants in the Reformation tradition simply sweep these hundreds of millions aside as modern Schwärmer, as the magisterial Reformers would undoubtedly have seen them? If instead, as I believe, this unprecedented development needs to be taken very seriously by Christian theologians—even those with the strictest of classical Reformation loyalties—then the immediate theological question to be faced is precisely the one raised by Luther in his arguments against Karlstadt and others 500 years ago: How can the charismatic claims to unmediated experience of and communication from God in addition to the written Word be reconciled with the human proclivity toward self-deception that is fundamental to the doctrines of justification by faith and sola scriptura? This pneumatological question cuts to the heart of the theological divide between Reformation theology and the Pentecostal and charismatic mode of Christian expression. For all the variety of theological views among Pentecostals and charismatics on issues like speaking in tongues, the nature of Spirit baptism, the details of the connection between the outpouring of the Spirit and the proximity of the Eschaton, and issues of church polity, this Reformation question must rightly be posed of any form of Christianity that falls under the wide charismatic umbrella. It reaches to the heart of such theologies: the problem of the reliability of unmediated spiritual experience of any kind. Given the centrality of the issue of Christian self-deception in more classically Protestant critiques of charismatic theology—critiques that date back to the 1520s—it is remarkable how little the full force of this problem has been tackled directly by Pentecostal theologians. Even where, as in Land, the Spirit–Word relationship is addressed with a view to defense against Lutheran and Reformed critiques, and the problem of “discerning the spirits” is taken into account, the question behind the Reformation defense of the priority of the Word is largely overlooked. For Luther, as we have seen, the reason for the priority of the Word is not just a general high regard for the Bible as the sole source of God’s revelation; it is for him specifically the divinely ordained bulwark and objective authority against the very great danger of self-deception in the believer. There is some discussion of the question of “discerning the spirits” within Pentecostal theology, including in Land, but the full theological weight of the Reformation concern has yet to be taken adequately into account. Despite Land’s discussion of the need for a “disciplined discernment” between the true Spirit and false, fanatical spirits, the proposed means by which such discernment is to take place presupposes the idea that the true Spirit is, 9

Anderson, Pentecostalism, 1.

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essentially, straightforwardly recognizable to the community by its fruits, with some help from scripture. Certain “evidences” are the sign of the true Spirit, such as the absence of harshness, “humility and humble, submissive searching of the Scriptures,” and the “holy lives of witnesses.”10 Land believes that the Spirit-filled are capable of distinguishing the true Spirit from the false ones: “Those who . . .‘walk in the light’ . . . recognize darkness”; “the chief protection against [delusion by false spirits] is the Christian character yielded to and sustained by God”; “The Spirit-filled community is the best safeguard against deception of the world, flesh or devil.”11 Although scripture is included in Land’s discussion as a helpful and necessary aid to discernment, the fundamental defense against the self-deception problem in discernment of the Spirit is nothing further than the presence and evidence of the Spirit in the believer and the believing community! Theologically, as far as the Lutheran critique is concerned, this defense amounts to a wellmeaning tautology. From a classical Protestant point of view, the depth of the problem of sin and self-deception is severely underestimated. The force of Luther’s problem with the Schwärmer is precisely that subjective testimony and judgment of the individual or community is that which cannot be trusted, and it is ultimately to such testimony that Land primarily appeals. Treatments of spiritual discernment such as Land’s fail to engage with the core of the classical Protestant critique of “enthusiastic” Christianity. Part of the blame for this failure to recognize the core material reason for the prioritization of Word over Spirit may lie on the part of classical Protestantism. So long has sola scriptura been central to the Protestant tradition, it has acquired an axiomatic status, such that the specific reasons for which it was formulated in the first place are not always remembered: to guard against what were seen as human claims to God’s theological authority, whether in the form of the priority of church tradition and magisterial structure in the Roman Catholic Church or in the claims to direct divine communication among many of the radical reformers. Luther saw Pope and Anabaptist as two sides of the same coin: In the Smalcald Articles, Müntzer and the papacy are lumped into the same category, for both “boast that the Spirit has come into them without the preaching of the Scriptures.” Enthusiasm (Schwärmerei), indeed, “is the source, power, and might of all the heresies, even that of the papacy and Mohammed.”12 Another reason Pentecostal theologians have not yet adequately addressed the self-deception problem may be located in what is seen as the self-authenticating nature of Pentecostal experience. When you have been filled with Spirit in a mighty physical, emotional, and life-altering way, as is 10 11 12

Land, Passion, 162. Ibid., 162–4. The Smalcald Articles (1537), The Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), III, 8:3–6, 9 (pp. 322–3).

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characteristic of most charismatic conversions and “Spirit baptisms,” or when you have watched an exorcism, or seen the lame become whole again in front of your eyes, the question of the divine source of the experience might well appear laughably academic (“If you had experienced what I have experienced, you would realize how absurd your ‘self-deception’ questions sound”). That is to say, appeal can be made, rightly or wrongly, to the selfauthenticating character of such experience. Of course, by definition such an appeal can be neither proved nor disproved. Or one might point to the sheer scale of the movement’s growth. According to this argument, it is undeniable that something is happening here, which hundreds of millions have experienced, and which so often has lasting and positive effects on people’s lives. As Land puts it, Pentecostal Christianity very often provokes an empirically undeniable “intensity of response”; the “joy and exuberance, the depth of sorrow and longing, the courageous witness of millions of such persons cannot simply be written off as hysteria, mass psychosis or cheap escapism.”13 It could be argued along these lines, then, that the sheer scale and empirical verifiability of the effect of the Pentecostal movement undermines some of the force of the classical Protestant criticism of unmediated spiritual experience. Finally, it must be noted that Pentecostal theology has only very recently begun to have significant representation in the academy (particularly in the form of journals and academic publishers). As an academic discipline, it is still in its infancy. This means that there is so much work for Pentecostal and charismatic scholars to do in this early stage that they may simply not have addressed the Reformation self-deception question yet. Regardless of why the self-deception problem, which is really a problem about the proper relationship between pneumatology and anthropology, has not yet been adequately addressed by Pentecostal and charismatic theologians, a renewed engagement with it in light of the rise of the Pentecostal movement is long overdue. The question must be asked in both directions: Lutheran theology must think about whether it’s classically narrow conception of the action of the Spirit—through the verbum externum alone—might need to be expanded or modified in light of the phenomenon of Pentecostal Christianity, but in such a way as to avoid jettisoning the full radicality of the doctrine of justification by faith and its attendant negative assessment of the extent of the power of the human will to overcome sin. Pentecostal theology, on the other hand, must ask whether its highly optimistic (by Reformation standards), almost a priori, valuation of individual and communal spiritual experience as a source for theology and Christian life is consistent with the doctrine of justification by faith most Pentecostals claim to espouse, and with the proclivity for human self-deception—including among God’s own people—to which the scriptures testify. 13

Land, Passion, 45.

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Given that the two traditions are operating from such different theological starting points, the question of method is of paramount importance in attempting to bring the two into renewed and constructive interaction. Both sides essentially a priori reject the other’s epistemological starting point. For Luther, the testimony of personal inner experience is not only unreliable but also often testifies to precisely the opposite of what is in fact true coram deo. The domain of inner feeling and experience for him as it relates to God is inextricably connected to the category of the conscience. As Randall Zachman puts it, for Luther, the revelation of God in the Word comes under the form of the cross, for the truth that God reveals contradicts what can be known about God on the basis of what we see and feel: God’s mercy is given to sinners, God’s strength is revealed in weakness. . . . Luther is most interested in the contradiction between the testimony of the Word and the testimony of the conscience with regard to the nature and will of God.14 Luther’s theology of assurance entails the rejection of the testimony of the conscience, including what it sees and feels, for what the conscience experiences is capable of revealing only the opposite of what is in fact the case. For Pentecostal theology, on the other hand, experience is hugely significant, in terms of both the characteristic life of the church in worship, and the basic distinctive premise of any theology properly called Pentecostal. According to Land, although experience can be taken too far—“to do [Pentecostal] theology is not to make experience the norm”; nevertheless, such theology must “recognize the epistemological priority of the Holy Spirit in prayerful receptivity.”15 For Land, the essence of Pentecostal theology involves the integration (rather than the balance) of what he calls the rational and the affective, of Word and Spirit. Pentecostal experience is “a means of understanding that moves from experience to testimony to doctrine to theology and back again in an ongoing dynamic. . . . The affective integration that comprises the Pentecostal affections is the experiential center of a distinctive theology that, in less than a century, has impacted every

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Randall C. Zachman, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 40. My emphasis. See Hans Michael Müller, Erfahrung und Glaube bei Luther (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich, 1929), 5–8, and so on, for helpful qualifications on the relationship between “what we see and feel” and “the testimony of the Word” in Luther. See also Sebastian Degkwitz, Wort Gottes und Erfahurung: Luthers Erfahrungsbegriff und seine Rezeption im 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1998). Land, Passion, 38.

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continent and every Christian denomination.”16 Despite Land’s insistence here and above on integration between the rational and the affective rather than the domination of the former by the latter, Pentecostal theology’s distinctive trait is clearly and deliberately identified as an essentially uncritical assimilation of affective spiritual experience into the foundation of the theological enterprise. For Luther, the testimony of inner experience is to be distrusted in theology; for Land, it is woven into (if not reducible to) theology’s epistemological starting point, and theology that does not take it strongly into account is not theology at all. The difficulties involved in bringing these two ships passing in the night into meaningful theological interaction are manifold. The method of approach put forward here is to discuss the issues at hand in light of the thought and praxis of a theologian and Christian leader whom, as it were, both sides could call their own—someone very much aware of both the weight of the problem of self-deception in the Lutheran sense and the potential for sheer self-authenticating reality and affective power in charismatic spiritual experience, someone who engaged in extensive theological reflection about both issues, and someone who could and did critique both Lutheran and charismatic theology “from within.” Such an individual, I will argue, was Lutheran pastor and faith-healer Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt.17

Introducing Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt Few significant contributors to the development of modern theology have been as overlooked and underrepresented in subsequent scholarship, particularly in the anglophone world, as Schwabian preacher Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Following in the footsteps of his father, Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–80), Christoph spent most of his adult life preaching a provocative and dynamic message about the Kingdom of God to all who would listen. From his native Württemberg, where he served as “house father” for the Christian retreat center founded by his father at Bad Boll in 1852, Christoph Blumhardt’s theology and preaching had a far-reaching influence on the generation of theologians who immediately succeeded him, and on Karl Barth in particular. Barth, Eduard Thurneysen, Hermann Kutter, and Leonhard Ragaz, all associated with the Swiss Religious Socialist movement in the years surrounding the First World War, saw Blumhardt’s message and his unprecedented step (for a clergyman) of joining the Social 16 17

Ibid., 46. It should be noted at the outset that the connection this study identifies between Blumhardt’s thought and Lutheran and charismatic theologies, respectively, is primarily material-theological rather than genetic or historical.

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Democratic Party in 1899 as playing a decisive role in their respective theologies and their involvement with Socialism. According to Barth’s biographer, Eberhard Busch, Barth’s contact with the message of the Blumhardts was one of the three decisive factors in the development of his new theological starting point following his break with liberalism during the First World War.18 Later German theologians, such as Moltmann and Tillich, have also praised his theology and acknowledged its influence.19 Christoph Blumhardt was also the only well-known German preacher to resist the nationalistic “Spirit of August” in 1914, and to speak out openly against the First World War from the very beginning. Despite the younger Blumhardt’s pioneering relationship with Socialism, his theological influence on Barth and others, and his unique, theologically motivated immunity to the German war fever in 1914, scholars in the last few decades have tended to overlook him. For example, in the last fifty years, just seven scholarly monographs on Christoph Blumhardt have appeared, including only two in English.20 One reason for this dearth of scholarly interest may be that Blumhardt was not a systematic theologian: Although trained in theology at Tübingen, Christoph always understood himself as a preacher and a pastor, not a theologian. As a result, his writings contain almost no systematic theological reflection whatsoever. His highly original theological views must instead be gleaned from the many letters and sermons that have survived him. Another reason he has been underrepresented may have to do with the heavily charismatic and eschatological—at times millenarian—nature of his 18

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Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth and the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth’s Critique of Pietism and Its Response, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 26. For the two main studies of the relationship between Barth and the Blumhardts, see Joachim Berger, Die Verwurzelung des theologischen Denkens Karl Barths in dem Kerygma der beiden Blumhardts vom Reiche Gottes (Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Berlin, 1956); and Christian Collins Winn, “Jesus is Victor!” The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2009). Moltmann has explained Blumhardt’s influence on his thought quite bluntly: “My ‘theology of hope’ has two roots: Christoph Blumhardt and Ernst Bloch” (Jürgen Moltmann, “The Hope for the Kingdom of God and Signs of Hope in the World: The Relevance of Blumhardt’s Theology Today,” Pneuma 26, no. 1 (2004), 4; see also Christian Collins Winn and Peter Heltzel, “‘Before Bloch There Was Blumhardt’: A Thesis on the Origins of the Theology of Hope,” Scottish Journal of Theology 62, no. 1 (2009): 26–39). Paul Tillich credited “the experience and insight of people like the Blumhardts” with opening up “a new understanding of the relation of church and society . . . in an unheard-of way in most of the European churches” (Paul Tillich, Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology (London: SCM Press, 1967), 236). See Bibliography. Only three of these works focus exclusively on the younger Blumhardt’s thought; the rest cover his father as well.

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theology. Like his father, Blumhardt was well known not just as a preacher but also as a faith-healer and an exorcist. Even Barth, in later years, found this aspect of the Blumhardts’ ministry a bit embarrassing.21 Additionally, Christoph Blumhardt has been ignored in the anglophone theological world for a purely practical reason: The vast majority of his writings, as well as most of the secondary literature, have not been translated from the original German. Two brief sermon collections exist in English, as well as an equally brief “reader” and a few collections of devotional writings,22 but these translated works have all been edited and published primarily with a lay audience in mind. Indeed, most do not give dates or sources for the sermons and devotional snippets they include. It is, therefore, as yet impossible to undertake serious academic study of the theology of Christoph Blumhardt, or of that of his father Johann Christoph,23 without extensive access to the German-language materials.24 In practice, probably the main academic source in English for the theology of the Blumhardts remains the various incidental treatments by Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics and elsewhere.25

21

22

23

24

25

While full of praise for the Blumhardts on a theological level, Barth hints that one “exorcism,” in particular, could be explained perhaps more accurately “in terms of mythology or medicine.” See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part 3.1, trans. G. W. Bromiley (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 171. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Action in Waiting (Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 1998); Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Christoph Blumhardt and His Message (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1963); Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, and Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980); Johann Christoph Blumhardt and Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Thoughts About Children (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1980); Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Lift Thine Eyes: Evening Prayers for Every Day of the Year (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 1998); Johann Christoph Blumhardt and Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Now Is Eternity: Comfort and Wisdom for Difficult Hours (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing, 2000). Both Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt and his father, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, were known to their friends and contemporaries as “Christoph.” When it is necessary to distinguish between the two Blumhardts, I will follow convention in Blumhardt studies and refer to the younger as “Christoph” and the elder as “Johann Christoph.” Fortunately, there are several translation projects currently underway that aim to help rectify this problem. See in particular Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II: The Doctrine of God, Part 1, trans. T. H. L. Parker et al. (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 633–8; Barth, CD IV 3.1, 168–71; Karl Barth, “Blumhardt,” in Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History (London: SCM Press, 1972); Karl Barth, “Afterword,” in Action in Waiting (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing Company, 1969), 217–22; and Karl Barth, “Past and Future: Friedrich Naumann and Christoph Blumhardt,” in The Beginnings of Dialectic Theology, Vol. 1, ed. James M. Robinson (Richmond, VA: John

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One of the goals of this study, therefore, is to help restore the remarkable message of Christoph Blumhardt to its rightful significance within the modern theological tradition, including in anglophone theology. The ultimate aim will be to muster this theology’s valuable and untapped resources in the service of our contemporary pneumatological question.

Blumhardt in Context Before we can begin our study of Blumhardt’s pneumatology proper, several further introductory matters require attention. First, it is important to place Blumhardt within his own Württemberg Pietist tradition and context, particularly in relation to his strongest theological influence, his father Johann Christoph. The elder Blumhardt’s experiences of revival and exorcism in the 1840s served as the fundamental groundwork for and galvanizing factor behind both Blumhardts’ basic theological Anschauung. The continuities between the two Blumhardts will be addressed, but special emphasis must be placed on the theological discontinuities between the two. It is through an understanding of the younger Blumhardt’s disagreements with and developments beyond his father that the decision to focus on Christoph’s theology and pneumatology will be justified, though all the while acknowledging the decisive role played by Johann Christoph’s theology and experiences in his son and successor’s theological development. Next, we will address the question of method in this study, including the appropriateness of framing Christoph’s as a middle figure between Lutheran and Pentecostal theology, and the way the nature of Blumhardt’s theology and writings necessitates a certain combination or blending of historical and “systematic” or dogmatic analysis. The methodological considerations behind the decision to focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the 1888–96 period in Blumhardt’s life will also be elucidated. Finally, I will anticipate the structure and content of the book on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Johann Christoph Blumhardt and the Revival in Möttlingen Any discussion of Blumhardtian theology and its background must begin with the dramatic events that took place during Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s ministry in the Schwabian village of Möttlingen, on the outskirts of the Black Forest, in the early 1840s. The elder Blumhardt’s influential theological breakthrough took place not as the result of study, or of encounter with a paradigm-shifting theological work, or of a relationship with a colleague, Knox Press, 1968). For a full account of Barth’s writings on the Blumhardts, see Collins Winn, Significance.

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but as a consequence of an experience of what he understood to be a supernatural event: the exorcising of a demonic presence from a young woman in his congregation. Johann Christoph’s experience resulted in a series of theological convictions that were later extended, developed, and decisively reconceived by his son Christoph. They include a new confidence in the living, contemporary power of God over the forces of evil and human frailty26; the belief that the revelation and actualization of this power serve both as a sign of the imminent eschatological fulfillment of the Kingdom of God on earth, and as the key element for the church to appropriate in its mission of paving the way for that fulfillment; the conviction that a mighty “new” outpouring of the Spirit by God is both necessary and near because the Spirit has been in some vital sense lacking or withheld from the contemporary church27; and a trust that God had once and would continue to confirm this power over all obstacles, and guide the church on its eschatological path, by means of direct communication of his presence, authority, and will to his people by the Holy Spirit.28 Both Johann Christoph and Christoph Blumhardt believed these elements to have been communicated and ratified by God in his liberation of the young villager from her bondage to spiritual forces. The elder Blumhardt was raised in the tradition of Württemberg Pietism, received his theological and pastoral training at Tübingen, and spent seven years working as a teacher at the Basel Missions Institute, a Pietist stronghold with close ties to Württemberg.29 Until he received the call to his first pastorship at Möttlingen in 1838, Blumhardt was largely indistinguishable from many other mainstream Pietist ministers in the region, apart from having achieved significant pastoral success during his curacy at Iptingen in bringing local separatists back into the village congregation. The turning point in his theological development began in the Autumn of 1841, when he came in contact with a young woman in his congregation who 26

27

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29

Friedrich Zündel, Johann Christoph Blumhardt: Zeuge der Siegesmacht Jesu über Krankheit und Dämonie (Gießen and Basel: Brunnen Verlag, 1962), 109–10. Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Johann Christoph Blumhardt: Ein Brevier (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 126; Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Verkündigung, vol. II, Ausgewählte Schriften in Drei Bänden (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1991), 36–7. Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Blätter aus Bad Boll. Erster Band: Juli bis Dezember 1873, Januar bis Juni 1874, vol. II.1, Gesammelte Werke: Schriften, Verkündigung, Briefe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968), 1874, No. 15, 118–19; Blumhardt, AS II, 81. Two particularly good biographies of Johann Christoph Blumhardt are available: the popular account written by his friend, Zündel, Blumhardt, which has gone through over twenty printings; and Dieter Ising’s recent study, Dieter Ising, Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Life and Work: A New Biography, trans. Monty Ledford (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009). The overview here is based in significant part on their accounts.

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reported seeing visions of spirits in her room at night, and who was known from time to time to suffer strange fits. Initially skeptical, Blumhardt came over time to believe that this woman, by the name of Gottliebin Dittus, was possessed by demons. After two years of prayer and counseling with the woman and with the help of some of the local church leaders—during which time he and his colleagues reported the occurrence of all kinds of extraordinary events—a night came when Blumhardt concluded that the demons had been driven out of her at last. In the final stages, the demon seemed to leave Gottliebin and enter her sister Katharina. As the final spirit was leaving Katharina, it purportedly cried out, “Jesus ist Sieger!” [Jesus is Victor], before leaving for good.30 After this climactic evening, Gottliebin’s attacks soon subsided. News of the “exorcism” spread quickly through the region, sparking a revival characterized in part by physical healings. Within weeks, thousands of pilgrims had come through Möttlingen, most of them looking to Pastor Blumhardt for prayer and healing. The revival was referred to as a “Bußbewegung” [repentance movement],31 on account of the fact that most conversions and healings that were reported followed upon some kind of confession of hidden sin to Blumhardt.32 A few years later, his new fame as a preacher, healer, and exorcist began to prove too great a strain on the resources of the village, and the church authorities became involved through the complaints of neighboring pastors that large numbers of their flock would make the trip to Möttlingen each Sunday instead of to their local church. In response, Blumhardt bought an old bath house complex in Bad Boll, and moved there with his family. The idea was to create a retreat center where those who sought him out could come with their spiritual and physical troubles, without disturbing the pastoral equilibrium of the Württemberg state church. He remained in Bad Boll, preaching and ministering to the many who came seeking his help, until his death in 1880. A few years before his death, Johann Christoph passed the ministry and leadership of the Boll house on to his son, Christoph. 30

31

32

For the full account, see the report Johann Christoph Blumhardt later submitted to church authorities: Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Blumhardts Kampf: Die Krankheitsund Heilungsgeschichte der Gottliebin Dittus in Möttlingen (St. Goar: Reichl Verlag, 2003), translated into English as Blumhardt’s Battle: A Conflict with Satan, trans. Frank S. Boshold (New York: Thomas E. Lowe, Ltd., 1970). See also Ising, Blumhardt, 162–88. Zündel, Blumhardt, 135. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the German are my own. According to Dieter Ising, a “principle from the first days of the awakening” was the premise that, “If someone truly desires to find peace, confession in his own private chamber is often not enough. It is only when the confession has been made to another person—normally the pastor—that fundamental change occurs in soul and, often, in body also.” See Ising, Blumhardt, 194.

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Why was this experience of exorcism and revival, encapsulated in his lifelong motto “Jesus is Victor!,” so decisive for Blumhardt, both biographically and theologically—why does Friedrich Zündel call it “the turning point in his life”?33 Johann Christoph interpreted the dramatic finale to the episode as evidence that Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, was still “alive” and at work in the world in a supernatural and also triumphant way, primarily as the agent of exorcisms and physical and spiritual healings. So profound was the effect of the Möttlingen experience on Blumhardt that he reoriented his theology around this revelation about Christ’s ongoing power in the world through the Holy Spirit. For Blumhardt, the words “Jesus is Victor!” signified a new “ruling conviction . . . that Jesus Christ has the same power today to overcome the ills of men that he had both before and after his death in New Testament times”34—a power with which the Christian church had lost touch. As Blumhardt put it in a letter to his friend and Möttlingen predecessor C. G. Barth, “only now have I truly learned what we have in [Jesus].”35 The “victory” in which Blumhardt believed can be characterized as the present as well as imminent triumph of Jesus over the forces of evil, and the restoration by his power of all that is broken in the world. According to Friedrich Zündel, Blumhardt recognized that in the current state of the Kingdom of God, the most urgent question is the question of power—who should have the power, the forces of spiritual darkness or the Savior?—that the Lord’s means for being victorious in this battle [Kampf] will be the faith of his church, and that only this sort of ongoing victory can prepare for a coming of the Lord.36 Blumhardt’s experience thus contained an eschatological element as well: The ongoing mediation through the church of Jesus Christ’s “victory” over the powers arrayed against his Kingdom is directly connected to his imminent eschatological return.37 Despite the inarguably massive and determining influence the Möttlingen events and revival had on Blumhardt, Frank Macchia has raised the important question of the degree to which Johann’s revelation that “Jesus is Victor” contained any material theological content that was not already present in Blumhardt’s thought, and in various strands of Württemberg 33 34

35 36 37

Zündel, Blumhardt, 109. J. D. Smart, The Divided Mind of Modern Theology: Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann 1908–1933 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967), 58. Quoted in Zündel, Blumhardt, 116. Ibid., 125. For a full theological explication of the elder Blumhardt’s “Jesus is Victor” theology, see Gerhard Sauter, Die Theologie des Reiches Gottes beim älteren und jüngeren Blumhardt (Zürich-Stuttgart: Zwingli Verlag, 1962), 16–45.

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Pietism in general, prior to the experience with Gottliebin. Although “the battle clarified for Johann the helplessness of those who suffer as intensely as Gottliebin had and the sufficiency of Christ as Victor to heal” and that “the power of darkness (particularly as manifested through the occult) was a widespread cause of human bondage” and despite the fact that through the experience Blumhardt became “convinced . . . that the power of the Holy Spirit evident in the New Testament church was lacking in his day and that a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit was necessary to restore it,” nevertheless, “most of the above stated themes were present in Blumhardt’s pietistic environment[,] . . . in Blumhardt and among many of his contemporaries . . . before the battle took place.” The significance of the “Kampf” [battle or fight] for Blumhardt’s theological development is instead to be found in “the renewed force and clarity he gave to his ideas and the unique ways in which he combined them together.”38 An understanding of both Blumhardts’ Pietist background is important for elucidating the context for, and originality of, the pneumatology and anthropological pessimism Christoph Blumhardt was to develop in the decades following his father’s death.

Württemberg Pietism Not unlike the Pentecostal and charismatic movement, Pietism is perhaps more easily defined historically, by the tracing of lines of personal and theological influence, than through a clear and stable definition of its determinative characteristics. In Württemberg as elsewhere, some “pietists” stayed within the local church; others were strongly separatistic; some saw themselves as implementing an orthodox revival of mainstream Protestantism by reminding Christians of the importance of the “heart,” not just the head, in the working out of the Gospel, while others rejected traditional Protestantism altogether, considering themselves the only true people of God; eschatological convictions were central for many groups, while others did not bother themselves about the Second Coming. Under the broadest definition, associated with Martin Brecht, Pietism was “a transnational and transconfessional phenomenon beginning in a post-Reformation crisis of piety rooted in the difficulties the Reformation churches experienced in realizing Christian life and activity.”39 That is to say, Pietism existed wherever the question of Christian praxis was raised over and against the strict confessionalism that characterized Protestant orthodoxy after the Reformation. 38

39

Frank D. Macchia, Spirituality and Social Liberation: The Message of the Blumhardts in the Light of Wuerttemberg Pietism (London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1993), 70–1. See also Martin Stober, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt d.J.: zwischen Pietismus und Sozialismus (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1998), 232–5. Carter Lindberg, “Introduction,” in The Pietist Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Carter Lindberg (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 3.

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More narrowly, Pietism has been seen as a renewal movement within (and later, without) the mainline Protestant denominations associated first and foremost with German Lutheran Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), and characterized by its focus on small group lay Bible study, and “the chiliastic hope for ‘better times’.”40 Through the influence of Moravian Pietism on John Wesley, a form of this movement spread beyond German-speaking lands, transforming into Methodism and ultimately paving the way for both contemporary evangelicalism and Pentecostalism.41 However one defines “Pietism,” various branches of this movement made strong inroads in the Württemberg region of southern Germany, becoming a major cultural force in the area by the early eighteenth century until at least the early twentieth century.42 Among the most famous and influential Pietists were Württemberg teacher and biblical scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), who compiled one of the most important early critical editions of the New Testament, and who famously used a numerological interpretation of the Revelation of John to predict the return of Christ on June 18, 1836,43 and speculative theologian Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–82), traces of whose mystical and theosophical ruminations can be found in the Blumhardts’ understanding of the cosmic scope of the Kingdom, and in their longing for a new outpouring of the Spirit.44 The question of the Blumhardts’ theological relationship to their Württemberg Pietist context and background has been a significant theme in Blumhardt scholarship.45 The deeply eschatological outlook of both 40 41

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44

45

Ibid., 2. This view of Pietism is associated primarily with Johannes Wallman. On the relationship between Methodism and Pentecostalism, see Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987), 35–61. Lehmann’s astonishing account of the decline of Württemberg Pietism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century through its cultural bondage to an obsolete politics is a penetrating witness to the power of sociocultural forces in shaping theology. See Hartmut Lehmann, Pietismus und weltliche Ordnung in Württemberg vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1969), 349–59. For discussion of Bengel in the context of Württemberg Pietism, see ibid., 69–74; Martin Brecht, “Der württembergische Pietismus,” in Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht, and Klaus Depperman, Geschichte des Pietismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 251–9; and Macchia, Spirituality, 7–11. See ibid., 18, 22, 82–4. For a general discussion of Oetinger, see Brecht, “Pietismus,” 269–78; and Martin Weyer-Menkhoff, “Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782),” in The Pietist Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Carter Lindberg (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 239–55. See in particular Macchia, Spirituality; and Friedhelm Groth, “Chiliasmus und Apokatastasishoffnung in der Reich-Gottes-Verkündigung der beiden Blumhardts,” Pietismus und Neuzeit 9 (1983): 56–116. “Württemberg Pietism” is a broad term that covers a variety of different Christian expressions in the region, including the officially sanctioned separatists at Korntal. Perhaps the dominant version, with which the Blumhardts

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father and son is consistent with this tradition: As Macchia puts it, “the single most important impulse in the spirituality of nineteenth-century Württemberg Pietism was the conviction that the Christian must live in the light of the coming Kingdom of God.”46 Even as Johann Christoph Blumhardt departed in significant ways from the distinct Württemberg eschatological tradition “from Bengel to M. Hahn,” his theology cannot be understood apart from his “taking up in a modified way” of their chiliastic and apokatastasis-focused themes.47 The universalist eschatological soteriology emphatically proclaimed by the younger Blumhardt is the fruit of a long-developing interest in the transformation and restoration of the whole cosmos (the “apokatastasis panton”) among many Pietists in the region.48 Two further Pietist themes of special relevance to our study are the emphasis on personal holiness and the importance of “unmediated experience” of God. For Bengel, according to Lehmann, “the most important aim of the true Christian” is “personal sanctification.” Other concerns, including the relationship between the Christian and the world, are chiliastically relativized.49 In his early years as a curate, as we shall see, the younger Blumhardt shared this stress on the importance of demonstrable sanctification in the Christian life and the correspondingly high view of anthropological transformation in conversion it implies. Emphasis on personal growth in holiness was one of the hallmarks of German Pietism.50 It is on this front, more than any other, that Christoph Blumhardt eventually parts ways with his Pietist roots, starting in 1888. The second major Pietist theme for our purposes is “unmediated experiences” [unmittelbaren Erfahrungen] of the Spirit.51 “Experience” of this kind tended to be quite important in Württemberg Pietism, despite the notable counterinfluence of Bengel.52 Unmediated “Erlebnis” [experience] is one of the most important theological and homiletical categories for the younger Blumhardt throughout his career, and it is a theme largely carried over from his Pietist context.53 This important theological locus and its Pietist heritage

46 47 48

49 50

51 52 53

were primarily associated, worked from within the state church, was particularly influenced by Bengel, and in the nineteenth century had close ties to the Basel Mission. Macchia, Spirituality, 7. Groth, “Chiliasmus,” 95–6. See Macchia, Spirituality, 83; Sauter, Blumhardt, 262–3, n. 60; and Groth, “Chiliasmus.” Lehmann, Pietismus, 74–5. Peter C. Erb, “Introduction,” in Pietists: Selected Writings, ed. Peter C. Erb (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 3. Lehmann, Pietismus, 16. Brecht, “Pietismus,” 251; Macchia, Spirituality, 9. Blumhardt himself does not distinguish theologically between “Erlebnis” and “Erfahrung.” For a brief discussion of the difference between the two terms as they

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will be explored more extensively in Chapter 4. Because of its importance for our study, however, a few notes as to what it does and does not signify are in order here, in anticipation of the more detailed discussion in the later chapter. The description of this kind of religious experience as “unmediated” is taken most directly both from Blumhardt’s own usage and from the Lehmann quotation above.54 Three distinct features of such “unmediated experience” can be discerned in the discussions in the Pietist secondary literature, as well as in Blumhardt: (1) “unmediated” in the sense of not necessarily directly mediated by scripture, that is, as opposed to a Lutheran concept of pneumatological “mediation” through the verbum externum; (2) “unmediated” understood in contrast to a sort of rational “mediation” through theological doctrine and confession, which makes the mistake of emphasizing the head instead of the true seat of religion, the “heart”; and (3) “unmediated” in the sense of a “felt” directness in the inner affective life of the individual, that is, as a descriptor of the feeling of the experience itself rather than that with which it contrasts. These features are closely related and appear to have become confusingly interwoven in the various uses of the term. In the first two senses, “unmediated” means primarily “not mediated according to certain usual understandings of mediation”; in the third sense, it is more general and attempts to describe an inner directness understood as opposed to any form of “outward” mediation at all.55 This study addresses the problem of this complexity of use and meaning by interpreting such experience in light of Martin Luther’s analysis of pneumatological “enthusiasm,” above all as expressed in his debates with Andreas von Karlstadt. In Luther’s theological analysis, all three features of “unmediated” experience, properly understood, are interwoven subsets of the broader theological category of Schwärmerei. Any priority placed on the “heart” on its own terms or on “felt” directness of feeling has already failed to recognize the anthropological problem—the power of sin and self-deception—which is the primary reason for his criterion of the Word in the first place. In his view, as soon as the verbum externum criterion in its strict sense has been compromised, the rest is sure to

54

55

have been understood in the German academic theological tradition, see Chapter 4, Note 1. For references in Blumhardt, see Chapter 4, Note 8. For a variety of closely related descriptions of what is distinctive in Pietist “experience”—for example, as “inward feelings,” “subjective experience,” “heart religion” as opposed to “head religion,” “inward experience” that is “directly felt,” and so on—see the references to Track, Erb, Lindberg, Wesley, Knox, and Weigelt on pages 88–9. The three “senses” in which “unmediated” and related terms are used, described here, are not to be confused with the different “types” of such experience discussed in Chapter 4. The “senses” refer to the general theological category, while the “types” are different genres of direct “experience,” such as revelatory guidance from God, “New Birth,” or miraculous healing.

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follow, and the only way to guard against all three is the criterion of the Word.56

Blumhardt, Father and Son: Continuity and Discontinuity Every account of Christoph Blumhardt’s theology has to engage with the question of continuity and discontinuity with Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s thought. Is Christoph’s message primarily a further development and exploration of his father’s “Jesus is Victor” theology,57 or does it represent something qualitatively new, grounded in a fundamental rejection of major aspects of his father’s views? There is no “correct” answer to this question. On the one hand, the younger Blumhardt’s theology is inconceivable apart from the Kingdom theology and expectation of a new outpouring of the Spirit that characterized his father’s thought; on the other hand, Christoph himself explains the inauguration of his most theologically creative phase in 1888, which paved the way for his well-known and prophetic political involvement, in terms of contrast with his father’s thought, not continuity. Whether a given study of the Blumhardts’ theologies highlights their similarities or their differences is finally determined by what question is being asked of their theology. This study places greater emphasis on Blumhardt’s discontinuity with his father than his continuity. The main reason for this emphasis derives from the larger pneumatological question. The younger Blumhardt’s pneumatology is useful for addressing the impasse between Lutheran and Pentecostal views of the Spirit precisely because of the pessimistic anthropology he does not share with his father. It is helpful at this point to look at the continuity/discontinuity question in more specific terms: Where are Johann Christoph and Christoph the same and where do they differ on our core theological themes of eschatology, “experience” of the Spirit, and anthropology? This question will be addressed at different points over the course of our discussions of these three themes in Christoph’s thought in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. For now, it is enough to sketch his father’s general views, and briefly to indicate the thrust of their relation to Christoph’s mature theology. Broadly speaking, Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s eschatology can be characterized as “underrealized.” On the subject of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world in relation to the contemporary mission of the Christian church, the elder Blumhardt’s thought is thoroughly future oriented. The underside of this future orientation is a strong conviction of the spiritual poverty of the church in his day. In the aftermath of the Möttlingen experiences, he describes how much “more clearly than before I perceive 56 57

See the analysis of Luther’s treatise Against the Heavenly Prophets in Chapter 7. This view is most clearly articulated in Sauter. See Sauter, Blumhardt, 329.

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Christianity’s corruption and affliction.”58 Both the reason for and the symptom of this “poverty” is that “the Holy Spirit was once present in person but is no longer, and that, according to the promises, he should be present with all his gifts and powers.”59 The Spirit is not absent in an absolute sense, but has truly been “withdrawn” in its Pentecostal role as empowerer and giver of spiritual gifts.60 The elder Blumhardt’s greatest hope is for a “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit” that will inaugurate the Eschaton in some sense.61 Importantly, he expected this “outpouring” to take place before his death, and it is in response to the disappointment of that hope that his son Christoph developed a more complex, but equally “underrealized,” eschatological framework. The development of this framework in light of the disappointment of Johann Christoph’s death is the primary subject of Chapter 3. As we shall see, Johann Christoph did not extend his belief in the spiritual “poverty” of the contemporary church quite as far as Christoph did, especially on the subject of sanctification-transformation in believers. The elder Blumhardt’s views on “unmediated experience” are not very different from his son’s views. Zündel observes that the foundation for Johann Christoph’s famous ministry is three specific “great life experiences”—the exorcism, the revival that followed it, and the healing miracles. These experiences “were for Blumhardt himself a communication from God bordering on a revelation—they drowned out everything else for him, establishing him in an almost prophetic manner.”62 Both Johann Christoph and Christoph characterize the elder Blumhardt’s ministry not so much as a theological message as a witness to “new experiences.”63 Although there is less of the explicit exposition of the importance of “Erlebnis” for the Kingdom in the elder Blumhardt that is found in the younger, it is implied both in his understanding of the “Jesus is Victor” message and in the longing for a decisive new “outpouring of the Spirit.” Although what we shall call “negative” experience of God, in suffering and judgment, is not elevated in Johann Christoph to the central theological status it receives in Christoph’s “sterbet” theology, it is present to a certain degree in the confessional character of the Möttlingen “repentance movement.” 58

59 60

61 62 63

Blumhardt, Brevier, 129–30. See also his sermon, “The poverty of the Christian church,” in Blumhardt, AS II, 105–22. Blumhardt, Brevier, 130. Ibid., 126. See also Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Blätter aus Bad Boll. Dritter Band: Juli bis Dezember 1875, Januar bis Juni 1876, vol. II.3, Gesammelte Werke: Schriften, Verkündigung, Briefe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 1875, No. 29–30, 230–2, 238–40, 246–8. See Groth, “Chiliasmus,” 75–82. Zündel, Blumhardt, 160. Blumhardt, Brevier, 137; Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Damit Gott kommt: “Gedanken aus dem Reich Gottes” (Giessen/Basel: Brunnen Verlag, 1992), 34.

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The greatest point of theological difference between the elder and the younger Blumhardt, I will argue, is in their assessments of human nature. Although by all accounts Johann Christoph, in his pastoral ministry, was full of love and grace for Christians in their struggles,64 he nevertheless affirmed a theology of regeneration that is unquestionably more optimistic about sanctification in the believer than his son’s Cross-oriented theology. It is enough of a difference, in fact, to make Christoph a far more appropriate dialogue partner for the impasse between Lutheran and charismatic pneumatologies than his father. Important aspects of Christoph Blumhardt’s background in Württemberg Pietism and the influence of his father’s theology and ministry will be explored at more length in the chapters that follow, where appropriate. We turn now from this sketch of Blumhardt’s context to certain methodological questions raised by the nature of our study.

Methodological Considerations The aim of this study, as I have stated, is to explore pneumatology beyond the fundamental impasse between classical Protestant and contemporary charismatic and Pentecostal conceptions of the locus of the Holy Spirit’s activity in the lives of believers through the resources of the theology of Christoph Blumhardt, which provides a place for both personal unmediated experience of the Spirit and a radically Protestant anthropological pessimism. In order to locate Blumhardt’s pneumatology between these two camps, a detailed study of his theology is in order, above all as he expressed it during the most Cross-oriented period in his preaching and writing, between 1888 and 1896.

Between Wittenberg and Azusa Street Christoph Blumhardt is identified here as a theologically useful middle figure between classical Lutheran and contemporary charismatic and Pentecostal theologies. In framing his theology in this way, it is important to underscore that the primary connection between Blumhardt and these theological positions is understood to be theological and dogmatic rather than historical or genetic. For an ordained Lutheran minister, Blumhardt demonstrates remarkably little knowledge of Luther’s writings and theology, and would most likely have been quite unaware of the close connections between his own thought and Luther’s that will become clear over the course of our study. Blumhardt’s historical relationship to twentieth-century Pentecostal 64

See, for example, Zündel’s account of his ministry in Iptingen, Zündel, Blumhardt, 42–79.

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and charismatic movements and their nineteenth-century precursors is much more complex,65 but in any case the lines of historical continuity and influence, such as they are, are not by themselves adequate fully to justify our designation of Blumhardt as a “charismatic” and even “proto-Pentecostal” figure. The argument here, rather, is that Blumhardt’s pneumatology shares fundamentally and demonstrably one of the most important—arguably the most important—dogmatic features of charismatic and Pentecostal theology in its contrast with classical Reformation, and especially Lutheran, theology. Namely, dogmatically speaking, Blumhardt was what Luther, according to the clear categories he established in his rejection of Karlstadt and others, called a Schwärmer. In this formulation, the degree to which Blumhardt can serve as a mediating figure between Luther and Pentecostalism, therefore, depends on a theological judgment about what is most distinctive in charismatic and Pentecostal theology and practice in relation to other Christian theologies. This question of a “Pentecostal distinctive” has shaped recent academic discussion among Pentecostal and charismatic theologians more than any other. It is widely agreed at this point that the common judgment earlier in the twentieth century, that glossolalia was the primary distinguishing feature of this form of Christianity, is a superficial one, as it recognizes neither the abiding disagreements among Pentecostals, both early on and more recently, on this issue, nor the theological complexity of Pentecostalism’s matrix of premillenial eschatology, miraculous healing, and Wesleyan Holiness theology, to name just three of the most salient elements. This study follows Allan Anderson and Frank Macchia in identifying personal charismatic experience of the Spirit among those who are already “believers” as the single most significant Pentecostal distinctive, both theologically and in practice, though it is not the only such distinctive. According to Anderson, the history of the movement in its many forms has shown that all the various expressions of Pentecostalism have one common experience, that is a personal encounter with the Spirit of God enabling and empowering people for service . . . Through their experience of the Spirit, Pentecostals and Charismatics make the immanence of God tangible. . . . Although different Pentecostals and Charismatics do not always agree on the precise formulation of their theology of the Spirit, the emphasis on divine encounter and the resulting transformation of life is always there. This is what likens Pentecostals to the mystical traditions, perhaps more than any other contemporary form of Christianity.66 65 66

See Chapter 7. Anderson, Pentecostalism, 187–8. Macchia makes the similar claim that Spirit baptism understood “as a postconversion charismatic experience” is “the crown jewel of

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As will be demonstrated in Chapter 4, Blumhardt without question shared this prioritization of “personal encounter with the Spirit of God” that makes “the immanence of God tangible” among Christians. For him, “unmediated” encounter with God, experienced individually, emotionally, viscerally, and with life-altering effects, was the key missing ingredient in the Christianity of his day. This is not to say that there are no differences between Blumhardt’s understanding of pneumatological experience and that of most Pentecostals. As we will see, the most reliable consequence of such experience in Blumhardt’s view was a feeling of judgment rather than blessing, and revelation of sin rather than new empowerment to overcome sin. Nevertheless, his regular use of language of “immediacy”; his conviction that the locus of Erlebnis is primarily the affections rather than the mind; his consistent willingness to affirm, if with growing reservation, that such experience can indeed involve “warm feelings,” miracles, and direct divine communication with individuals; and his life-long acknowledgement of a relationship between Erlebnis and miraculous healing indicate that his move toward a theology of the cross in his understanding of experience took place from within a charismatic, “enthusiastic” doctrine of the Spirit. For all of these reasons, the fact that, in the end, Blumhardt is willing in his more extreme statements to prioritize “negative” charismatic experience so radically as to appear to subvert the “Pentecostal” paradigm entirely does not disqualify him as a theologically useful mediating figure between Pentecostal and Lutheran theology. Even as his pneumatology becomes dominated by the theme of the cross, it remains in its fundamental makeup and expression a charismatic, “enthusiastic” theology of the cross. In the vital respects of “immediacy” and the prioritization of affective experience over what takes place coram deo, it remains very far removed from a classically Lutheran theology of the Word.

Biographical Narrative or Theological Analysis? My ultimate aim in this analysis of Blumhardt’s thought is dogmatic and constructive. However, as with any study of the theology of an historical individual, a certain methodological historicism is unavoidable: Christoph’s theology was expressed and developed over time, in relation to the events of his and his congregation’s lives, and to the wider societal developments he observed around him. The former is particularly crucial for Blumhardt, because his theology assumed an ongoing personal revelation and communication from God. More specifically, Blumhardt’s theology is perhaps best understood as a working-out of the implications of specific communicated purposes of God for the Bad Boll congregation, in Pentecostal distinctives” (Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 20).

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the context of a larger eschatological movement toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom on earth. There is, therefore, an unavoidably dynamic and historical element, beyond the usual personal development in any theologian’s thought over time, built into the structure of Blumhardt’s theology. As a result, his theology is initially inaccessible outside of the context of his personal history. Furthermore, the particular emphasis he placed on reading divine signs and meanings in large-scale societal events, in keeping with much of the Württemberg Pietist tradition, must be taken into account in the attempt to render his theology useful outside of its original historical context. For example, as we shall see, his joining of the Social Democratic Party was first and foremost a theological decision, but its theological basis cannot be understood apart from his perception of the failure of the church to treat the rising German industrial class as Christ would have done. At the same time, Blumhardt’s insights about the nature of the Holy Spirit and his critiques of objectified forms of Christian religion, to name just two salient examples, have a theological power and relevance that transcends the details of the failings of the Württemberg state church or the specific communications he felt himself to have received from the Spirit that led him to give up his healing ministry for a time. Indeed, his conception of the relationship between Spirit and cross in the Christian life is perhaps more relevant to the world historical situation today, when there are hundreds of millions more Christians who view unmediated experience of the Spirit as central to their faith, than it was for the local pietists in relation to whom he developed his views. We are faced, then, with a common methodological difficulty for a study of this sort, which, while requiring sensitivity to the “broad ugly ditch” between researcher and the object of research, seeks foremost to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of its subject matter. The problem, as we have said, is accentuated in Blumhardt’s case, because of the particularly historically oriented assumptions behind his theology. Unsurprisingly, every major scholarly study on Christoph Blumhardt to date has taken some form of hybrid approach between what could be called an historical and a thematic or systematic theological method. Meier, Macchia, Stober, and Lim all expound his theology over the course of a narrative of its historical and biographical development, with a more explicitly constructive conclusion at the end of the book or of each section. Sauter, more traditionally dogmatic in his approach, still divides his thematic analysis into the widely, if provisionally, accepted four “periods” in Blumhardt’s development from 1880 until his death in 1917,67 and finds it necessary at 67

This theological periodization was first proposed by R. Lejeune. In his view, the period from 1880–8 is characterized by continuity with the elder Blumhardt; 1888–96 marks a period of critical change and development, in the explication of the watchword “Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben” [Die, so that Jesus may live]; 1896–1906 is the “turn to the

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times to insert more strictly biographical excurses to clarify the context for the theology under discussion. The line between intellectual biography and constructive theological exposition is crossed many times in the Blumhardt secondary literature, and rightly so. A thoughtful movement back and forth between the two methodologies is unavoidable for a study that wishes both to do justice to Blumhardt’s thought, and to establish its relevance in contemporary context, given the nature of his theology and writing. Our approach for the chapters expositing Blumhardt’s theology in the 1888–96 period will be closer to Sauter’s than to Meier’s: The analysis will be thematic, within this specific period. The necessary historical and biographical information will be interspersed as needed within the discussion. Readers interested in a more cohesive and detailed biographical picture are directed to the section on the younger Blumhardt in Werner Jäckh’s popular biography of both Blumhardts,68 and to the more scholarly narratives to be found in the work of Stober, Meier, Lim, and Collins Winn. It is in part because these works are so helpful historically, that we are free here, building on them, to engage primarily on the thematic level.

The Theological Priority of the 1888–96 Period in This Study A further feature of this study requiring explanation is the decision to focus primarily on the “second period” in Blumhardt’s development, from 1888 to 96. As Martin Stober has pointed out, scholars have tended strongly to focus on the second half of Christoph Blumhardt’s life, from 1880 (and especially 1888) until his death in 1919.69 This emphasis is in large part due to the availability of primary materials: Lejeune’s collection starts with 1880, and Harder includes only ten pages of material from before Johann

68

69

world” and entry into politics; and 1906–19 is the postpolitical, more quietist period. Most interpreters have essentially agreed with Lejeune’s helpful periodization, with various provisions. In my view, it might be preferable to end the “second phase” either in 1895, with the publication of the final chapter of the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes, or in 1898–9, when the “optimistic” period that informs his political involvement begins; also, the theological shift away from politics begins in 1903, several years before his formal exit from the Landtag in 1906 (see Chapter 5). These are minor quibbles, however. For the sake of clarity and consistency with other works, we will follow more or less the established periodization. See R. Lejeune, “Nachwort,” in Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben! Predigten und Andachten aus den Jahren 1888 bis 1896, ed. R. Lejeune (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1925), 19–21; and Collins Winn, Significance, 112. Werner Jäckh, Blumhardt: Vater und Sohn und ihre Welt (Stuttgart: J. F. Steinkopf Verlag, 1977), 103–202. Unfortunately, as of now no definitive scholarly biography of Christoph Blumhardt, on a par with Ising’s magisterial biography of Johann Christoph Blumhardt, exists. Stober, Blumhardt, 7–13.

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Christoph Blumhardt’s death in that year. Stober’s Christoph Blumhardt d.J. zwischen Pietismus und Sozialismus, drawing on unpublished material from Blumhardt’s early decades, serves as a much-needed corrective. Stober focuses on the development of his thought in the 1860s and 1870s, when he attended Tübingen University (1862–6), served his curacy (“Vikariat,” 1866–9), and returned to Bad Boll to assist his father (1869–80). Our study joins Meier in focusing primarily on the period from 1888. Although the earlier decades were greatly formative for Blumhardt, it was not until after his father’s death that his theology began to diverge significantly from Johann Christoph’s and Christoph becomes an important theological figure in his own right. Most importantly, Blumhardt’s relevance to our larger pneumatological question is grounded in the strong anthropological pessimism toward which he moved in the 1880s, culminating in the announcement of the “sterbet” watchword in 1888. Significant structural elements of Blumhardt’s eschatology and theology of unmediated “Erlebnis” [experience] are in place long before, because they are to a significant degree carried over from his father’s theology. We are primarily concerned here, however, with the creative interaction and integration of those themes in Blumhardt’s thought with the new low anthropology, rather than the eschatology or pneumatology on their own terms. The themes of the fulfillment of the Kingdom and “experience” of the Spirit are, therefore, most helpfully explored as they developed and were articulated during the 1888–96 period, rather than earlier. But what of the years after 1896, which include the best-known event in Blumhardt’s life, his turn to politics, as well as his critique of the German war cause in 1914? There are three reasons for our decision to prioritize the “sterbet” phase over the later periods. The first, and most important, is simply that Blumhardt deals most extensively and directly with the relevant pneumatological and anthropological concerns during the “sterbet” period. Although his anthropology did not change a great deal in subsequent years, his main discussions of it take place between 1888 and 1896. Relevant here is the fact that Blumhardt’s only theological monograph, the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes, which deals closely with the interaction between the new pessimism and Blumhardt’s eschatology and theology of “experience,” dates from the prepolitical period. The second reason is that Blumhardt’s period of political involvement has already received excellent scholarly attention, above all in Meier. This renders the need for further exploration less urgent than it once was. The third reason for the prioritization is my view that there are no major material shifts in Blumhardt’s core theological principles in the later periods on the scale of the “sterbet” turning point in 1888. There are minor shifts, but not major developments. The events and theological emphases of Blumhardt’s final two decades can be explained to a significant degree, and should be understood primarily, as variations on, rather than developments 28

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away from, the core themes that had developed by 1896. The overview of the later periods in Chapter 5 will help to demonstrate this point. For all of these reasons, following a brief discussion of the pre-1888 period in the next chapter, the exposition of Blumhardt’s thought in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 will be limited to the “sterbet” years, from 1888 to 1896,70 and his development after that point will be outlined in a single chapter, Chapter 5.

The Shape of the Study This study contains two major components. The bulk will consist of a close analysis of Christoph Blumhardt’s theology, especially during the 1888–96 period, in light of our larger anthropological and pneumatological interests. The core themes in Blumhardt’s theology in those years are anthropological pessimism, eschatology, and unmediated “experience” of the Spirit, and these loci will receive particular attention. Previous interpretations of Blumhardt’s thought will be taken into account and discussed where relevant. Chapter 6 will serve as a “bridge” between the “analysis” chapters and the dialogical and constructive final two chapters. In these last sections, I will draw on aspects of Blumhardt’s pneumatology to provide a critical assessment of Lutheran and Pentecostal pneumatologies, and to propose a theological principle for spiritual discernment that seeks to avoid the main weaknesses of those pneumatologies while preserving their strengths. With this broader sketch in mind, the theme of our next chapter is the important development that took place in Blumhardt’s preaching and ministry starting in 1888, as he became critical of aspects his father’s theological position and began focusing on sin and “egoism,” rather than the forces of spiritual evil, as the primary obstacles to the Kingdom of God. As a consequence of this development, Blumhardt preached highly critically about certain manifestations of Christian “egoism,” and the chapter will include an examination of several specific objects of this critique. Blumhardt’s theology of the cross from the 1888–96 period is closely interwoven with his eschatology and his conception of unmediated “experience” of God. Chapter 3 explores his eschatological framework of “stations” on the way to the fulfillment of the Kingdom, describing an eschatological “forward movement” that nevertheless avoids a sense of progressive, immanent accumulation or growth. Blumhardt adapted his eschatology somewhat in this period in light of his father’s death and the new “sterbet” theology. One 70

Very occasionally, I will reference primary material from shortly before or after this period in these chapters, but only when there is strong material continuity with the theology of the 1888–96 sermons and writings, and a quotation from other years helps explain an aspect of that theology.

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important focus here is his 1895 monograph Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes, which contains Blumhardt’s primary theological exposition of the new eschatological outlook. Chapter 4 examines the key category of “experience” in Blumhardt’s theology in the same period, using a typology of punctiliar, unmediated experience of God derived largely from Pietist and Pentecostal concepts of experience. His theology of the cross and his emphasis on the importance of unmediated “Erlebnis” are integrated in what I argue is a concept of “negative” experience of the Spirit. This latter category serves as the focal point for the dialogue with Lutheran and Pentecostal pneumatologies in Chapter 7, as well as the final, constructive chapter. Chapter 5 provides a brief overview of the key developments and events in Blumhardt’s life and thought between 1897 and his death in 1919, as they relate to the theology developed during the 1888–96 period. The particular focus is on his developing theological affirmation of physicality and embodiedness, his entry into politics with the SPD, and his theological critique of German war enthusiasm at the start of the First World War. Chapter 6 gives a summary outline of Blumhardt’s pneumatology, relates it to other interpretations of his theology, and then raises theological questions about aspects of his thought, including the viability of his eschatology today and his critique of traditional Protestant soteriology. Chapter 7 places Blumhardt’s anthropology and pneumatology in dialogue first with contemporary Pentecostal theologians, on the topics of “Spirit baptism” and the question of “empowerment” by the Spirit versus “negative” experience, and then with certain themes in Luther, in particular the role of the Holy Spirit in the “negative” (“theological”) use of the Law. Both Pentecostal and Lutheran pneumatologies are assessed in light of Blumhardt’s anthropologically pessimistic, yet charismatic, view of the Spirit. In the final chapter, I sketch aspects of a constructive theology of the Spirit that draws critically on Blumhardt’s thought in order to move beyond the impasse between classical Lutheran and contemporary Pentecostal pneumatologies. The focus is on the possibility of a limited criterion of “negative” experience in discernment of the Spirit, and certain potential theological and pastoral implications of such a “criterion” or principle.

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2 “die, so that jesus may live!”: christoph blumhardt’s turn to theology of the cross, 1888–96

In the later months of 1888, Christoph Blumhardt’s theology underwent a major shift. Under the motto, “Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben!”—“Die, so that Jesus may live!”—Blumhardt turned decisively from his father’s primary starting point in Kampf between God and antagonistic spiritual forces to a prior and more fundamental Kampf between God and the “Fleischeswesen,”1 or sinful, “fleshly” nature of man. At stake was the question of the location of the powers “hostile to God”2 that militate against the final fulfillment of God’s Kingdom on earth: Is God effectively opposed on earth first and foremost by demonic powers and the devil, or by the desire of humankind to reject God and be a god unto themselves? Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s theology had tended to give the former answer; contra his father, Christoph came over the course of 1888 and early 1889 to believe that the latter was the decisive problem. Both Blumhardts, as we have seen and will explore in more detail in Chapter 3, shared a basic eschatological outlook that saw the theological problem of the failure for God’s Kingdom to be fulfilled on earth—more or less the failure for Jesus Christ to return in power as he had predicted—as the crucial question faced by Christianity in their day. They both held the 1

2

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben! Predigten und Andachten aus den Jahren 1888 bis 1896, vol. II, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten, und Schriften (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1925), 68. Ising, Blumhardt, 187.

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view that forces in the world were engaged in a Kampf against Christ and his Kingdom, which for a variety of reasons had been effective since the time of the apostles in “stalling” the Eschaton. Johann Christoph understood his experiences in Möttlingen to signify the beginning of a God-given recovery of the true power of Christ, concretely actualizable in the world, to fight and win against these forces—“Jesus is Victor!” The people of God, it followed, were called to recognize and in some sense utilize3 this latent power to be vessels of Jesus’ Kampf against his eschatological opposition, primarily through prayer for the Holy Spirit to fight on their behalf against these forces of evil, for the sake of the Kingdom. Johann Christoph believed these anti-Kingdom powers to reside first and foremost in external spiritual forces acting upon humanity. The younger Blumhardt’s 1888–9 “Wende,”4 or theological turn, consisted in his disillusionment with this view. He announced his new position to the Bad Boll congregation in a sermon on November 25, 1888: And if we have said to this point: “Jesus is Victor over the devil and over Hell and over death,” we now leave that to the side and say instead: “Jesus is Victor over the flesh [das Fleisch]” . . . It is more important that the Savior conquer us than that he continue to turn against the devil.5 The primary locus of effective eschatological opposition to God, and, therefore, the true target of the divine Kampf, is the sinful heart of humankind, not the forces of supernatural evil. Christoph consistently preached this new message for the next eight years, and its basic premise remained at the heart of his theology throughout his life. Since Robert Lejeune first identified this shift and new “sterbet” motto as the inauguration of the second “phase” in Christoph’s theological development, Blumhardt scholars have recognized the 1888–9 Wende as a major development in Blumhardt’s theology. With the exception of the work of Gerhard Sauter, however, the decisive material theological significance of the shift, both for Blumhardt’s subsequent theology and for his proper location within the theological Geistesgeschichte, has been greatly underestimated. The theology of “Die, so that Jesus may live!” centers on a move toward radical anthropological pessimism. As we shall see, Blumhardt here progresses beyond traditional Pietist categories of sin and sins—understood 3

4

5

See the extended discussion of the role of agency in the eschatological Kampf in Chapter 3. See Klaus-Jürgen Meier, Christoph Blumhardt: Christ, Sozialist, Theologe (Bern: Verlag Peter Lang, 1979), 17–20. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 78–9.

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as just one part of Christian nature alongside a sanctified, Spirit-filled component—to theological language that identifies human beings with sin in such a fundamental way that only ontological categories can do justice to the identification. The category of human “Wesen,” of essential being or nature, rather than sinful action, becomes primary: “Do not look just at your individual faults; recognize instead the entire false nature of human life.”6 This “Wesen” is equated unconditionally with Blumhardt’s favorite negative term for the sinful part of a person: “Fleisch.” Our “entire” Wesen is our “Fleischeswesen.” With this ontological radicalizing of pessimistic anthropology, a material shift has taken place that puts Blumhardt in territory more in continuity with classical Lutheranism than with Pietist thought. Far from being a minor development in one area of his theology, Blumhardt’s new anthropology came to stand at the center of his theological message, as demonstrated by the determining influence it came to have on his eschatology, his soteriology, and his pneumatology, as we shall see in the following. To identify Blumhardt’s thought first and foremost as a sociopolitically oriented development—albeit a highly original one—within Pietist theology, as Macchia, for example, has done,7 is to underestimate the essential discontinuity between his new anthropological starting point and the tradition out of which, historically speaking, he came. The task of this chapter is to elucidate the specific theological content of Blumhardt’s Wende. Blumhardt’s initial articulation and exposition of the “Sterbet” theology took place between the years 1888–96, and the analysis in this chapter will focus on the sermons and other materials from that period. Our discussion in Chapter 2 will include a brief overview of Blumhardt’s theology between 1880 and 1888, after Johann Christoph’s death but before the Wende; an exposition of the primary themes and content of Christoph’s new motto, “Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben,” including the categories of “Fleisch,” “Wesen,” and “Sterben”; analysis of the strongly critical conclusions to which Blumhardt came about the church, piety, a certain kind of overreliance on scripture, and “Christian egoism”8; and the role of inductive reasoning in Blumhardt’s development of the “sterbet” theology. Some central theological categories relating to the “sterbet” theology, such as the eschatological role Blumhardt attributed to it, his own understanding of the continuities and discontinuities it had with the elder Blumhardt’s thought, and the category of “experience,” will be touched on only briefly, in anticipation of a more extended discussion of those themes in Chapters 3 and 4. 6 7 8

Ibid., 115. Emphasis added. Macchia, Spirituality, 1–3, 159. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 222.

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Preliminary Remarks I: Blumhardt’s Critique of Academic Theology Before we begin, however, it is appropriate to consider two points of methodological import for our exegesis of Blumhardt’s thought. Blumhardt never considered himself a theologian in a traditional academic sense,9 and is consistently critical throughout his life of “dogmatics,”10 and indeed of academic theological study of any kind. Speaking of his Tübingen theology professors, he once wrote: “When I hear the gentlemen philosophizing about God like that, I often think: If you really knew whom you were talking about, whom you were analyzing, you would turn white as a sheet. God does not let himself be described with ideas—we must experience him!”11 So often and so vociferously does Blumhardt speak disparagingly of “theologians” that Sauter rightly ascribes to him a “fundamental allergy toward theology.”12 As we will see, his hostility was in part grounded pneumatologically, in a basic skepticism that any doctrine or confession could capture the truth about the living God, or serve, however indirectly, as an instrument through which God might be encountered. But his critique extended beyond the mere “rejection of some of the forms of theological work” that might lead to “a glorification of doctrinal confession” and its attendant “dogmatic apparatus.”13 Blumhardt’s view was more radical: The category of “experience” [Erlebnis] as the central significant interaction and communication between God and human beings trumps human thought, reasoning, and conceptuality so completely—even when such thinking is biblically derived—that thinking about God appears to be left with no real role in the work of the Kingdom at all. The problem is that Blumhardt’s sermons and writings do not follow through on the critique of theology that they express. Although Blumhardt succeeds in avoiding almost any “formal-theological” language or methodology, Sauter is quite right to say that his writings demonstrate, theologically, the “strictest material connectedness.”14 Christoph Blumhardt preached several thousand sermons and “Andachten” (short sermons in the context of a brief morning prayer 9

10 11 12 13 14

For two apparent exceptions, see Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 221, and Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Seid Auferstandene! 1890–1906, vol. II, Ansprachen, Predigten, Reden, Briefe: 1865–1917 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 14. Given his many highly critical statements about “theology,” it would be a mistake to make too much of these exceptions. See, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 143, 193, 199. Quoted in Jäckh, Blumhardt, 112. Sauter, Blumhardt, 78. Ibid., 78–9. Ibid., 82.

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service) over the course of his long career. Nearly all of them consist in an exposition of a single biblical text, or theme drawn from a text, in order to illustrate a truth about the nature of God and his interaction with the world and its residents. When Blumhardt critiques the church, or false piety, or academic theology, or his father’s views, he nearly always does so on theological grounds. Although neither confessional nor “systematic” in his theologizing—he almost never refers to the Lutheran confessions, and he seeks neither terminological precision nor to establish a theological methodology as such—hardly a paragraph goes by in the more than ten volumes of published sermon materials that does not directly address basic Christian dogmatic questions and themes (e.g., the nature of the Eschaton, the work of the Holy Spirit, the meaning and effects of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, the relation between Creation and the coming Kingdom, etc.). The reasoning behind this apparent contradiction—clearly Blumhardt would want to differentiate between what he does in his sermons and what he criticizes “the theologians” for doing—will be explored further in Chapter 6, in the context of Blumhardt’s critique of “systems.” For now, the point is simply that Blumhardt can, in retrospect, and despite his protestations, be designated a “theologian.” He coherently and unflaggingly articulated a particular view of the Christian God and his relationship with the world, which, though it developed significantly over time, always demonstrated the “strictest material connectedness.”

Preliminary Remarks II: Preaching as Theological Genre As a “theologian,” however, Blumhardt’s genre was not the systematic treatise, the journal article, or the disputation; his theology was always preached. Even his numerous surviving letters tend to take on a pastoral, homiletical style. For this reason, the theology of the younger Blumhardt must be drawn and deduced largely from analysis of his considerable sermon output.15 His choice of genre has certain consequences that need to be taken into account in our analysis of his theology. First, Blumhardt’s largely extemporaneous sermons cannot be expected to demonstrate perfect terminological or theological consistency. Although, as will be seen, he often makes use of certain words and concepts repeatedly and consistently in a given period (“Fleisch,” “Vollendung des Reiches Gottes” [fulfillment of the Kingdom of God], “Kampf,” “Egoismus,” etc.), he is equally happy to “translate” such concepts into the language of his

15

The notable exception is the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes.

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given biblical text for a particular sermon.16 At times, his use of terms can be initially confusing. A prime example is the category of the “Kingdom of God”: Blumhardt can say in one sermon that the Kingdom is already among us, in another that it signifies an entirely “not-yet” future event, and in a third that it is present, but only in an incomplete sense, awaiting a final “fulfillment.” In this particular case, the various uses can be understood in the context of a broader eschatological scheme that is materially consistent through hundreds of sermons, even if his use of terms is not.17 Blumhardt’s somewhat fluid use of terminology, unsurprising given the extemporaneous homiletic context, is to be noted, along with the fact that this fluidity, on closer examination, in many cases resolves into a consistent larger theological framework. In other places, Blumhardt’s eschewal of “formal-theological” method can result in genuine internal contradiction or unresolved confusion in his thought. For example, his discussions of the question of divine and human agency in the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God result in consistently contradictory statements, and Blumhardt gives little evidence of being concerned about the fact. In a more formal theological setting, he might have been forced to explain more precisely his position on this question, or to commit decidedly to one position or the other. But because his setting is the pulpit and not the seminar room, the preaching genre allows him uncritically to avoid systematizing his thought. Despite certain strengths in this sort of “unresolved tension,” the problem of material inconsistency becomes in some cases a real weakness for those attempting to come to grips with his theology a century later. This is not a question of appeal to mystery in the face of paradox—Blumhardt rarely makes such appeals, and if he did, it would be a legitimate theological position. Rather, it is a matter of giving two mutually exclusive answers to the same question, with vastly different implications, and not appearing to be fully aware of the inconsistency. The most theologically interesting factor involved in preaching as a theological genre is the dissolution of the gap between theology and proclamation. Karl Barth, like many other Protestant theologians, is careful to distinguish between dogmatics and the task of the church’s proclamation of the Gospel.18 Dogmatics is meant to serve the latter, but does not participate in it directly, and must not be confused with proclamation. For Christoph Blumhardt, who rejects dogmatics in Barth’s sense and nevertheless engages in extensive theological enquiry in his sermons, the distinction does not 16

17 18

Blumhardt followed the Bad Boll tradition of using the Herrnhut daily “Losung,” or lectionary, to determine his preaching texts. See the discussion of the category of the “Kingdom” in Chapter 3. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, trans. G. W. Bromiley (London: T & T Clark International, 2004), 248–50, and so on.

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exist. There is no intermediate question for Blumhardt of how dogmatic truth is to be translated into preaching and pastoral care; on a functional level, preaching is theology, and theology is preaching.19 This collapse of the two into a single task renders it unnecessary to articulate a theology of preaching as such. His doctrine of preaching, such as it is, must be discerned obliquely from the sermons themselves. The difficulty is that it is not always clear from his sermons what precisely Blumhardt understands himself to be doing by preaching. When he exhorts the “Bollers” to “die, so that Jesus may live,” there appears to be some expectation that this spiritual “dying” will, or at any rate could, by the Holy Spirit, take place within the listener (or reader) precisely during the act of hearing the sermon. This problematic may go some way toward explaining Blumhardt’s conflicting conception of human agency in the bringing about of the Kingdom: Perhaps he does not see it as necessary to explain or justify his sermon exhortations conceptually, because the exhortation, as preached, becomes the very thing exhorted; to urge, in a sermon context, that people “die, so that Jesus may live,” is immediately, Holy Spirit-willing, for it to have taken place. In this case, there would be no meaningful gap between truth received and the actualization of that truth in feelings and behavior.20 For now, it is enough to point out that the blurring of the line between theology and preaching, inherent in Blumhardt’s choice of theological genre, renders his theology in this sense provisional, dependent on the pneumatologically mediated effect of the sermon on the congregation, as well as silent on the details of a theology of preaching.

Christoph Blumhardt’s Theological Development to 1888 In order to better understand the “sterbet” Wende it is important here to sketch Blumhardt’s views on certain relevant topics prior to that year, both before and after his father’s death in 1880. 19

20

On similar grounds to his rejection of dogmatic theology, Blumhardt at times questioned the use or efficacy of preaching itself in the service of the Kingdom. He even withdrew from preaching for two periods of several years. As Sauter puts it, “for Blumhardt it is called fundamentally into question whether the pulpit . . . can be the ‘arena of the Kingdom of God’ anymore at all” (Sauter, Blumhardt, 80). That said, he always returned to preaching eventually, and the sermon remains the primary organ for his theological expression. The identification of preaching and the actualizing of what is preached is a theme associated with Lutheran theology of proclamation. See Gerhard Forde, Theology is for Proclamation (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990); Oswald Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie: Eine Vergegenwärtigung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); and the discussion of Luther and the “Word” in Chapter 7.

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According to Martin Stober, in the early decades the younger Blumhardt shares the same basic eschatological outlook as his father: the hope for a decisive preeschatological event (either a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit or the return of Christ) that will lead directly to the final fulfillment of the Kingdom of God.21 Both father and son see the Bible as an instrument of God’s “living” communication, and both view unmediated “personal experience of faith . . . in day-to-day life” as an important “corrective” to views of scripture that see it as merely a dead text.22 A difference, however, is that for Christoph it is the Holy Spirit who is “encountered” daily and through the Bible, while Johann Christoph places the emphasis more on Christ. Already this leads the younger Blumhardt, in Stober’s view, more than his father to “a dangerous subjectivism.”23 Interestingly, Blumhardt’s other differences from his father in the early years indicate a higher anthropology than Johann Christoph’s: In his high demands on human beings within the bounds of justification and sanctification, as well as in his dividing of the baptized into “saved” and “unsaved,” . . . pietist thought is evident in [the younger] Blumhardt. Overall, in these years he was more closely connected with Pietism than his father ever was.24 Christoph’s “stress on human action” differentiates him from Johann Christoph, in that it indicates “an insuperable opposition” between his views and “the Reformation doctrine of justification.”25 There begin to be indications in the 1880s that the younger Blumhardt’s view of human nature is beginning to dim. His emphasis on unmediated experience remains strong,26 as it does most of his life, but the anthropology changes. As early as 1882, Blumhardt is lamenting the state of Christianity in his day, especially the fact that the “people of God” seem no more holy than anyone else.27 The first glimmers of the “sterbet” theology—in the idea that sin needs to be revealed before it can be dealt with,28 the importance of experiencing “painful actions of the Savior,”29 and the role of the Spirit as judge of 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29

Stober, Blumhardt, 239, 242. Ibid., 237. Ibid., 237, 261–2. Ibid., 227–8. Ibid., 245. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Jesus ist Sieger! Predigten und Andachten aus den Jahren 1880 bis 1888, vol. I, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten, und Schriften (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1937), 33, 36, 118, 195, 198, and so on. Ibid., 45, 96. Ibid., 67. Ibid., 80–1.

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sin30—begin to appear in the early 1880s. A nearly complete version, minus the watchword itself, is articulated in a Zürich sermon in 1886: I tell you this: There is now no other path than that you must let yourself die in this world, and allow the judgment of death to fall upon you. You, too, must take the path of death and resurrection. So just die!—you will get out of the grave again soon enough.31 By the end of 1886, Blumhardt’s disillusionment with Pietist conceptions of growth in sanctification is almost complete. In a New Year’s Eve sermon, even as he calls his listeners to “decide” whether they will repent and become new creations once and for all, he makes a striking observation: “I have never yet experienced someone really being born again. You are still the same old person you were ten and twenty and thirty years ago.”32 Although he continues to go back and forth on the issue of human agency in “Sterben” and the fulfillment of the Kingdom until as late as 1906, Blumhardt’s basic anthropological pessimism is in place. It is not until he connects the new pessimism with a rejection of his father’s spiritualism, however—in other words, not until he sees its implications for his whole ministry—that the dramatic Wende truly takes place.

The “Sterbet” Wende, 1888 One sermon in particular marks a clear turn to the “sterbet” theology as the central content of his preaching. The first recorded use of the “Die, so that Jesus may live!” slogan is on November 25, 1888. The full text of this part of his sermon, cited in part above, is as follows: [Jesus] has made it known to me clearly in my spirit that, although it is true that I have been of service to him in my labors up until this point, I should now give all that up. I should no longer trouble myself so much with what is all around me, to keep it in bloom, so to speak, to live according to what has up until now been the Christian way; instead, my sole endeavor should be that I, along with those who belong to me and any others who want to understand me, should allow that which has taken place up until now to die, to allow it to cease—in the spirit, of course, not outwardly—and then God will want to bring something new, and the Savior will then be much better able to live inside of us, when we no longer desire to be so great, when we recognize that there is much that is defective in what has gone on up 30 31 32

Ibid., 139. Ibid., 281–2. Ibid., 340. See also 406–7.

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until now, much flesh, much—even sometimes well-meaning—human activity; all this needs to die, and that is why I say now: “Die, so that Jesus may live” [Sterbet, so wird Jesus leben]. And if we have said to this point: “Jesus is Victor over the devil and over Hell and over death,” we now leave that to the side and say instead: “Jesus is Victor over the flesh” . . . It is more important that the Savior conquer us than that he continue to turn against the devil.33 The basic theological content of this statement is the main theme of this chapter. In the 1889 New Year report in the Vertrauliche Blätter, Blumhardt describes a “great pause” that took place in his “inner life” earlier in the year following the death of the last of his father’s Möttlingen companions, Vetter Hansjörg. The “pause” was broken at last by “a new demonstration in me of the life of Christ,” which came to him “like a light from the Savior”; “That is why we now feel as if we are allied under a new banner, which reads: ‘Die, so that Jesus may live!’”34 Blumhardt continues to use this precise formulation for years, often written down in quotation marks, indicating that he probably viewed the watchword, and the message behind it, to be a direct revelation from God, not unlike the elder Blumhardt’s “Jesus is Victor!” slogan. We proceed now to an analysis of the “sterbet” theology, as Blumhardt preached it during this period.

The Content of the “Sterbet” Theology Christoph Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology is characterized by four major elements: (1) a shift from critical Pietist hamartiology to a radically pessimistic anthropology, the negative force of which pushed it to the center of his theological message; (2) a belief that this newly diagnosed anthropological situation has had and is having decisive eschatological consequences in terms of the failure of the Kingdom of God to reach its final “fulfillment”; (3) an exhortation to a specific action, behavior, or event on the part of the congegration, which is seen as the solution to the now radicalized problem of human sin: “sterbet!”; and (4) an expectation that this “dying” would lead to a specific result, both personally and eschatogically: “so wird Jesus leben!” Our discussion here will cover the first three of these components, as expressed in Blumhardt’s sermons starting in 1888. The question of “life” and resurrection will be approached mainly in the context of the discussion of “Erlebnis” in Chapter 4. 33 34

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 78–9. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1889 (Bad Boll: 1889), vol. 1, 20–1.

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Blumhardt’s Radicalized Anthropology Fleisch The defining term in Blumhardt’s explication of his new anthropology is “Fleisch.” As Hee-Kuk Lim puts it, from November 25 “the word ‘flesh’ became a key term for surveying the Blumhardtian theology.”35 The term “Fleisch” carries the same baggage and range of meaning as “flesh” in English or sarx in ancient Greek. Paul often uses it in his letters to describe that element in human nature that is contrary to God; for Paul, the term’s connotation is usually, but not always, negative. It is most likely that Blumhardt’s pejorative understanding of the term in the 1888–96 sermons and after comes from Paul’s negative use of it—as the antithesis to the positive “Spirit,” for example.36 In a characteristically Blumhardtian set of antitheses, he asks the congregation in one sermon who should be Lord in the world: “God or the world? Christ or the flesh? God’s Spirit or our spirit?”37 Later he explains that his heart is “burning for God’s honor, not for our flesh, for God’s health, not for our health.”38 He associates “Fleisch” with “human activity,” and declares that it is over “the flesh” that Jesus must truly be Victor. Similarly, in March 1889, he reminds his congregation that “a new battle” has begun against “an even worse enemy of the Kingdom of God” than the spirit world, namely, “human beings themselves in their flesh.”39 When describing the true enemy of God and his eschatological purposes, Blumhardt uses interchangeably the terms “Fleisch,” “humanity itself” [der Mensch selber], and “all people in their earthly nature [Wesen],”40 among others, though the dominant term is “Fleisch.” Although Blumhardt’s use of “Fleisch” is somewhat fluid, a general picture begins to emerge from his use of the term during this period. To begin with, “Fleisch” is something that is fundamentally opposed to God and the coming of his Kingdom. In this sense, it is defined by what it is not. “Fleisch” and God’s purposes are irreconcilably opposed. In relation to God’s biblical promises, “on the foundation of the flesh . . . the [eschatological] redemption cannot take place.”41 Speaking of his own past, Blumhardt laments, “how many obstacles my own flesh has set against the Kingdom of God.”42 The opposition of “Fleisch” to God is the necessary premise behind Blumhardt’s 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Hee-Kuk Lim, “Jesus ist Sieger!” bei Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt: Keim einer kosmischen Christologie (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996), 35. For example, Galatians 5:16–24. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 81. Ibid. Ibid., 123. Ibid., 53. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 6, 6. Ibid., vol. 1, 21.

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employment of Kampf language against it. Second, “Fleisch” not only opposes God but also has power to be effective in doing so: “great things from God and from Christ and from the Holy Spirit” can be “brought into distress [by] the desire of the flesh.”43 When Christians seek to use Christianity for their own purposes, they “destroy that which is holy in [their] flesh.”44 Only as a result of “the death of the flesh” will “the Resurrected One [be able] to live”45—until then, “Fleisch” has the power to prevent Jesus’ “life” on earth. Third, in keeping with Paul’s declaration about the “wages of sin” (Romans 6:23), Blumhardt sees a fundamental connection between “Fleisch” and the abiding problem of mortality—it is “the deathly nature, which is still so firmly rooted in humanity.”46 Importantly, for Blumhardt “Fleisch” is closely associated with human selfishness and manipulation of God for its own ends. Its opposition to God, its power to be effective in its opposition, and its divine punishment through death are all linked by a fundamental “human willful self-interest”47—what Blumhardt later likes to call Egoism.48 “Fleisch” consists in seeking “your own advantage”49 in relation to God.

The Ontological Extent of “Fleisch” For all the negative language Blumhardt uses to describe “Fleisch,” these characteristics do not in and of themselves result in the radicalized anthropology to which we have referred. The radicalization consists not in the critique of “Fleisch,” but in the fact that Blumhardt identifies “Fleisch” virtually without reservation with the essence of humanity as such. It is a question not of degree but of extent: If “Fleisch” were merely one of several consituent elements within human ontology, his negative language would represent little more than an eschatologization and pointed analysis of a sinful “element” within human nature—a hamartiology with which no Pietist, or indeed any representative of a major Christian tradition, would be likely to disagree. For Blumhardt, however, “Fleisch” is functionally synonymous with “human being.” Nowhere does he refer explicitly to any part of his congregation’s nature that does not need to “die.” It is their whole selves that must die, spiritually, and this is because their whole selves consist fundamentally 43 44 45 46

47 48 49

Ibid., vol. 1, 7. Ibid., vol. 4, 15. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 113. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1888 (Bad Boll: 1888), vol. 2, 10. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 79. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 127, and so on. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1890 (Bad Boll: 1890), vol. 1, 14.

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of “Fleisch” and are thus opposed to God. What pushes Blumhardt’s critique of “Fleisch” into this radical territory is his use of the term “Wesen” and similarly ontologically fraught language. The problem for which “dying” is the only solution is not a matter of “individual faults” but of “the entire false nature [Wesen] of human life.”50 The object of divine judgment will be nothing less than “what we are.”51 “What the Word of God consumes in our hearts, is our individual self, which makes room in our hearts for that which is offensive to God.”52 The truth the Holy Spirit brings to the congregation is that “we, in our Wesen, are nothing.”53 The identity of “Fleisch” with man’s entire “Wesen” is grounded in the nature of God’s judgment: “Every person will be reckoned by God according to what they are.”54 God is interested in “our entire nature and life”; the divine will is that “everything, everything we are, come once again under the rule of God.”55 “The Good Lord is only interested in something whole; he does not accept half of a thing.”56 The reason lies in what Barth, following Kierkegaard, calls the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and Man.57 Blumhardt explains, “For the Lord is holy and right, whereas you are unholy and wrong, and [he] does not do business—and wants nothing to do with—that which is unholy and wrong. . . . For the Lord is holy and righteous and is in heaven and not on earth.”58 In relation to God, the consequence of the domination of our being by “Fleisch” is that “human beings, as they currently are, are forsaken by God.”59 Any hope for “human beings” must come entirely from God’s end, not ours, and this is an uncomfortable truth: “the hardest thing of all for people is [the fact that] . . . we are nothing in our own nature and [God] alone is capable of carrying it through to the end.”60 Among Blumhardt interpreters, only Sauter, and to a lesser extent Meier, have begun to do justice to the extent of Christoph’s anthropological pessimism in this phase. Sauter sees this period of his preaching as dominated, theologically, by a fundamental principle: “the ‘God–Man’ antithesis.”61 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 115. Ibid., 131. Ibid., 141–2. Ibid., 170. Ibid., 214. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 17. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 118–19. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 10. Note the similarity between Barth’s unattributed quotation in the same sentence, “God is in heaven and thou art on earth,” and Blumhardt’s statement that “the Lord is holy and righteous and is in heaven and not on earth” (see next note). Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 102–3. Ibid., 146. Ibid., 170. Sauter, Blumhardt, 111–16.

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This principle is grounded in Blumhardt’s “theological judgment” that “the human person, apart from the rule of God [Gottesherrschaft], is radically and determinatively self-oriented.”62 The antithesis is absolutized in the same way the elder Blumhardt’s Kampf absolutized the opposition between God and spiritual forces: “if what mattered for the elder Blumhardt was God’s battle [Kampf] against the devil, on behalf of humanity, in Christoph Blumhardt’s judgment humanity is oriented against God, God against humanity.”63 Meier, despite his failure to recognize the full determinative importance of the “sterbet” anthropology for Blumhardt’s later thought, is the only interpreter explicitly to point out the “sterbet” theology’s unknowing material similarity in this period to Luther’s doctrine of sin.64 The view that the human person is “radically and determinatively self-oriented,” is virtually identical, theologically, to Luther’s conception of humanity as curvatus in se. The Schwabian critic of Christian “egoism” would see his own anthropology expressed quite accurately in Luther’s judgment that man is “so turned in on himself that he uses not only physical but even spiritual goods for his own purposes and in all things seeks only himself.”65 Hee-Kuk Lim’s otherwise fine study of Blumhardt’s theology stumbles on this point. Lim fails to recognize the extension of the critical anthropology of the “sterbet” period into the ontological categories of “Wesen” and “being” (“human beings, as they currently are,” etc.). He limits Blumhardt’s pessimism to the category of “Haltung” [stance or attitude] rather than “Wesen”: “‘flesh’ is for him the quintessence of all dark and egoistic human attitudes [Haltungen].”66 In so doing, Lim restricts the extent of the “Fleisch” problem to Blumhardt’s “critique of the church” and “critique of piety”67; the implication is that the “Fleisch” problem would to a large extent be solved if the congregation were to “die” to their overvaluation of the church and of personal piety alone. Although ecclesiological idolatry and false, egoistic piety are indeed two of the primary targets of Blumhardt’s polemic during the “sterbet” period, these critiques are better understood as critical applications of a larger anthropological pessimism of ontological extent, rather than as specific issues whose resolution would solve the “Fleisch” problem. In Blumhardt’s words, the matter at hand is not “individual faults”—even errors as great as idolatry of the church and false individual piety—but “the entire false Wesen of human life.”

62 63 64 65

66 67

Ibid., 112. Ibid., 115. Emphasis original. Meier, Blumhardt, 17, 19. Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans: Glosses and Scholia, trans. Walter G. Tillmanns, and Jacob A.O. Preus, vol. 25, Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972), 345. Lim, Sieger, 34. Emphasis added. See the similar use of “Haltung” on page 36. Ibid., 30–5.

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Not surprisingly, Lim’s later characterization of Blumhardt’s anthropology as a whole is similarly flawed. Lim claims that “Blumhardt’s understanding of sin stands under the influence of Enlightenment theology, which, in its sharp critique of the doctrine of original sin, rejects the transpersonal power of sin.” Lim interprets “the forgiveness of sins” for Blumhardt as a relatively superficial “cleaning off of some dirt,” precisely because of Christoph’s supposed rejection of the ontological category of original sin: “In Blumhardt’s view, the human person is not a sinner in his or her nature [Wesen]. For him, the human person is rather on the wrong path, which has brought him or her away from God’s proper order.”68 In light of the extensive evidence we have compiled demonstrating that it is precisely “the human person in his or her nature” that is the problem, that this “Wesen” is best characterized by the term “Fleisch,” and that it is the whole of their “Wesen” that stands under God’s judgment and prevents the fulfillment of the Kingdom, it is difficult to endorse Lim’s characterization, at least as concerns the “sterbet” period. A partial explanation is that Lim here is summarizing his interpretation of the general thrust of Blumhardt’s anthropology over the course of his long and dynamic theological career, in which the “sterbet” period could be interpreted as an exception. For example, Lim refers to one 1910 sermon in which Blumhardt appears to argue quite clearly against an ontological incorporation of sin into the essence of human nature: “the sin is not the person. Sin is the covering, which conceals heaven. . . . [W]e must be careful when we strike out against sin not to strike the person.”69 However, several of the references Lim uses to support his statements are from the 1888–96 period and represent a misinterpretation of Blumhardt’s anthropology during that time. Oddly, the reference Lim gives to justify his claim that “Blumhardt [opposes] a doctrine of ‘the general sin of the human race’”70 (i.e., in Lim’s interpretation, the doctrine of original sin), taken from an 1892 sermon, not only does not support but also actually refutes his point.71 Whether or not Lim is correct to understand the 1910 statement that “the sin is not the person” as paradigmatic for Blumhardt’s post-1896 anthropology—a topic to which we will return in Chapter 5—he is mistaken to extend this view into a general summary of Blumhardt’s anthropology. In the “sterbet” phase between 1888 and 96, the younger Blumhardt inarguably espoused a radically pessimistic anthropological ontology that identified 68 69

70 71

Ibid., 116. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Gottes Reich kommt! Predigten und Andachten aus den Jahren 1907 bis 1917, vol. IV, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten, und Schriften (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1932), 102. Lim, Sieger, 117. See Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 380–1.

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“Fleisch” with human “Wesen” as such. Lim’s interpretation of the Wende period’s characterization of “Fleisch” as merely one “Haltung” among many within the self cannot be sustained.

Eschatological Provisionality Before moving to the implications Blumhardt understood his new anthropology to have for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, we must issue a caveat. We have held off in this chapter from a thorough analysis of the younger Blumhardt’s overriding eschatological framework in anticipation of a prolonged discussion in Chapter 3. It will be helpful here, however, to acknowledge the ultimate provisionality that the dynamic eschatological framework forced upon all of his theological views, with the exception of the framework itself and the hope it expressed. In terms of our current discussion, the influence of his eschatology was that, although Blumhardt did affirm something like a doctrine of original sin in the sermon noted earlier,72 he was not actually very interested in this sort of universalization of doctrine. His theological statements, including his commentary on the Bible and other past events in the history of God’s interaction with the world, are always preached to a specific present historical and eschatological context only. Such is the dynamic character of Blumhardt’s eschatology that each of these specific contexts, which Blumhardt later called “stations” on the way to the “goal” [Ziel] of the final fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, may call for a very different message than the one before it. He stated in 1895 that the message of a particular “station” can even be “opposite in appearance”73 to the one before it. The only unity of content between “stations,” therefore, is the eschatological system itself. For now, this simply means that Blumhardt would theoretically have no problem preaching one anthropology in one period, and a different one in the next. The question of whether Blumhardt’s anthropology actually does change over the decades will be addressed in Chapter 5.

The Manifestations and Consequences of “Fleisch” in Relation to the Kingdom Blumhardt understood the opposition of “Fleisch” to God to have major eschatological consequences for the final fulfillment of the divine Kingdom. The first step toward this eschatological fulfillment begins with Christ being able once again to “live” on earth: “when Jesus lives, then the Kingdom of God will come as well, and will be able to be brought to fulfillment.”74 Only

72 73 74

See the previous note. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 65. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 121.

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then will he be “resurrected” once more, and God’s eternal Kingdom will break through: And once Jesus begins to live in the “dead,” in those who are “dying” in his blood, resurrection is soon to follow. Yes, the bright light will burst through, the brightness of the glory and the life of God, which is to go out over all flesh.75 Whenever this “Sterben” has not taken place, “when those who have been called either sought after the same thing as other nations and peoples, or else looked more after their own concerns than God’s, [the result was that] God’s works stood still on the earth.”76 On the other hand, when “sterben” does take place, and Jesus does “live,” the next stage in the fulfillment of the Kingdom can recommence: “Therefore, the arrival of the Savior in the midst of those who await him is the beginning of the redemption of the world, the beginning of the salvation of all humanity.”77 “Sterben,” then, serves in Blumhardt’s view as an eschatological condition that must be met before the fulfillment of the Kingdom, stalled since the time of the apostles, can continue. “As long as we are not a people who are ‘dying’ in the proper sense, the Savior has no pathway into the world.”78

“The Little Flock” The essence of Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology is easily summarized: “Sterben” alone can lead to further “forward-movement [Fortschritt] in the Kingdom of God.”79 The question arises as to who exactly it is who must “die” in this manner. The problem is that Blumhardt on the one hand preaches the “sterbet” message specifically to the Bad Boll congregation, but on the other hand understands the “dying” to have universal eschatological significance for “the redemption of the world.” The answer is that the younger Blumhardt does not expect all Christians, much less all the world, to participate in the “Sterben.” Instead, he follows his father in articulating an ecclesiology of a “little flock,” a faithful remnant who still seek the Kingdom when most of Christianity has lost its way.80 Speaking of the call to “die, so that Jesus may live,” Blumhardt explains in his 1888 Christmas sermon that “[dying] of course is not something we can preach to the masses today; it is something that belongs at first only to a 75 76 77 78 79

80

Ibid., 122. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 8, 14. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 84. Ibid., 120. Blumhardt, VB 1888, vol. 5, 12. “Fortschritt” is one of Blumhardt’s favorite terms for describing eschatological forward-movement. See Blumhardt, GW II.3, 1876, No. 13, 99–100.

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few.” Only a few are called to take on “the work for the Kingdom of God with which we have been tasked.” Eschatologically, “this little flock, . . . must stand in for the whole world, and . . . must stand in for the living God on behalf of all peoples.”81 Although he does not outline very precisely the mechanics of this “standing in” (or “vouching for”), Blumhardt implies in several places that once God has a few people in whom he can “live,” he will then be free in a new way to spread his message and his will: “Only then, when that which is godly and true . . . reigns [in us] as the holy one of God . . . , will it be able to go out from us, from the inhabitants of Zion into the world to the glory of God.”82 The “Sterben” of a few is the necessary but not sufficient precondition for Jesus’ “victory” over the whole world. Although Blumhardt conceives the “little flock” as a small, intimate group, mostly associated with his own ministry and preaching, he does not straightforwardly identify it with the Boll congregation. His hope is that the “flock” will include as many people as possible. For example, the hundreds of Boll supporters around Germany to whom he periodically sent his Vertrauliche Blätter, which contained many of the “sterbet” sermons, are all potential members of this “flock.” Furthermore, the criterion of “Sterben” is not limited to those who accepted or heard his own preaching: Anyone who has radical hope in the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God on earth, and understands the role of “Fleisch” in hindering it, could be part of the “little flock.” Blumhardt’s frustration with Christianity in his day is that, although “Fortschritt” in the Kingdom requires a minimal number of the faithful, even so there are not enough who are willing to devote themselves as radically to the Kingdom as “Fortschritt” requires. A great deal of Blumhardt’s critical ire in this period, and long after, is devoted to what he sees as the near-total corruption and “Fleisch”-inspired “willful self-interest” of the global church. The primary target of his polemic is a Christianity he believes to have lost its way. For centuries, it had been the church’s task to stay true to God’s Kingdom and avoid the corruption of “Fleisch.” He believes the church, including his and his father’s congregation, has failed spectacularly at this mission. His message in this period is, therefore, directed at a lost Christianity, with the hope that even a small fraction of believers would recognize their failure and devote themselves to the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Blumhardt’s sermons seek to bring Christians back into the “little flock,” to participate in the newly clarified eschatological task of dying that Jesus may live. To this end, Blumhardt often points out the ways in which Christians have lost the eschatological thread. The exhortation to “die” has in Blumhardt’s view a number of concrete implications for the church. It includes and depends upon a comprehensive diagnosis of the ways in which 81 82

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 96–7. Ibid., 190. Emphasis added. See also Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 20.

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“Fleisch” has come to dominate Christianity at Christ’s expense: “Do I say too much when I say: Christ has become dead in Christianity?”83; “My dears, we can strike Christ dead with sheer Christianity! What is greater: Christianity, or Christ?—The flesh finds a home in Christianity all too easily!”84 The specific errors of the church in his day are the reason that “God’s works [are standing] still on earth.” It is not possible, therefore, to understand Blumhardt’s exhortation to “die, that Jesus may live” without briefly exploring the four major elements in his critique of the Christian church. They are false piety; a positive, “sacramental” view of death; overvaluation of the institutional church; and an objectified trust in the text of the Bible apart from living experience of God in the world. Blumhardt understands each element to be a symptom of the general dominion of “Fleisch” over Christians. Each is a manifestation of human nature’s basic “egoism” masquerading in Christian costume.

False Piety “False piety,”85 in Blumhardt’s view, occurs when Christians take the outward forms of Christian belief and practice and confuse them with the thing itself. It is “outward and churchy and ‘Christian’, instead of godly, Christlike, and in accordance with the Spirit.”86 When “Fleisch” takes over in Christian life, the result is that Piety itself becomes just a zeal for our own well-being, and Sunday services are only meant to help us, and prayer is supposed to be a remedy for us. Bible, altar, Sunday service, teaching and admonition: all of it is just used in service of our own ends, our own lives, our own activities. Blumhardt exhorts his congregation, therefore, to recognize “our great guilt for seeking not God but ourselves, even as Christians.”87 The target here is egoistic and therefore hypocritical use of Christian practices and beliefs to make oneself feel better in relation to God, or to gain God’s favor, or to win the approval of one’s Christian peers: “there is such thing as . . . a piety that is not ruled by God; in this sort of piety you believe you can please God with a certain sort of holiness you have learned about, when God in fact is not pleased with you at all.”88 Similarly, “anyone who cannot be 83 84 85

86 87 88

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 60. Ibid., 62. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Von der Kirche zum Reich Gottes: 1865–1889, vol. I, Ansprachen, Predigten, Reden, Briefe: 1865–1917 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 179. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 93. Ibid., 148, 149. Emphasis added. Ibid., 108–9.

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pious without a church, or without special Bible studies [Stunden], is not pious at all.”89 False piety must be distinguished from a true piety whose sole characteristic is recognition of “our great guilt,” and a willingness on that basis to “die, so that Jesus may live.” Only when “dying” takes place, and as a result we seek only “his honor, his Kingdom,” and not our own, “then the things we need will fall to us naturally.”90 Most Christians, in Blumhardt’s view, are “only outwardly pious . . . [S]trictly speaking they are quite worldly people.” “Pious” Christians “are just as wicked and worldly as other people.”91 When he exhorts Christians to “die,” in significant part the death Blumhardt has in mind is the giving up of hypocritical, false piety, which attempts to please God on one’s own terms, instead of seeking his Kingdom alone.

Physical Death as “Sacrament” As Blumhardt sees it, one of the major causes behind the epidemic of “false piety” he perceives in the church is a theological misunderstanding about mortality and death. Blumhardt takes very seriously the biblical theme of the eschatological overthrow of death, as in 1 Corinthians 15:25–6 (“For [Christ] must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death”). “The undoing of death is an irreducible and essential feature of the Kingdom of God.”92 In his view, Christians over the centuries slowly lost this understanding of death as enemy of the Kingdom, and it became “no longer an enemy, but a friend.” The end of physical life came to be associated with peace and rest, “a deliverance from all hurts.” Mortality becomes the gateway to heaven, and, therefore, to true sanctification and joy: “the grave . . . is transformed into a holy place.”93 The Resurrection became viewed, perversely, as an affirmation of physical death as the path to heaven rather than as the sign of God’s defeat over a great enemy; it takes on a sacramental quality, as the only truly effective and transformative means of grace! In Blumhardt’s view, by contrast, the only meaningful biblical sense of “eternal life in the Kingdom of God” is that it is “bodily” [Leibhaft].94 The ultimate proof that the Kingdom is not yet realized is the ongoing reign of physical death in the world.95 A 89

90 91 92

93 94 95

Ibid. Meier is correct to point to Württemberg Pietism as the particular target of Blumhardt’s “critique of piety,” if more implicitly than explicitly. See Meier, Blumhardt, 13. “Stunden” here refers to a specific kind of meeting held by separatist Pietists. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 88. Blumhardt, VB 1888, vol. 8, 17–18. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 200. For Blumhardt’s longest exposition on the subject, see the whole section, 200–12. Ibid., 204. Ibid., 200, 208. Ibid., 206.

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nonliteral, nonphysical understanding of death’s defeat is to Blumhardt simply capitulation to one of the primary powers opposing the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Even worse, Christians use this understanding of death as an excuse for an antinomian fatalism: Because “one becomes truly saved [selig] only after death, [there is] nothing to look for God to do in this world.”96 The concept of “heaven” becomes a justification for egoism.97 Here we see one seed of Blumhardt’s later “turn to the world”: I don’t want to go up to heaven; . . . —I want to have my God here, here on earth, here in this evil, sinful, and suffocated world,—it is here where, in the end, I want to experience God’s revelation, so that everything [both above and below] might become “heaven.”98 The younger Blumhardt’s expectation of the overthrow of physical death on earth can be traced to his father, who also believed there would be a day in history, before the return of Christ, when “it is no longer possible to die.”99 In Christoph’s view, however, Johann Christoph had not gone far enough, because he still affirmed alongside that hope the “false support” of egoistic “striving after salvation.” Despite the elder Blumhardt’s hope for the “the conquering of death on earth,” “death for him was less a judgment . . . than something sanctifying, a deliverance.”100 The younger Blumhardt’s innovation on this subject is not merely that he radicalized his father’s hope, but that he associated the alternative view with “egoism” and, therefore, rejected traditional “afterlife” soteriology outright. Christoph Blumhardt’s call to “die, that Jesus may live” includes “dying” to fatalistic trust in a future heavenly existence at the expense of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Overvaluation of the Institutional Church A further target of Blumhardt’s critique in this period is overvaluation of the Christian church101 over and against the Kingdom of God. Blumhardt has little time for the institutional forms of Christianity: “Christianity has become nothing but splendid make-up.”102 The institutional expression of false piety 96 97 98 99 100 101

102

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 143. Ibid., 88. Ibid., 400. Blumhardt, AS II, 198–200. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 172–3. Blumhardt is confident that his own experiences in Germany and Switzerland speak to a universal failure within global institutional Christianity. See, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 210. Ibid., 33. “Christianity” [Christentum] and “Christendom” [Christenheit] are the main terms Blumhardt uses in this period for the institutional church in the broad

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in the form of the church is equally an attempt to create the Kingdom on worldly terms, or to seek unchristian worldly power and acclaim through the guise of the church: “just as all of humanity once built towers of Babel, now we see the Christian churches building them.”103 The church’s desire has become merely “to seek the world by means of Christianity”104: In our churches, you can do anything, no one will bother you; people only get excited about church tradition and church order; . . . as long as order is kept, everyone is happy. And so everything “Christian” is more or less comfortable to us . . . And so it happens that experienced Christians bring the whole of Christianity into confusion, for the sake of making it all a bit less unpleasant.105 In its desire to become “comfortable,” the church has become just another space for “Fleisch” to have its way. Likewise, following the forms established by the church bears little necessary relation to whether one can actually stand in good conscience before God: You can stand before the church, you come into the church however you want, you are the lord of the church, so to speak; you can “stand” before Holy Baptism, and bring your children and have them baptized without a second thought; you “stand” at the Communion, no one can stop you from coming to Communion; with repentance and faith you can “stand” through every church service, as well as Confirmation,— but it is a different question entirely, my dears, whether you can stand before the Lord.106 Although Blumhardt’s pneumatology—which holds that God is free to act when and where and through whatever means he wishes—does not exclude the possibility that God might yet use the church as a vessel for the realization of his Kingdom, “there is little hope” that this will happen.107 The only solution, in Blumhardt’s view, is to let go of the outward things Christians have clung to in the past, even institutional Christianity as such: “Throw it all away, become a people who are ‘dying’! The old ways are useless. Have no fear, even if you need to throw away the whole of Christianity!”108 He

103 104 105 106 107 108

sense. For the most part, his use of these terms is pejorative, representing the church, but not necessarily Jesus Christ or his Kingdom. Ibid., 61. Ibid., 62. Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 179. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 75. Ibid., 132. Ibid., 212.

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even claims in one sermon that “[God] never wanted to found an earthly church; rather, he wanted to found a Kingdom of Heaven on earth.”109 For this reason, “the whole of our Christianity to this point” must be crucified with us on the Cross110; it, too, must “die.” Blumhardt is aware of the radicality of his ecclesiological critique, but views it to be necessary in light of the equal radicality of the “Fleisch” problem: “we have to be radical in order to come to a new beginning.”111 Three further elements of Blumhardt’s critique of the church deserve mention. First, he becomes increasingly uncomfortable with his own official role within the institutional church. In a May 1889 letter to his son-in-law Theophil Brodersen,112 he writes: “The aversion to church office that I had as a student is awakening in me once more.”113 Second, Blumhardt sees a major feature of “earthly Christianity” to be a polarizing and judgmental insularity over and against nonbelievers: Christian communities always [give] the impression: Yep, I’ve got it! We’ve got it right! We sure have it, and the other guys don’t! . . . This satanic farce of a false Christianity, which thinks so well of itself but judges and denigrates others, this is what we want to eradicate from our hearts.114 For all the severe ecclesiological critique, however, Blumhardt is as critical of sectarianism as he is of the institutional church.115 In his view, sectarian institutions are still institutions, and are, therefore, no less prone to domination by “Fleisch” than the mainstream churches. His ecclesiological critique during the “sterbet” period, therefore, includes rejection of a growing de facto sectarian spirit in his own congregation: “We need to die to our own cause as well; there should not be a ‘Bad Boll version’ of Christianity.”116 Blumhardt made a point, like his father, of not leading his congregation out of the state church. Nevertheless, he greeted his eventual defrocking in 1899 for membership in the Social Democratic Party with relief117—a reaction not inconsistent with his ecclesiological frustrations.

109 110 111 112

113 114 115 116 117

Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 162. Ibid., 174. Ibid. Brodersen was the son of Gottliebin Dittus, whose exorcism marked the start of the elder Blumhardt’s revival in Möttlingen. Ibid., 193. Ibid., 157. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 127. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 81–2. See Chapter 5.

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Bibliolatry For the purposes of the broader aim of this study—the elucidation, through the resources of Blumhardt’s theology, of a pneumatology that does justice to pessimistic Reformation anthropology while leaving a place for “unmediated experience” of the Holy Spirit—the third object of Blumhardt’s critical polemic in the “sterbet” period is of particular significance. Blumhardt is nearly as critical of an idolatrous view of the Bible as he is of false piety or the institutional church. For all the radicality of his views on Christian “egoism” and ecclesiological corruption, such criticism was not without precedent in the Protestant tradition. The doctrine of justification by faith had always rejected emphatically any version of justification by works, and the “false piety” Blumhardt so lamented can be interpreted as a version of the latter. Furthermore, the Reformation was founded upon an ecclesiological critique that was, in its own context, perhaps more radical than Blumhardt’s. Rather, it is his critique of a certain view of the Bible that pushes him to the boundaries of classical Protestantism, through his rejection of the pneumatology of sola scriptura. The younger Blumhardt is capable of saying some quite radical things about the Bible. He repeatedly contrasts the Bible with the living God: In November 1888 he claims, “the Bible can pass away, God cannot”118; and in August 1890, “the Bible can pass away, Jehova cannot!”119 In his view, the revelation of scripture must not be too strongly identified with God himself as he relates to mankind. The problem, as Blumhardt sees it, is that when “Fleisch” dominates in the Christian life, it will dominate biblical interpretation as well: “we can kill Christ just with our Bible! What is greater: the Bible, or Christ? When you proudly read your Bible, and you just read your own flesh into it, your precious Bible is useless to you!”120; “a selfish heart . . . can read and listen to the Word of God all day long without any good fruit coming out of it.”121 When the Bible is read through the lens of our “false nature” it becomes useless—a Feuerbachian playground for finding only what you want to find. Direct revelation from God is what is most necessary, not revelation through scripture: “the main thing is not explaining the scriptures; rather, the main thing is experience of God”122; “when you only have the Savior in your Bible . . . [then you do not] have him in your heart as well”123; “in the world you need God truly, not just on paper.”124 Although the Bible describes many direct experiences of God, one 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 165. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 222. Ibid., 62. Ibid., 142. Ibid., 166–7. Ibid., 157. Ibid., 227.

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must not expect to have such experiences oneself simply through reading the Bible and hearing it preached. Such experiences can happen, especially to those who seek the Kingdom,125 but they are the exception, not the rule, and are not really about reading the Bible per se—“It isn’t the Bible reading that does it.” Blumhardt even recommends avoiding excessive Bible reading: “don’t read [the Bible] too much, because too much reading can easily lessen its divine impact.”126 So strongly does he stress the priority of experience of God over knowing God only “on paper” that Blumhardt turns this prioritization into a hermeneutical principle: “a true understanding of scripture is not possible unless we have already experienced [erlebt] something of God beforehand.”127 Preaching on the verse, “Do you understand what you are reading?” (Acts 8:30), Blumhardt answers, There is a lot in the Bible that people do not understand. . . . Much of it needs to be experienced; otherwise you cannot understand it. It is like this with all the things of God. You have to have experiences of heaven; then you will know what the Kingdom of God is.128 True “experiences” of this kind, without which the Bible cannot be understood and is rendered just another instrument for false piety—“Bible, altar, Sunday service, teaching and admonition: All of it is just used in service of our own ends, our own lives, our own activities”129—take place only in and through “Sterben.”130 Bearing these highly critical statements in mind, it must be stated that Blumhardt’s view of the Bible in this period is not nearly so straightforwardly negative as it appears. In one sermon he calls it the document of God’s visitations [on earth], through which he wants to save us. . . . It refreshes us and is a great comfort to us, . . . [and we] hold fast to it in unhappy times as the only thing that can restore our hope.131 The scriptural narrative of God’s desire for reconciliation with the world—a concept bound up for Blumhardt with the category of the fulfillment of the Kingdom—and its account of the divine, eschatologically grounded 125 126 127 128 129 130

131

Ibid., 179. Ibid., 180. Ibid., 166. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 160–1. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 148. For further discussion of “experience” and the Bible in Blumhardt’s thought, see Chapter 4. Ibid., 54–5.

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promises is “a great comfort,” which is specially suited to restoring proper hope when life is difficult. Blumhardt’s preaching, too, demonstrates a high view of the Bible: Throughout his life, his sermons were usually based on a biblical text. For all his negativity toward a certain kind of overvaluation of the Bible, and his strong emphasis on the importance of unmediated experience of God apart from the Bible, he never stopped preaching from the text of scripture. Blumhardt was deeply steeped in the Bible, and drew the vast majority of his homiletical and theological categories from it. In significant part, despite the sharpness of some of his critical formulations, Blumhardt’s polemics against “your precious Bible” and “Bible reading” are best understood as a rhetorical overcompensation to address the problem he perceived of his pious contemporaries using the Bible as a way of avoiding encounter with the living reality of God. It is impossible to conceive of Blumhardt’s ministry and witness apart from his lifetime of daily engagement with the Bible. At the same time, we must also avoid the temptation to downplay the plain meaning of what he actually was willing to say about scripture, rhetorical overcompensation or not. His sharp critical contrasts between Bible and experience, and between scriptural exegesis and true understanding of the Kingdom, are too clear and too regular during this period (and after). Theologically, we can say that Blumhardt is willing in his public statements to relativize all objectified means of interacting with God, including scripture, on the basis of his pessimistic anthropology. Only true “experiences” of God, which in their “immediacy” and “incommunicability” cannot be objectified, withstand this relativization. Although Blumhardt always preached from the Bible and saw the text of scripture as a crucial narrative for God’s people of hope and promise, his hermeneutic, at least as he consistently expresses it in sermons from this period, prioritizes “experience” over scripture.132 The basic view is already present here that informs even stronger claims from his later periods, such as his statement in a 1909 sermon that “I have no desire merely to repeat automatically what the Bible says. . . . [A]t this point I am indifferent to whether or not [certain statements are] in the Bible; [God] revealed it to me himself”133; and his admission in 1899 that he cannot prove his universalistic soteriology biblically, for “I am unable to prove anything from the Bible; [in the Bible] there is always a contre. I must know it [instead] from God, I must know it from my heart.”134 132

133 134

Lim acknowledges that Blumhardt does not deny unmediated experience of God “alongside the Bible, and even possibly without the Bible,” but underestimates the breadth and degree of Blumhardt’s prioritization of experience over scripture. To say that “by no means does Blumhardt want to undermine the authority of the Bible” is not strictly true. See Lim, Sieger, 98–100. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 37. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 167–8.

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As we saw in Chapter 1, this prioritization of experience is a rejection of the basic principle of Lutheran pneumatology, God’s binding of the action of the Spirit to the preaching of the Word. The fact that Blumhardt’s view of the Bible was in practice, in its own way, quite high should not deter us from recognizing the fundamental difference between Luther and Blumhardt here. Karlstadt, too, had a high view of scripture, just not quite as high as Luther’s. What is so striking about Blumhardt’s theology of scripture is the fact that he rejects sola scriptura in the strict sense—and for Luther everything depends on it being understood in the strict sense—but simultaneously trumpets the importance of unmediated experience precisely on the basis of a materially Lutheran anthropological pessimism. Contra Luther, biblical interpretation is not finally given any meaningful special exemption from the reach of “Fleisch” in the theology we find in Blumhardt’s sermons.

Conclusion: “Dying,” Theology of the Cross, and Empirical-Inductive Reasoning When Blumhardt begins exhorting his congregation to “die, so that Jesus may live,” he has something specific in mind. “Dying” refers to a spiritual death, not a physical one (“in the spirit, of course, not outwardly”). Because “Fleisch” has become so dominant over the human heart as to be identified straightforwardly with human being as such, this “Fleisch” needs to die. No less radical solution will do. Blumhardt seems to intend this “death” to be something like what Paul describes in Galatians 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” The primary areas in which Blumhardt observes the domination of the “Fleisch” and the consequent need for “Sterben” include dying to Johann Christoph’s ministry against spiritual forces; dying to false, egoistic piety among Christians; dying to the institutional church, which has lost its way beyond repair; and dying to a certain kind of idolatrous substitution of the text of scripture for true experience of the living God. In essence, “sterbet” is simply a call to radical repentance, especially for Christians. Blumhardt saw a far deeper need for repentance on the part of contemporary Christianity than his peers did—in his sermons he identifies the problem of sin, at least functionally, as an ontological one, whose only remedy is a robust theology of the cross. The motivation for undergoing the painful “crucifixion” of all that “has taken place up until now” is eschatological: Only when a “little flock” of the faithful have understood the extent of the “Fleisch” problem and turned to God with it can the Kingdom move toward its final fulfillment once more. Our “dying” makes room for Jesus to “live,” and thus for his “victory” again to be effective. 57

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Several elements of Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology remain to be elucidated in the next two chapters. They include the details of the larger eschatological framework or theology of the Kingdom of God in which the “sterbet” theology was set; the question of agency in the “dying,” that is, whether and to what degree the human will plays a role in the crucifixion of self; and the role of the Spirit in “experience” of God, especially in judgment. For now, three points can be made, in light of the larger problem of the impasse between Luther’s pneumatology and contemporary Pentecostal emphasis on unmediated experience of the Spirit. The first is that it is appropriate to call Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology a “theology of the cross,” as Sauter does.135 Christoph’s concept of “Sterben” is explicitly patterned on the cross of Christ: “die under your cross, like [Jesus]!”; “the narrow path lies only there, where Jesus is, and he is on the cross”; “Forget what is yours! Forget yourselves! Go with Jesus onto the cross to the glory of God”; and so on.136 However, the term theologia crucis applies to Blumhardt’s thought more specifically in something very like the classical Lutheran sense, rather than just in the general sense of a theology oriented toward the Crucifixion. Broadly speaking, for Luther, “theology of the cross” signifies two closely related concepts: It is an epistemological criterion, stating that God is revealed and known not directly but indirectly, sub contrario137; and it is a pastoral claim about where God is present and active in life in a loving and saving way. As von Loewenich puts it, it is the view that “the manner in which God is known is reflected in the practical thought of suffering.”138 Luther explains that “a theologian of the cross . . . teaches that punishments, crosses, and death are the most precious treasury of all and the most sacred relics which the Lord of this theology himself has consecrated and blessed.”139 Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology is a “theology of the cross” in the latter, pastoral sense, first and foremost, though in practice its experiential manifestation—what we will call “negative experience”—becomes a criterion for discernment of the Spirit as well, as we shall see. For Blumhardt in this period, God is most reliably present when people are being humbled, when 135 136 137 138

139

Sauter, Blumhardt, 116–26. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 114, 48, 89. Or, put another way, it is a claim about how theology should be done. Walther von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (Belfast: Christian Journals Limited, 1967), 22. For Luther’s primary exposition of his theologia crucis, see of course Martin Luther, “The Heidelberg Disputation (1518),” in Luther: Early Theological Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 16, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), especially theses 19 and 20. See also Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1997). Martin Luther, “Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses,” in Luther’s Works 31, ed. Harold J. Grimm (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957), 225.

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they are experiencing his judgment, when they are suffering, and when their “egoistic” will is being thwarted. The manner in which the divine eschatological purposes will come to pass is through defeat, not victory. The “sterbet” theology is not precisely identical to Luther’s formal theologia crucis, but its emphasis on defeat and suffering as the sign of God’s presence and the locus of his eschatological action shares some of its most important features, and is, therefore, helpfully designated a “theology of the cross.” The second point to make at this stage is that we have now established that Blumhardt during this period had what I have been calling a radically pessimistic anthropology and that his discussion of the role of “experience” and the Spirit, therefore, takes place within the same sort of critical anthropology that drove Luther to trust in the scriptures alone. Blumhardt’s “enthusiastic” theology of “experience” cannot be rejected by the classical Reformation traditions for anthropological reasons in the first instance. He was not naïve about human nature, especially not about human nature’s tendency to manipulate the things of God, consciously or unconsciously, for its own purposes. In fact, Blumhardt’s theology would argue that the Reformers themselves were anthropologically somewhat naïve in their willingness to allow biblical hermeneutics a special status in relation to the full extent of the problem of sin, however they may have justified it. I argued in the first chapter that Blumhardt had a foot each in the fundamentals of Lutheran theology (in this case, the low view of human nature implied in the doctrine of justification by faith) and Schwärmerei (affirmation of unmediated experience of God), the primary modern manifestation of which is in Pentecostal theologies, and that he critiqued both from within. This chapter has established the former—that Blumhardt’s anthropology was far more in line with Reformation views of human nature than with that of most Pentecostals. The final point to make here concerns the role of “inductive” theology in Blumhardt’s thought. Theologically speaking, Blumhardt’s anthropology is grounded first and foremost in empirical observations of himself, his congregation, and Christians in general. Although he believes his anthropology to be biblical, he does not in the first instance deduce it from biblical texts, much less from Christian tradition or from philosophical logic. Rather, Blumhardt works toward it inductively: He observes how Christians do many pious things but seek only worldly gain and to be “comfortable” through their piety; he recognizes the fact that the Bible can and does grow “cold” in Christian lives unless it is accompanied by direct experience of God; he perceives a complacency and loss of eschatological urgency, as well as compromise on matters of sin, in the church of which he is a representative. He listens to person after person who comes to him for healing, but has no interest in God for his own sake—they just want to feel better, and once they do, they forget about the God who healed them. On the basis of these observations, Blumhardt engaged in a decisive theological shift toward a 59

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more pessimistic anthropology. His arguments about the extent of “Fleisch” domination among Christians are not primarily deduced from an a priori concept of “Fleisch.” The reverse is actually the case: He discovers that “Fleisch” is in charge through observing those in whom it has taken hold, himself first and foremost. Of course, any application of inductively derived conclusions to other data immediately entails noninductive forms of reasoning—the point is not that Blumhardt used induction alone, but simply that induction played a fundamental ongoing role in his theologizing. This sort of role for empirical inductive reasoning, especially on questions of anthropology, is necessarily built into an eschatologically oriented theology of experience such as Blumhardt’s. Ever since Barth directed his broadside against Schleiermacher and his successors, this type of empirical-inductive reasoning has been persona non grata within Protestant dogmatic theology, and understandably so—the problems it raises are manifold. Blumhardt’s witness, however, may indicate that some careful rethinking of this position is in order.

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blumhardt’s theology, 1888–96

In light of Blumhardt’s new “sterbet” theology, the next major theme to explore is his eschatology. Christoph’s thought, like his father’s, had always been, and always remained, strongly oriented toward the eschatological category of the Kingdom of God. What is distinctive about the 1888–96 period is that during this time the younger Blumhardt was pushed for the first and only time to articulate something like an eschatological “system” or theological framework. He expressed his overall theological outlook, including especially his understanding of the relationship between current history and the future Eschaton, in the sole theological monograph he wrote, the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes [Thoughts from the Kingdom of God]. Blumhardt had come under increasing critical fire in the first half of the 1890s from his father’s old network of supporters, who received his newsletter, for what they perceived to be major departures from the tradition and ministry set up by Johann Christoph Blumhardt. The burden of this work was to explain how it was that Blumhardt could see himself in direct continuity with his father’s ministry while at the same time departing from many of its traditional forms. His answer was a fluid eschatological framework characterized by what Christian Collins Winn, following Karl Barth, has called a dynamic teleology.1 This chapter will identify the major features of this eschatology, primarily as it is articulated in the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes. It will also include further discussion of the younger Blumhardt’s understanding of his continuities and discontinuities with his father, and an analysis of the 1

Collins Winn, Significance, 121. See also Barth, CD IV 3.1, 168.

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complex question of the role of human agency in helping and hindering the final fulfillment of the Kingdom. The latter issue is particularly important in light of the radically pessimistic anthropology Blumhardt had recently developed: In what way does the apparent pelagianism of some of his statements about human eschatological responsibility undermine or qualify the very low anthropology we saw in Chapter 2? Finally, we will ask whether Blumhardt can be said to have an “underrealized” eschatology.

Blumhardt’s Eschatological Framework For both the elder and the younger Blumhardt, eschatology is the heart of their theology. Although closely connected to eschatology, theological loci such as anthropology, soteriology, christology, and even pneumatology are to be understood for the Blumhardts first and foremost through the lens of eschatology. The term that summarizes and encapsulates their eschatological outlook is “the Kingdom of God” [das Reich Gottes]. So important is this category for the message of both Blumhardts that Gerhard Sauter is correct to designate their thought as a whole as “theology of the Kingdom of God.”2 The “Kingdom of God thematic” is the “appropriate center of the Blumhardt’s proclamation.”3 Hardly a page goes by in either of their writings without referring to the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God The meaning of the term “Kingdom of God” for Christoph Blumhardt has two major features. One relates to power and describes the Kingdom as it is in itself. The other relates to history and involves the relationship between the present and the final, fulfilled form of the Kingdom in the future. Understanding these two features together, we can begin to make sense of the many uses Blumhardt makes of this term. In itself, the Kingdom of God in the Blumhardtian conception designates that place or time or situation in which God alone is ruler over humanity and the rest of Creation. Divine rule, in Blumhardt’s view, necessarily includes a final and effective judgment upon and destruction of all that is sinful, worldly, and against God, and a consequent reconciliation, completion, and quickening of all creation in the life of Jesus Christ. Blumhardt describes this Kingdom in 1893: The Kingdom of God . . . is something quite different from what we usually think of it. It is not for our advantage, but for God’s advantage. 2 3

Sauter, Blumhardt. Ibid., 329.

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Our religions, our traditions and peculiarities, these are not the Kingdom of God; rather, it is the rule of God, his Truth and his Righteousness, in which he judges our humanity, our wrongness, so that his godliness, eternity, and truthfulness will help us out of the mire of our flesh and its self-love and our nature as people [menschlichen Wesens]. . . . The Kingdom of God is the revelation of his life on earth, amongst the nations and in Creation, through Jesus the Resurrected One, who, as such, desires to transfigure us anew through his Father’s life in us, and to take this whole world, sunk in the agonies of death, and bring it up to eternal reconciliation and fulfillment in the light of his life, before the face of his Father.4 One of the key terms here, “the rule of God,” is used many times by Blumhardt to describe the Kingdom of God.5 As Sauter puts it, “God’s Kingdom is only there, where God’s will reigns, becomes effective, is recognized, and is carried out. . . . The rule [is] only present where it establishes itself (as power).”6 The understanding of God’s Kingdom in terms of language of power and sovereign rule follows from the theological foundation of both Blumhardts’ theology: the watchword, “Jesus is Victor!” The Möttlingen experience was for Johann Christoph a revelation of God’s power in Christ particularly over and against demonic and spiritual forces. As a result, the Kingdom was interpreted as any place where this “victory” becomes actualized “on earth,” in history. During the “sterbet” phase, Christoph kept his fathers’ language of God’s power in victorious opposition to other powers, but made the “other powers” human sin—Fleisch—instead of primarily spiritual forces. The final eschatological fulfillment of the Kingdom is the true and ultimate “victory” when “the rule of God” will extend throughout creation without rival, both over the demonic and over man’s Fleisch. For Christoph, who, as we have seen, rejected a traditional conception of heaven in favor of a fulfilled Kingdom of God on earth, the final fulfillment and universal extension of the Kingdom is his conception of the Eschaton—the future moment when Jesus’ “victory” becomes complete once and for all. Perhaps the defining differentiating characteristic of the future Kingdom in relation to the present state of the world will be the overthrow of 4

5

6

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1893 (Bad Boll: 1893), vol. 7, 13. See Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 17; Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1894 (Bad Boll: 1894), vol. 4, 2; Blumhardt, Gedanken, 47, and so on. Sauter, Blumhardt, 27. Sauter’s discussion of the Kingdom of God in the Blumhardts’ theology (24–61, 271–80, and throughout the volume) is very helpful. Although he is describing Johann Christoph’s theology in this section, most of Sauter’s conclusions, including those quoted here, apply equally to the younger Blumhardt’s conception of the Kingdom.

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death: “the hope of resurrection [is part of] seeking after the Kingdom of God, and the undoing of death itself is an irreducible and essential feature of the Kingdom of God.”7 The clearest evidence, therefore, that the Kingdom’s fulfillment and “rule” have yet to take place in a final or complete way is the ongoing reality of death in Creation, hence, the younger Blumhardt’s unrelenting critique of a “sacramental” view of death: Physical death is the truest enemy of new life, the salient characteristic of the old order that stands in opposition to the Kingdom of God. The nature of “the rule of God” in the fulfilled Kingdom of God is also closely related to the category of “life” in Blumhardt’s thought. “Life,” too, is for Blumhardt to a significant degree a christological category: It is through Christ, and in particular the resurrected Christ, that true “Life” is revealed to men—“ . . . that Jesus may live.” Although some interpreters have made too much of the christological “shape” of the Kingdom category,8 the younger Blumhardt clearly derived a significant part of the positive content of the Kingdom christologically. As Collins Winn points out, Blumhardt at times identifies the Kingdom directly with Jesus Christ: “The Son of Man . . . is the Kingdom of God. He is the Kingdom; it is not that he first makes the Kingdom, but that he is the Kingdom.”9 The question of the relation of the future fulfilled Kingdom to the present world in which death still holds sway leads us to the second feature of the Kingdom in Blumhardt’s theology: its complex relation to history. “The Kingdom of God” is the term Christoph uses to describe the object of his eschatological hopes, and he understands this object to be future, historical, free of death, and characterized by the free reign of God without rival. 7 8

9

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 200. Macchia describes what he believes is a shift in Christoph in the 1880s away from his father’s more future-oriented hope to a “fundamental stress on the incarnation as the inauguration of God’s kingdom in the world and as the guarantee that God is present to bring the growth of the kingdom further” (Macchia, Spirituality, 116), though he also acknowledges to a certain degree an ongoing “tension” between present and future in Christoph’s thought (118). As we will see later in the chapter, however, the accent in the younger Blumhardt is strongly on the side of “underrealized eschatology” during this phase. It is not until a brief period from 1899–1903 that Blumhardt identifies the Kingdom more or less directly with the work of God through the SPD, and soon afterwards, his eschatology becomes more underrealized than ever (see Chapter 5). Macchia’s reading is in part due to his interpretation of the term “Fortschritt” as simply “progress” (117) which, as we will see, is misleading in light of the complexity of Blumhardt’s eschatological framework. Collins Winn’s preference for the term “eschatological christology” instead of “incarnational christology” perhaps better preserves the still-future element. See Collins Winn, Significance, 118, n. 28. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 61. Emphasis original. See Collins Winn, Significance, 118–22. The dynamic character of the Kingdom, in particular, is closely allied for Blumhardt to the dynamism of the living, resurrected Christ, though elsewhere he is equally happy to ground it less christologically, in the freedom of the Spirit.

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The fact that this hope will be realized not in heaven but “on earth,” in historical time, is a central theme for Blumhardt, to which we will return later. The question here is the relation of the future, fulfilled Kingdom to the present—can we speak of the Kingdom of God as a present reality as well? Although the Kingdom is first and foremost, and finally, something ultimate and not yet, he is also able to describe the Kingdom of God as in some ways already present. For instance, the fact that his main exposition of this theme is a work entitled Gedanken aus [from, out of] dem Reiche Gottes, and not “toward” or “about” or “concerning,” implies a certain presence of the Kingdom already in Blumhardt’s historical moment. More significantly, when he describes this future object (“Ziel”10) of his hopes and ministries, he regularly qualifies it with the expression “fulfillment of the Kingdom of God,”11 presumably as distinguished from some form of the Kingdom that is already present but not yet complete or fulfilled. We must not overinterpret this ambiguity of language, however: The determining object of Blumhardt’s hopes, and the central concept for his theological system, is always that which is ultimate and historically future and not yet arrived: “our endeavor is, and should always be, to seek after the Kingdom of God alone.”12 Insofar as the “Kingdom” is already present, the younger Blumhardt is not very interested; as we shall see, the most dangerous theological mistake in his view is to confuse a penultimate “station” of the Kingdom with the final “Ziel.” Nevertheless, Blumhardt’s willingness to use “Kingdom” language to describe present as well as future realities speaks to the possibility of moments in history before the Eschaton during which “Jesus is Victor,” if only for a time. The exorcism of Gottliebin Dittus was such a time, as were the many moments of repentance and healing during the Möttlingen revival. Presumably, any instance in which someone is actually able to “die, that Jesus may live” would also be a moment of the present inbreaking of the Kingdom—of God’s “rule” asserting itself in Christ over and against opposing powers. However, these moments tend to be fleeting and temporary, so much so that Christoph is able to describe his father’s Möttlingen experiences as mere “glimpses . . . into the future world.” The effect of these “glimpses” on Johann Christoph in Christoph’s view was simply to underline the difference between the world as it is and the world as it will be in the Kingdom: “Christianity’s life in the present seemed desolate and dull to him in comparison to the bright image of the Kingdom of God.”13 10 11

12 13

For example, Blumhardt, Gedanken, 49. Ibid., 180. Emphasis mine. See, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 164; Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 102, 192. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 34. Ibid., 37.

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The question of the presence of the Kingdom in the world before its final “fulfillment” is further complexified by Blumhardt’s discussions in the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes and elsewhere of the intermediary Kingdom role of the “little flock,” and of the importance of penultimate “stations” on the way to the “Ziel” of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the primary theological burden of the Gedanken work is the attempt to render these “glimpses” and “stations” eschatologically meaningful without diminishing the still-future character of the Kingdom’s fulfillment. It is to the Gedanken work, therefore, that we now turn.

Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes (April–December 1895) Between 1888 and 1895 Christoph Blumhardt came under increasing criticism from the supporters of Bad Boll and of his father’s ministry. These supporters’ concerns came to a head in the early months of 1894, after Blumhardt decided, as a consequence of his “sterbet” theology and the critique of church structure that it entailed, to step down from his official pastoral role in Bad Boll.14 In practice, the change meant merely that he would no longer preach on Sundays or perform sacramental duties. As his extensive writings from the period attest, he continued to speak regularly in daily “devotionals,” as well as in pieces written specially for the Vertrauliche Blätter. As a symbol of the renunciation of his pastoral duties, Blumhardt preached his final Sunday sermon on January 1, 1894, wearing laymen’s clothes rather than his usual pastoral robes.15 Two months later, Blumhardt followed this mostly symbolic gesture with a change of more direct significance for his ministry. As a well-known Christian leader with a reputation as a healer, the younger Blumhardt, like his father, received hundreds of letters and visits each month from people asking for intercessory prayer on their behalf. In March 1894, he publicly refused to accept any more of what he saw as “self-seeking” prayer requests. He drew up a stock letter, which was sent to everyone who wrote to him for prayer for healing or some other trouble. In it, he outlined the “sterbet” theology and explained why he would no longer pray these sorts of prayers: It is as if nearly all of [those who write to me] have turned [in their prayers] to a kind of exploitation of God’s grace and compassion. The Savior becomes merely our personal servant, whose job is just to fix again and again whatever we have ruined. . . . I cannot and may not continue praying for God to give aid to this person or to that person.16

14 15 16

See Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 438–47, esp. 444. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 36. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, “Meine Lieben Freunde und Bekannten. März 1894,” (Bad Boll: 1894), 3.

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Instead, he “accepted only those requests which looked first to God.”17 Around the same time, Blumhardt was evidently receiving enough criticism for these new changes18 that he decided to write an extended essay in the Vertrauliche Blätter defending himself and explaining the theology behind them. Interestingly, at both the beginning and the end of this twenty-seven page, densely theological essay, he expresses concern his readers might confuse the piece with the attempt “to set up a sort of theology”19: “With this response, however, I am not trying to describe a complete system; I only want to give expression to a thought living inside of me: that the Kingdom of God seeks to change and reshape our physical and bodily existence.”20 His goal is simply to avoid being misunderstood.21 Nevertheless, the expression of concern that his explanations would be taken as a theological “system” shows that he is uncomfortably aware of how closely his thought is beginning to resemble a coherent theology. None of the attempts to explain the new practical outworkings of the “sterbet” theology, including this first essay on the subject, appeased his critics. The main charge appears to have been that he had abandoned or betrayed the message and ministry of his father. He soon decided to try once again to explain his new position in writing, particularly as it related to Johann Christoph’s ministry, this time on a much larger scale. Between April and December 1895, Blumhardt wrote and sent out as a series of Vertrauliche Blätter a sixteen-part theological treatise, which he soon after had printed as a single volume, under the title Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes, im Anschluß an die Geschichte von Möttlingen und Bad Boll, und unsere heutige Stellung. Ein vertrauliches Wort an Freunde.22 This book is the only true monograph Blumhardt ever wrote,23 as well as his longest and clearest work of sustained theological exposition. Its purpose, as he states in the introduction, is to reiterate and demonstrate, “that I have not deviated, as many think, from the ground on which I used to stand.”24 This “ground” is Johann Christoph’s ministry and message, as determined by the

17 18 19 20 21 22

23

24

Meier, Blumhardt, 20. See Blumhardt, VB 1894, vol. 2, 27. Ibid. Ibid., vol. 2, 1. Ibid., vol. 2, 26–7. [Thoughts from the Kingdom of God, in connection with the story of Möttlingen and Bad Boll, and my current position. A confidential word to friends.] Blumhardt did publish a devotional in 1916, with an entry for each day of the year, but this work was mostly a collection of snippets from his sermons around that time and was not conceived originally as a unified piece. See Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Hausandachten für alle Tage des Jahres, 4th ed. (Zürich: Zwingli Verlag, 1963). Blumhardt, Gedanken, 32.

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Möttlingen experiences: “It is impossible to explain my current standpoint to my friends without starting with my blessed father’s experiences.”25 Although Christoph Blumhardt conceived and wrote the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes for a highly specific audience and time—that is, that branch of German-speaking Pietism at the end of the century that had been sympathetic to Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s ministry—the result is nothing less than an unknown classic of nineteenth-century theology.26 In order to make sense of the strong discontinuities in content between the new “sterbet” theology and his father’s Kampf against superstition and spiritual evil in light of a larger eschatological continuity, Blumhardt resorts to a long meditation on the dynamic, creative, and unanticipatable relationship between God and the world. Materially, the theology of the Gedanken is an eschatologized and historicized approach to the ancient theme of the Spirit and the Letter. Rarely has the connection between the freedom of the Spirit and the human proclivity for coopting the things of God been discussed as penetratingly as in Blumhardt’s 1895 Gedanken.

Blumhardt’s Eschatological Framework The major innovation of the Gedanken piece is a dynamic complexification of Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s simpler eschatology. The critical theological problem Christoph faced following Johann Christoph’s death in 1880 was that his father’s eschatological expectations did not appear to have been met. Johann Christoph had fervently expected a “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit”27—that would bring about the final fulfillment of the Kingdom of God—to take place in his lifetime. But, as Dieter Ising notes in the conclusion to his masterful biography of the elder Blumhardt, “[Johann Christoph] Blumhardt’s hopes were not fulfilled during his lifetime.”28 Christoph believed himself to be carrying on the Kampf for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God that Johann Christoph had not lived to see completed: “For it was clear to me that the battle was not yet over, and that [Johann

25 26

27

28

Ibid., 33. In the decades after Blumhardt’s death, the first of his writings to be reprinted for a wider audience were his sermons, including in particular the four-volume Standardwerk edited by Robert Lejeune. The Gedanken remained available only in its original Bad Boll edition until 1992, when it was finally reprinted. The unfortunate result is that, until recently, this work, despite being Blumhardt’s clearest exposition of what might be called his mature theological position, has remained the province of specialists, and played less role than it might have in Blumhardt interpretation in the first half of the twentieth century. Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Schriftauslegung, vol. I, Ausgewählte Schriften in Drei Bänden (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1991), 26. Ising, Blumhardt, 397.

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Christoph] Blumhardt did not experience the goal [Ziel] that he originally hoped to experience.”29 Upon his father’s death, Christoph Blumhardt was left to make sense of this unmet expectation in light of his broader conviction that Johann Christoph’s message and experiences were legitimate and from God. He did so by developing a complex and dynamic eschatology of intermediary “stations” on the way to the “Ziel” of the fulfillment of the Kingdom. It is his account of this eschatology that occupies most of the Gedanken. The complexity—and originality—of Blumhardt’s eschatology is a response to the empirical disappointment of his father’s simpler conception. One of the central concerns of the Gedanken is to maintain the strong sense of imminence and, therefore, urgency of the elder Blumhardt’s hopes, while allowing for the fact that the hoped-for global outpouring of the Holy Spirit has not yet occurred. This concern leads him to the question of how to bridge the gap between the problems of the present and the promised future of God. His question is, what must be done to bring about the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God on earth and why has it not yet been fulfilled?

Salvation-History: “Fortschritt” toward the Kingdom The problem of the stalled arrival of the Kingdom of God is particularly salient in light of major events in the New Testament, including especially Jesus’ statements of its nearness, the eschatological fact of his Resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the world at Pentecost. That Jesus’ life and death signaled the imminent arrival or fulfillment of the Kingdom was clear: “Jesus was indeed the last main station and the brightest light before the great final purposes of God, and the final goal was supposed to be attained a relatively short time later, under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit.” The question, then, is, “Why . . . has this final goal, which is so close, nevertheless not been attained to this day?”30 The disappointment of the early church’s expectations mirrors the story of Blumhardt’s father. As often happens in the early days of charismatic revivals, the experience of personal encounter with the victorious power of Jesus over sin and evil in Möttlingen had led to the conviction that the final fulfillment of his Kingdom was eschatologically imminent.31 As Ising puts it, for Johann Christoph, his experiences are “merely the prelude to a worldwide

29 30 31

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 106. Ibid., 50. See Anderson, Pentecostalism, 206, 217–20; D. William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 20–7; and Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1995), 110, 112–13, 118, and so on.

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development, which is still to come.”32 From Christoph’s point of view, his father’s disappointment mirrors the disappointment that the early church must have felt when Jesus did not return as soon as had been expected, and the disappointment any Christian might feel who takes the promises of the New Testament seriously. Blumhardt explains this disappointment through a concept of eschatological “stations” through which God’s people must pass before the Kingdom can fully arrive. Blumhardt believed his father had been somewhat naïve in merely waiting for the “new outpouring”: There is however one thing that [my father] never fully recognized, something that we have been forced to recognize later, after a long period of hoping and waiting: namely, that an outpouring of the Holy Spirit like this can only take place once certain conditions have been met from the human side.33 Until these “conditions” are met, the Kingdom will be always near but never arrived, as it has been since the time of the Apostles. Thus, Christoph’s picture of the Kingdom’s relation to history is not of a (more traditional) simultaneous or paradoxical presence and absence, an Already but also Not Yet, but of something more like an arrival stalled at the last minute—an airplane ready to land but perpetually circling its destination until someone clears the runway. Blumhardt then surveys most of salvation history, starting with Noah and Abraham, in order to identify what these obstacles and “certain conditions” might be. At every point, he sees God leading his people by the Spirit toward an ultimate goal, through a series of salvation-historical “stations”: “According to scripture, there have been many stations through the ages. All of them took place not through people, but through God himself, through his revelation.”34 The history of God’s people is the history of a movement or journey through time toward the eschatological fulfillment of God’s purposes, a movement driven forward by “the Spirit of the life of Jesus Christ . . . towards forward-movement [Fortschritt] and towards a final goal.”35 The Bible chronicles God’s many “stations,” such as Noah’s ark, the call of Abraham, the journey out of Egypt to Canaan, the laments of the prophets over the sins of the people, and the ministry of John the Baptist.36 32

33 34 35 36

Ising, Blumhardt, 229. This theological parallel dynamic speaks to the material, if not so much historical, closeness between major aspects of Blumhardtian and Pentecostal theologies. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 117. Emphasis added. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 50, 51, 74, 75, and so on.

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In light of these examples, Blumhardt believes that “it has been apparent from the earliest times how God has indeed persisted in carrying through forward-movements [Fortschritte] in accordance with his will.”37 Blumhardt discerns in the Bible and in history an ongoing forward movement toward the Kingdom of God, driven by the Spirit. God’s history is a dynamic history, full of developments and Fortschritte and “stations” and God’s personal leading, and this movement is teleological, and, therefore, eschatological. Everything depends on the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom— this and this alone is the Ziel of history, including the history of Jesus Christ. The forward-moving dynamism should characterize the spiritual life of individuals as well: “We stand here [in] hope, as people . . . for whom there is no resting point.” Blumhardt refers to Philippians 3:13 in this regard: “We forget what is past and what is present and strive after what lies ahead of us.”38 As part of God’s “little flock,” individuals, too, undergo a series of “stations” in their life—“may we too strive forwards”39 toward the Kingdom of God. Every life takes place in history, and, therefore, plays a role in the grand plan of God’s salvation history.

The Danger of Standing Still In light of this relentless, God-driven “mobility,”40 there is one error to be avoided above all others: “standing still.” “Standing still is the same as being separated from the living testimonies of God.”41 A sure sign of having lost step with God’s forward-driving Spirit is not “moving forward.” The tendency for people in their “Fleisch” is to “stand still.” “Standing still” nearly always consists in an absolutization of the present instead of striving forward for the true Absolute, which is still future. People long for peace with God, but for Blumhardt peace with God in the true sense is to be found in the Kingdom only. The true sign of the Spirit is not peace but “birth-pangs” and “the anxiety and unsettled feeling that accompanies profound change.”42 Forward movement, and the perpetual sense of anxiety and unrest that accompanies it and drives it, is in a sense the curse of the fallen world, not to be undone until the Eschaton. In Blumhardt’s view, where the Kingdom is not yearned for, the Kingdom has been forgotten. It is the sin of “standing still” that explains why the Kingdom has taken so long to come, contrary to the expectations of Jesus and the early church. Blumhardt criticizes any explanation that puts the blame for the delay on 37 38 39 40 41 42

Ibid., 49. Ibid., 194. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 179.

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God—blaming, for example, the “hiddenness” of God, or the fact that “a thousand years are as a day to him”: “empty words like these serve in this case only the precious laziness that is part of our flesh and blood. . . . No, we human beings must be to blame, we are the ones who stood still, not God.”43 Despite the historical tendency in Blumhardt’s thought, the “forward movement” of the Kingdom cannot be equated directly with the passage of historical time. The forward movement must take place in history—because the Kingdom itself will come within history, and on earth—but the eschatological movement is not reducible to historical chronological progression. One can “stand still” as far as the Kingdom of God is concerned, even while historical time is passing. That is why the Kingdom that is so “near” in the eschatological sense has taken two thousand historical years to arrive. The history of the Kingdom of God, the history of the “stations,” and the story of God’s people in the Bible and after, is a sort of secret history within history, but which will turn out to have been the “true” history, and the true object of history. That is why Christoph can praise his father for rightfully historicizing what had become a merely “spiritual” or “religious” concept: “[for my father] the Kingdom of God was suddenly no longer religion, but history.”44 There will be until the “fulfillment of the Kingdom of God” two distinct but interconnected histories. The “fulfillment” will mark at last their resolution into a unified whole through the triumph of God’s history over the world’s history. Although Blumhardt does not articulate this theology of history as explicitly as I have done, it is implicit in his eschatology, above all in the category of “standing still,” and in his conviction that the Kingdom will come in history, and on earth.45

Two Stations The significance of each specific moment in time is determined by its relationship to the Ziel of history. The failure of the church at a given moment is always some form of “standing still” eschatologically. We have also seen that, according to Blumhardt, the Kingdom will not simply arrive on its own: “certain conditions” must be met in order to trigger (or, better, prepare the way for) the final fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. Because the “conditions” have not been met, the final “arrival” of the Kingdom has been delayed indefinitely. In order to understand these “conditions,” we turn to Blumhardt’s metaphor of “stations” on the way to the “Ziel.” Although he understands the

43 44 45

Ibid., 51. Emphasis added. Ibid., 66. For further discussion of the “two histories” theme, see Collins Winn, Significance, 123–7.

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whole of biblical history in terms of “stations,” his primary concern is with two very specific stations: his father’s ministry, and his own. Most of the earlier biblical “stations” can be summed up as preparing the way for the “main station” of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ. The problem of the stalling of the Kingdom only surfaces after this “main station” has taken place. The key to the arrival of the Kingdom is to be found in these last few stations between Ascension and Eschaton, the purpose of which is to remove the final obstacles that stand between the power of the “Victor,” the resurrected Christ, and the absolute “rule” of God. The two post-Ascension “stations” that interest Blumhardt in the Gedanken are Johann Christoph’s Kampf against spiritual forces, inaugurated in the exorcism of Gottliebin Dittus, and the Kampf against the force of Christian “egoism,” with which he himself had been preoccupied since 1888. By 1895, the hope that the elder Blumhardt’s Kampf would be the final “station” before the “Ziel” has proven mistaken. Nevertheless, Blumhardt affirms the basic legitimacy of his father’s conviction, “that at that time [1842] the demonic [stood] as strongly in the way of the Kingdom of Truth and Righteousness as it did in Jesus’ day.”46 Indeed, Johann Christoph had been so successful in his Kampf that “he and his people” had been freed from the power of magic and superstition “to the marrow.”47 The more or less successful prosecution of the elder Blumhardt’s “station”48 paved the way for his son to fight a new Kampf against a different foe: In [Johann Christoph’s] day, fifty years ago, the [forces of] spiritual darkness arrayed themselves against him. He saw that people were caught [by these forces], and he became zealous for the victory of Christ over the powers of darkness. In our day, we have not forgotten this. . . . But [now] our own experiences make it possible to put this more to the side. For God has opened our eyes to see that human nature, what we call Fleisch, is the true opposition, whose destruction will have even more important consequences than a victory against demons.49 The old “station” has served its purpose, but God has led Christoph on to a new battle. In order to remain a “Fortschrittsmann”50 for the Kingdom of 46 47 48

49 50

Ibid., 89. Ibid., 91. Blumhardt does not claim that all demonic and spiritual powers had been conquered by Johann Christoph: he remains aware of “the power of hidden forces and . . . inner bondage, which still remains” (ibid., 43). Ibid., 43–4. Ibid., 36.

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God, as his father had been, Blumhardt must leave behind the old ministry and press on toward the new. The discontinuity is for the sake of the greater eschatological continuity.

Ultimates and Penultimates: Noncumulative Progress toward the Kingdom Although Blumhardt preached and proclaimed the “sterbet” station and the need for the death of “Fleisch” as if it were the sole obstacle remaining before the Kingdom could be fulfilled—“Our present situation [consists] in this, that we die, that Jesus may live. . . . For only in this way will we succeed in reaching the final step forward [Fortschritt]”51—he did not feel certain that this station would be the last: “whether any, and if so how many, more stations must pass by before we reach the final goal, we do not know, but neither do we need to know. It is enough that Möttlingen was a station for us, and that we are now hurrying further toward the final goal.”52 The hope is always that the present station will be the last, but the specific long-term outline of the eschatological progression is for God alone to know. The important thing is to remain “mobile,” ready to let the previous station go and hasten to the new one at a moment’s notice, and to keep the final eschatological Ziel always first in mind. Blumhardt follows his father in describing the appropriate state of eschatological readiness—a combination of patience and readiness to move quickly when directed—as “waiting . . . and hastening . . . towards the Kingdom of God.”53 A further qualification should be made about the “stations” eschatology. The salvation-historical forward movement, though progressive in the sense of moving only forwards and not backwards in history (“standing still” is not the same as moving backwards), should not be understood as cumulative. A given station, for Blumhardt, is not an improvement over the previous station, in the sense of the Kingdom of God being fundamentally more present or more accumulated than it had been before. The Kingdom of God is not being progressively revealed; if anything, its absence is becoming more acute over time. If it were being progressively revealed, then superseded stations would remain genuinely and ultimately significant in some sense, because they would contain some irreducible kernel of the Kingdom of God, of the Ultimate, the Ziel. But Blumhardt tells us instead that it is “no longer Möttlingen or . . . my father Blumhardt that matters to me now; what matters is whatever brings us closer to the final goal.”54 This point is implicit 51 52 53

54

Ibid., 44 Ibid., 64 Ibid., 48. Cf. 2 Peter 3:12. For Johann Christoph’s exposition on “waiting and hastening,” see Blumhardt, AS I, 139–52. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 65.

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also in the fact that the only way to move forward to a new station is to “die” to the old station: “my only endeavor should be . . . that I allow that which has taken place up until now”—that is, Johann Christoph’s station— “to die.”55 The primary relationship at a given moment between a present and a previous station is one of discontinuity, not accumulation. Lim captures somewhat this sense of noncumulative progression when he describes Blumhardt’s concept of eschatological “development” as “not evolutionary, but revolutionary.”56 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ultimate–penultimate distinction is helpful here. For Blumhardt, the logically unavoidable sense of “improvement” inherent in a station being chronologically or eschatologically closer to the Ziel is rendered insignificant in light of the fact that the new station is every bit as penultimate as the previous one. Here we see the weakness of the “stations” metaphor: It is difficult to communicate progression toward a goal without any sense of improvement or accumulation. For Blumhardt, only the Ultimate has significance. The Kingdom is either fulfilled and fully present, or it is not. As Bonhoeffer puts it, There is a time of God’s permission, waiting, and preparation; and there is an ultimate time that judges and breaks off the penultimate. . . . We must travel a road, even though there is no road to this goal, and we must travel this road to the end, that is, to the place where God puts an end to it. The penultimate remains in existence, even though it is completely superseded by the ultimate and is no longer in force.57 The still-future Ziel58 renders proleptic judgment on the “road” by which the Ziel is attained, to the point of making it eschatologically insignificant, although necessary. Another way of conceiving what Blumhardt means would be to say that each station, as far as those participating in the station are concerned, must always be understood as the penultimate station— literally the last before the Last. When it turns out not to be—when God leads his people to yet another, equally penultimate station—the “little flock” must not question the old station, but simply “hasten” toward the next. To dwell on the old, even on its failings, would be to “stand still.” A given station can even be “opposite in appearance”59 to its predecessor. Each 55 56 57

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Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 78. Lim, Sieger, 128. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, trans. Reinhard Krauss et al., vol. 6, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 151 For Bonhoeffer, the “ultimate,” though also eschatological, is first and foremost justification by faith (see ibid.). For Blumhardt, it is the historical fulfillment of Kingdom. As we shall see, in his view justification is deferred to the Eschaton, and taken up into it. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 65.

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station since the “main station” of Jesus Christ is, in a given moment, the penultimate station, as far as the Kingdom of God is concerned. We, therefore, conclude our discussion of the “stations” eschatology with a caveat: relative to the absolute character of the ultimate Kingdom, “progress” toward that Kingdom—the eschatological forward movement we have discussed—proves to be meaningless on its own terms. The Ultimate alone gives significance to the penultimate; as Bonhoeffer puts it, “we must . . . speak of penultimate things not as if they had some value of their own, but so as to make clear their relation to the ultimate. For the sake of the ultimate we must speak of the penultimate.”60

The Problem of Agency in Blumhardt’s Thought In light of the very pessimistic anthropology we saw in Chapter 2, it seems odd that Blumhardt’s eschatology appears to put such a premium on God’s dependence on human action for the furthering and fulfillment of his Kingdom. After all, it is humanity that must fulfill the “certain conditions,” and the failure of the Kingdom to arrive is attributed to human inaction alone: “we human beings must be to blame, we are the ones who stood still, not God.”61 Furthermore, the language of Kampf for the Kingdom of God, inherited from the elder Blumhardt, would seem to presuppose some level of human agency in the eschatological process. The “Day of Jesus Christ [will] . . . not appear if there is no battle against the flesh. . . . We would be deceiving ourselves if we believed that everything is finished because God has performed signs and miracles here and there. . . . There are conditions that must be met from our end.”62 Put bluntly, “he has done his part . . . the onus is now on us, not him.”63 The confusion produced by this sort of language in light of the radically pessimistic “sterbet” anthropology is compounded by the fact that Blumhardt seems equally keen in other places during the same period (and sometimes even on the same page!64) to affirm the unconditional, sovereign power of God over and against the human will in the fulfillment of his purposes: 60 61 62 63

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Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 151. See also Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 8, 4. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 144. Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 8, 8. For further affirmations of the role of human agency in the fulfillment of the Kingdom, see Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1892 (Bad Boll: 1892), vol. 3, 3, and 8 (we must “help”); ibid., vol. 7, 9, 14, and 17 (“help prepare the way”; “make way”); Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 7, 12 (God–man relationship characterized by “reciprocity”); Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 193–4, 298, 336–7; Blumhardt, Gedanken, 134 (“He will not use force to draw us into dying with his Son”). “Human power cannot accomplish anything in the Kingdom of God . . . ; we are instructed to rely on the power of Christ alone. . . . This can be hindered, however, when

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Nothing has ever happened in the Kingdom of God about which you could not say: It is the glory of the Lord that has accomplished it. It is not [earthly] developments, not human institutions, that have ever achieved anything in the Kingdom of God, but acts of God, splendors come down from heaven,—these are what accomplish it, and so it is for these that we wait.65 Blumhardt is particularly concerned to affirm this unconditioned power, efficacy, and independence of divine agency in terms of the freedom of the Spirit: [The Spirit of God] remains sovereign, withdrawing itself from whom it wills, offering itself to whom it wills, leading whomever it wills into the Truth to the degree that it desires, according to the most holy will of the Creator of heaven and of earth and of every living thing.66 Similarly, “Nothing can happen in the Kingdom of God apart from the Holy Spirit . . . There is absolutely no obstacle that can stand in the way of this Holy Spirit,—space, time, death—it all comes to an end.”67 In an 1890 essay, Blumhardt states that, despite “many obstacles within us,” his “great comfort” is the conviction that our opposition to the Kingdom cannot win in the end: “and if none of this helps, even so, in the end God’s powers will be victorious over humanity, and our Lord remains Victor and will yet overcome the world.”68 In terms of the specific “sterbet” station, Blumhardt is happy at times to describe the true agent behind the dying as God, not us—it is “the living Word of God, which is a two-edged sword, which will kill me and you in our flesh.”69 He even describes Johann Christoph’s Kampf in terms of the Spirit’s agency: “It was not Blumhardt who fought, but the Spirit of Jesus Christ who used him as an instrument in the world.”70 What are we to make of this contradiction? In the best and most sensitive treatment of the problem of agency in Blumhardt’s thought to date, Christian Collins Winn states that the younger Blumhardt “continued in his father’s legacy by emphasizing that the kingdom does not come by human effort, but by divine action, while simultaneously the priority of divine action cannot lead one into quietness.” Therefore, “though the kingdom moved forward by a kind of divine monergism, humanity was not excluded, but rather

65 66 67 68 69 70

we make ourselves strong, for Christ is only powerful amongst the weak” (Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 2, 15); see also Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 126. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 16. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 175–6. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 24. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 244. Ibid., 447. See also 111, 125. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 66.

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included as God’s free creatures and covenant partners who struggled with the living Christ to see the kingdom of God enter into the world.” Although I agree with the overall thrust of Collins Winn’s characterization, which sees human agency as “enclosed” into a larger, monergistic divine will,71 the force and number of Blumhardt’s appeals to human participation and “help,” and his view that “standing still” from the human side really can stall or hinder the “fulfillment” of the Kingdom,72 require more complex explanation. The key to such an explanation lies in “his father’s legacy.” Collins Winn is correct in characterizing Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s soteriology as based solely in divine action, as opposed to human effort. The elder Blumhardt outlined his view on the role of human effort and will in salvation in one of the 1873 Blätter aus Bad Boll: Nothing that a person does has anything to do with their being called or chosen. It can never be a matter of God doing something and us doing something, and that both work together. . . . [T]he part that can be done by us and has to be done by us is nothing that we do. If we talk about doing, it is always the doing of God. We do nothing.73 Here and in the rest of the 1873 piece, Johann Christoph articulates, in a pastorally sensitive way, what amounts to a doctrine of single predestination. In this sense, Christoph Blumhardt’s statements about the overriding, monergistic efficacy of the divine will over and against the human will— “There is absolutely no obstacle that can stand in the way of this Holy Spirit,” and so on—are indeed carried over from “his father’s legacy.” However, the elder Blumhardt had a very different view of the role of the human will in relation to sanctification, and it is in the area of sanctification that he uses his eschatologically fraught Kampf language. Writing in 1876 in response to a letter he had received questioning the appropriateness of describing the Christian’s relationship to sin as a Kampf, Blumhardt writes: “It is true that all our fighting is of no avail if Jesus does not fight through us. But Jesus does not fight alone, but through us. We must help him in this fight, and he gives us strength.”74 Blumhardt continued the argument one month later, this time explaining his view in terms of theological 71

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Collins Winn, Significance, 116, 122. See also 146–9, where Collins Winn rightly points out that Blumhardt emphasized human agency during the SPD period, but then swung in the other direction in the post-SPD years, toward an increasing quietism grounded in the ultimate efficacy in the Kingdom of the divine will alone. “As long as we are not a people who are “dying” in the proper sense, the Savior has no pathway into the world” (Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 120). Blumhardt, GW II.1, 1873, No. 9, 69–70. Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Blätter aus Bad Boll. Vierter Band: Juli bis Dezember 1876, Januar bis Juni 1877, vol. II.4, Gesammelte Werke: Schriften, Verkündigung, Briefe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 1876, No. 44, 350.

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anthropology. Here he argues for a strong distinction between innate, ontological “natural corruption” and sin proper: Sin always refers [in the Bible] to transgression against some commandment of God, i.e., a sinful deed. . . . A person can have and feel all sorts of evil impulses within himself that make him miserable against his will. As long as he does not act on these evil impulses, he has no guilt. He goes on: “the Law does not condemn a person until he has actually committed a sin, not on account of his corrupt nature. . . . [These tendencies in him] are not sins unless they are transformed into sinful deeds.”75 Blumhardt is able to maintain a strong belief in human ability to “fight” successfully against sin because of his view of what happens in conversion: “When we become a new creature, this is only as far as our will is concerned; as far as our ability to withstand temptation is strengthened. If we slacken in this fight, we can still be lost.”76 Unlike his soteriology, the elder Blumhardt’s conception of sanctification includes a very significant role for human agency. God has done his part in conversion by strengthening our will; the rest, that is, the Kampf for sanctification,77 is more or less up to us. This distinction in the elder Blumhardt’s thought between sinful deeds and “natural corruption” shows that the anthropology the younger Blumhardt developed in the “sterbet” period, which identifies sin with Fleisch and, therefore, “the Wesen of a person” as such, is a clear development beyond Johann Christoph’s anthropology, and in a much more pessimistic direction. For Christoph, it is precisely the “natural corruption” and its “tendencies” that are the problem; sinful deeds are just symptoms of a deeper malaise. Fleisch, not deeds, is what stands in the way of the Kingdom. We see, then, that Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s theology entailed two very different views on human and divine agency, depending on the context. As far as salvation is concerned, it is divine agency through and through, but in the Kampf for sanctification, human and divine will each have a necessary part to play. The problem with interpreting the younger Blumhardt’s theology straightforwardly in terms of this legacy is that Christoph’s discussions of agency take place in a third context, a context not equated directly with either soteriology or sanctification: “stations” eschatology. Blumhardt rejected traditional Protestant soteriology, both Pietist and orthodox, as leading to a “sacramental view of death” on the one hand, and a false spiritualization of the Kingdom of God at the expense of its 75 76 77

Ibid., 1876, No. 48, 381–2. Ibid., 384. Although the Blätter cited deal specifically with sanctification, the Kampf category always has eschatological implications for Johann Christoph as well.

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physical and historical (albeit future) reality, on the other. He also rejected precisely the sort of theology of sanctification his father argued for in the essays quoted earlier: There are people . . . who want to be forgiven again and again for every little sin, and then want to muster themselves up never to commit a sin again. They will soon realize, however, that they are still the same person they were before. [It is] much better . . . if we do things in a radically different way and stop checking into [some sort of] “self-improvement school.” Instead we must simply give our life entirely into God’s hand.78 Although Blumhardt’s theology in this period is deeply concerned with the problem of sin in the Christian life, he addresses it not as a Kampf against temptation or the devil, but as an unavoidable mode of being, including for Christians, that can be dealt with only through the radical means of the death of the self (“that Jesus”—not us—“may live”)—rather than a “selfimprovement school.” Where for Johann Christoph the will is the subject engaging in the Kampf, for Christoph, the will, in its inveterate “egoism,” is the object of the Kampf. Second, where for Johann Christoph the overcoming of sin is to a certain degree an end in and of itself, for Christoph even his peculiar form of addressing the sin problem (“Sterben”) is taken up into and relativized by the larger eschatological context of Stationen on the way to the Ziel. Taken together, these points indicate not just that the younger Blumhardt by this point does not have a traditional Pietist theology of sanctification but that it is only in a very limited sense that he can be said in this period to have a theology of sanctification at all. Nevertheless, Christoph Blumhardt does seem to have incorporated both aspects of his father’s theology of agency into his own views. Both elements appear in Blumhardt’s “theology of the Kingdom of God,” but only after having been translated into the all-encompassing eschatological framework. The reason agency is not problematic in Johann Christoph’s theology, but does create genuine confusion during this period in Christoph’s, is that soteriology and sanctification are merged and brought together under the rubric of a larger, overriding eschatological conception. When soteriology and sanctification cease to be discrete categories, the separate and contradictory concepts of divine and human agency become confused. C o n c e p t u a l l y, soteriology is closely related in theology to hamartiology and the doctrine of the Fall. Salvation has little meaning outside of a situation in which a need to be saved is perceived. Although the plight that seeks a saving solution has been construed variously as the “wages of sin” in pain and mortality, the wrath of God against such sin, structural and societal evil, the rule of dark 78

Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 19–20.

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spiritual “powers,” and the tragedies of living in a fallen world of disease and natural disaster, the common thread is a connection between soteriology and plight. It might at first appear odd that Blumhardt, in his pessimism about humanity and the world in its current state, rejected traditional Protestant soteriology, as classically articulated in the doctrine of justification by faith.79 The explanation, however, is simple: He did not articulate an explicit soteriology in traditional terms because his eschatology is his soteriology. The only solution to the world’s various plights that matters to Blumhardt is the fulfilled Kingdom of God—the world as it will be when all pain, sin, and need are gone. “In this goal [i.e., the final fulfillment of the Kingdom] alone lies the salvation of the world.”80 Blumhardt does have a robust soteriology, but it is cosmic in scope, rather than just individual or personal. Yes, individuals will be saved from their individual plights, but only in the context of the general lifting of all the world’s sin, suffering, and dysfunction in the fulfilled Kingdom.81 The problem of agency remains unresolved in Blumhardt’s thought in this period. The conflicting conceptions noted previously can be explained quite well in terms of Blumhardt’s appropriation of his father’s theology. As sanctification per se begins to be rendered insignificant by Christoph’s theology of the cross and his “stations” eschatology, the word Kampf loses the sanctification connotations it had held (at least in part) in Johann Christoph’s theology. As a result, the human agency implied in the Kampf terminology is carried over into the area of helping and hindering the arrival of the Kingdom, where it competes confusingly with the soteriological monergism of the Spirit so central to Blumhardt’s eschatology. There is no question of a compromise between the two at this point—they appear to run, as it were, in parallel tracks in Blumhardt’s thought. Blumhardt’s competing conceptions of agency deal with too crucial of a subject for them to remain in unintegrated contradiction forever. Collins Winn makes the compelling argument that the competing agencies create a “dialectic” in Blumhardt’s thought and that, although the human agency side largely won the day during the SPD period, the reverse was the case in the final decade before his death.82 We will explore this argument further in Chapter 5. For now, it is enough to observe that Blumhardt’s appeals to human agency in the 1888–96 period are, in the end, relatively few, and are mostly caught up in the deconstruction inherent to the appeal to human 79 80 81

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See the discussion of “sacramental” views of death in Chapter 2. Ibid., vol. 8, 19. Both Blumhardt’s critique of conventional Pietist missionary activity and his wellknown universalism can be explained in light of this eschatological soteriology. For evidence of his universalism, see Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 93, 131, 132, 153; Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 73. See also the discussion of damnation and “negative” experience in Chapter 6. See Collins Winn, Significance, 147.

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willing to bring about its own annihilation (“sterbet”). The occasional positive appeal to the will stands in odd juxtaposition to the relentless anthropological pessimism that characterized Blumhardt’s preaching during the “sterbet” period.

Underrealized Eschatology In light of both the ongoing rule of Fleisch in the Christian life and the consistent eschatological emphasis on the need for “Fortschritt” toward a still-future Kingdom, Christoph Blumhardt can be said to have an “underrealized” eschatology in the 1888–96 period. The eschatological terminology of “realized,” “overrealized,” and, by implication, “underrealized,” can be imprecise, however, so a more specific explanation of what we mean is in order. One of the best-known uses of these categories is in Anthony Thiselton’s essay, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth.”83 Thiselton postulates that “an overrealized eschatology leads to an ‘enthusiastic’ view of the Spirit,”84 and then applies this thesis to the perennial question of what problems Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians. In Thiselton’s usage, “overrealized eschatology” refers to the belief that “all [have] access to revealed knowledge because the last days [have] arrived.” Because such eschatology is “causally related” to enthusiasm, the term also implies that “an enthusiast, or spiritual man, is invulnerable to the pressures which bring about failure in the case of the ordinary man.”85 Great weight is placed on “the experience of transformation in the past,”86 resulting in a present- rather than future-focused eschatology. The error of both overrealized eschatology and its enthusiastic corollary is an overly high anthropology of the Christian: They “leave human nature out of account.”87 “Realized” or “overrealized” eschatology (Thiselton uses the two interchangeably), then, describes belief that the last days have come, that there is new, revealed knowledge to which believers have special and immediate access and that sanctification-transformation has already taken place in Christians to such a degree that they are nearly “invulnerable” to normal pressures and temptations. Importantly, the difference between realized and nonrealized eschatology is primarily a matter of emphasis and degree. Believers are not perfect, but they are free from 83

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Anthony C. Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth,” New Testament Studies 24 (1978): 510–26. Ibid., 512. Ibid., 519. As we shall see in the discussion of Schwärmerei in Chapter 4, the theological relationship between overrealized eschatology and “enthusiasm” is more one of correlative tendency than causality, as Blumhardt demonstrates. Ibid., 524. Ibid., 519.

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sin relative to nonbelievers to such a degree that the discontinuity is more important than the continuity; the Eschaton is not completely arrived, but it is so near (or partially present) as to make it more helpful eschatologically to talk of the present than the future, and so on. In such a schema, “underrealized” eschatology would refer to an emphasis on how far away the end of days remains, how unsanctified and untransformed Christians still are, and how the decisive eschatological event or events are future rather than present or past. It is in this sense that Christoph Blumhardt’s eschatology is “underrealized.” Implied in the “penultimacy” of the “stations” eschatology is a strong emphasis on “not-yet-ness” and future orientation, and the “sterbet” theology perceives a radical lack of transformation and sanctification in Christians, including “Bad Bollers.” Blumhardt expresses this aspect of his eschatology repeatedly in the 1888–96 period: We are nowhere close to being able to call ourselves “healthy” in the true sense. We have not yet been freed, not yet been saved; the pressure of the flesh is not yet gone from us, and the barrier has not yet been broken through.88 Similarly, “The powers of sin and of death have not been fundamentally broken among ‘Christian’ people either.”89 At present, until “Sterben” has taken place on a large scale, “we cannot say that the Kingdom of God is already here.”90 Despite Jesus’ birth, death, and Resurrection, “for the most part, everything is still the same as it always was: sin, need, and death have remained the same in this world . . . [S]alvation has not yet arrived.”91 Even his father Johann Christoph, whose theology was very future oriented, “was . . . himself not fully aware of the degree to which the present continues to stand in opposition to the future he longed for.”92 Salvation for Christoph is “still future.”93 As in Thiselton, “underrealized” eschatology describes an emphasis in Blumhardt, rather than an absolute denial of the presence of the Kingdom in the world before its “fulfillment.” Christoph believes, for example, despite 88 89

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Blumhardt, VB 1888, vol. 8, 8. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Vertrauliche Blätter für Freunde von Bad Boll 1891 (Bad Boll: 1891), vol. 3, 16. Ibid., vol. 2, 10. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 227. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 38. Ibid., 54. Blumhardt’s “underrealized” eschatology is not restricted to his second period, though it largely disappears during the political phase. For the period before the “sterbet” Wende, see, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 204, 300, 340, 279–80, 436; and Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 78. For after 1906, see Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Geliebte Welt: 1907–1917, vol. III, Ansprachen, Predigten, Reden, Briefe: 1865–1917 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 161, 199.

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the above, that a great deal was accomplished in the “main station” of Jesus Christ, but that this “victory” is not yet “actualized” in the way it needs to be and will one day be. His categorical-sounding statements about the “not yet” should in part be understood as a homiletical corrective to what he perceives to be a widespread Christian error of eschatological and anthropological optimism about the present. Nevertheless, Blumhardt’s strong conviction, especially during his second period, is that our hope must be for a future Kingdom; if the Kingdom is secretly “present” in a meaningful way already in the fallen and unsanctified world, then it must be a poor Kingdom indeed. The primary proof for his convictions, as he sees it, remains the ongoing reality of physical death. Here as elsewhere, there is a tension in Blumhardt’s theology between the intermediary, even gradualistic, possibility of preeschatological “Sterben” and consequent new life (as well as “progress” from “station” to “station”), and the larger dualism in his thinking between Fleisch and divine righteousness, this world and the world to come, and the rule of sin and the rule of Christ. The latter usually ends up dominating, despite his efforts to the contrary, and his “underrealized” eschatology is a product of this dualism. ******* We turn now to the third major category in Blumhardt’s thought during the 1888–96 period: unmediated “experience” of God.

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the category of “experience” in blumhardt’s theology, 1888–96

Alongside theology of the cross and eschatology, the third central theological locus in Christoph Blumhardt’s preaching during the 1888–96 period is the category of “Erlebnis,” or “Erfahrung.”1 In sermon after sermon, we find a similar refrain: What the Christian church of Blumhardt’s day needs very badly is “to experience the living God.”2 Much of his theology from this period can be summarized using language of experience: “The fact that Jesus lives must be experienced, and you must experience it. For the Kingdom of God consists in this, that Jesus lives and proves himself to be the Living One to those who have been resurrected with him.”3 Put another way, Jesus “desires to reveal himself, in the Spirit of the living God, in our hearts, . . . that the Kingdom of God might be fulfilled.”4 As we will see, there 1

2 3 4

Both German terms are usually best translated as “experience.” Because Blumhardt uses them interchangeably, I will not distinguish between them here. In the German theological tradition, however, the two terms are traditionally distinguished, especially in light of the complex discussions of “Erfahrung” in the past two centuries. The fourth edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, for example, has separate articles on “Erlebnis” and “Erfahrung.” The former is defined as “the subjective perception of an experience [Erfahrung],” and is suitable for designating specific “religious experiences [Erfahrungen] marked by emotion” (Michael von Brück, and Walter Sparn, “Erlebnis,” in RGG4, 1425, 1427), while the latter relates more to “knowledge acquisition” and related theological-methodological questions, especially the role of “Erfahrung” in establishing the certainty of faith (Konrad Stock, and Marcus Willaschek, “Erfahrung,” in RGG4, 1399–1400, 1402–4). Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 187. Blumhardt, VB 1891, II, 9. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 122.

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is a close connection between Blumhardt’s understanding of “experience” and both his eschatology and his theology of the cross. The importance of “experience” for Blumhardt in this period cannot be underestimated.5 Indeed, he often characterizes the absence of it as the single most significant contributor to the flawed state of Christianity in his day. He summarizes his high view of “experience” in no uncertain terms in a sermon from June 1890: One single little impression of God’s power, one experience [Erlebnis] of God in us that carries us up for a moment into the heights, is more helpful than anything we human beings can do, and more than all the “forms” of Christianity, though which you always just end up deceived.6 What does he mean by “an impression of God’s power,” and “an experience of God in us”? What is Christoph Blumhardt’s understanding of “experience” of God? This is the central question of this chapter. The category of “experience” of God is among the most difficult and elusive in Christian theology. As Ulrich Köpf puts it, Experience [Erfahrung] is not a religious or theological terminus technicus; rather, it is a concept from day-to-day life that gets applied to religious phenomena. . . . The basic problem—what is the relation between the religious-theological concept of experience and the more general one?—has yet to be satisfactorily resolved systematically, or to be surveyed adequately on the historical level.7 Fortunately, our focus on Christoph Blumhardt already somewhat narrows the category’s range of meaning. For example, our interest here is not in whether there is such a thing as “universal” religious experience, or in the degree to which accounts of divine “experience” are necessarily shaped and determined by their linguistic, psychological, and cultural interpretive contexts, or in how it relates to an empirically derived epistemological certainty. We are interested instead in Blumhardt’s own use of the category, as it relates to the debate between Lutheran and charismatic pneumatology.

5

6 7

In the secondary literature, only Lim does full justice to the centrality of this theme in Blumhardt’s theology. See his extended discussion in Lim, Sieger, 95–128. Sauter, too, recognizes somewhat the significance of the “Erlebnis” theme, though he interprets it under the larger category of “The ‘Reality’ Question.” See Sauter, Blumhardt, 41–5, 95–106, and 280–94. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 180. See also Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 392. Ulrich Köpf, “Erfahrung III/1,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 10, ed. Gerhard Müller (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter), 109.

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After some initial observations about his “Erlebnis” language, we will place Blumhardt’s concept of “experience” loosely within its Protestant and Pietist context. Doing so will point us toward certain helpful categories for interpreting his different uses of “Erlebnis” in this period. Once we have analyzed what “experience” means in his thought, we will be able to address more directly the theological question of whether Blumhardt should be considered a Schwärmer, or “enthusiast.”

Preliminary Observations Although his favorite word for the “experience” category is “Erlebnis,” Blumhardt employs a diverse vocabulary to communicate the kind(s) of encounter with God he has in mind: “God’s living testimonies [to himself],” “the living intervention of God,” “further revelations,” “unmediated contact with the living Word of God,” “the Savior’s unmediated intervention,” “great demonstrations of God in our spirit,” “an ongoing experience,” “God’s inner speech,” “direct speech from God,” “the voice of the living God,” “to have an experience of God,” “personal revelations,” and “direct instructions from the Savior,” among many others.8 Two observations can be made at this point, which will help to place Blumhardt’s conception more precisely, both theologically and historically. First, “experience” of God is often closely connected with a communication and attestation from God to the individual (or, occasionally, group) of the living presence of the resurrected Christ in the world. The fact that “Jesus lives” is something that “must be experienced.” Blumhardt is contrasting experience of the living reality of Christ with what in his view would be mere cognitive knowledge or confessional conviction of the truth of Christ’s Resurrection and consequent immanence in the world.9 The dynamic and “living” character of God in the world is central for Blumhardt, as is evident from the repeated use of terminology like “living,” and his stress on the ongoing nature of experience and revelation (“further revelations,” “ongoing experience”). The stress on the “living” character of God, on which basis

8

9

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 40, 47, 56, 97, 126; Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 21; Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 5, 11; Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 6, 4, 8; Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 99; Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 36, 42; and Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 257. These examples are chosen on the basis of their use of wide-ranging but related vocabulary to describe what I shall argue is more or less the same thing. For sermons that engage particularly deeply with the “Erlebnis” category in this period, see Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 94–102, 159–68, 176–84, 305–14; Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 3 and 6; and the Gedanken aus dem Reich Gottes, sections 1–3 and 14. “Not . . . just a conceptual Kingdom of God,” but “but how it [exists] in revelations” (Blumhardt, VB 1894, vol. 4, 6).

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the divine can be “experienced,” is often grounded christologically, on the basis of the Resurrection.10 A second feature of “experience” is that it tends to be punctiliar in nature—it happens at a specific moment in time, and is limited in duration. We see this in tactile words like “contact” and “intervention” [Eingreifen], and in demonstrative and communicative language like “demonstrations,” “instructions,” and “appearance.”11 Blumhardt also speaks a great deal about the effects and results of divine “Erlebnis,” implying time before and after an event. Although he affirms the possibility of a series of such experiences in a person’s life—he attests a great number of them in his own—Blumhardt does not describe “experience” as constant or continuous. Sometimes God encounters people, and sometimes he does not. Nevertheless, there is a sense of a whole new type of Christian existence that is characterized by the expectation of such experiences: His hope is, “that we might be born again . . . and might desire to be people of experience [Erlebensleute] in the Kingdom of God.”12 Punctiliar experiences both lead to and arise from this continuous expectation and hope.

Punctiliar “Experience” of God in Pietist Traditions In stressing the importance of unmediated, “punctiliar” encounter with the living God, Blumhardt is following in a long tradition in German Pietism. For all the critical disagreement over the definition of “Pietism,” one of the features that is almost always acknowledged by interpreters is its focus on individual “experience” of God over and against formalism and confessionalism. Lindberg notes Pietism’s “emphasis that the Christian life is a walk and not a talk, a becoming not being, that heart religion opposes head religion, that life is over doctrine.”13 According to Joachim Track, “the intellectual and spiritual power, and the vitality, of Pietism and all related movements lies in their orientation towards experience.”14 John Wesley, the British interpreter and heir of German Pietism, expresses the movement’s impulse well when he contrasts “a religion of form, a round of outward duties, performed in a decent, regular manner, . . . a system of right opinions,” with “the religion of the heart.”15 R. A. Knox, in his perceptive (if eccentric) study, places Pietism under the umbrella of “enthusiasm,” which in his view 10 11 12 13 14

15

See Lim, Sieger, 111. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 161. Ibid., 190. Emphasis added. Lindberg, “Introduction,” 6. Joachim Track, “Erfahrung III/2,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 10, ed. Gerhard Müller (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter), 121. See also Erb, “Introduction,” 3, 25. John Wesley, “The Nature of Enthusiasm (Sermon 37),” in Sermons II: 34–70, The Works of John Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), para. 1.

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is any religious movement that focuses on “direct personal access to the Author of our salvation,” “inward experience of peace and joy,” and “the guidance (directly felt, they would tell you) of the Holy Spirit.”16 Lehmann notes that Württemberg Pietists tend strongly to affirm the importance of “unmediated experiences,” especially the idea of unmediated communication of divine guidance that is characteristic of the “Pietist intellectual tradition.”17 The focus on “experience” in German Pietism only increased as the movement matured: Horst Weigelt observes “an intensified cultivation of a culture of ‘feeling’” and “a higher valuation of subjective experience”18 among German Pietists at the start of the nineteenth century than in the previous two centuries. For all the acknowledged importance of the category of “experience,” however, interpreters of Pietism rarely provide more extensive analysis of what they mean by the term. This is due in large part to the great variety of opinions and emphases on the subject among Pietists themselves, and in other revival movements. Some, like Zinzendorf, focused on the priority of spiritual experience (in his case, mystical worship of the wounded Christ) alongside and over the Bible in developing Christian teaching19; Württembergers were especially interested in “‘leadings’ from God” and “divine ‘signs’”20; Francke emphasized the “felt” experience of conversion, resulting in an “enduring change of the will.”21 Wesley, too, gave priority to the encounter with the Spirit in “New Birth,” which sanctifies and transforms, and is accompanied by love, joy, and peace, and other affective, “inward feelings,” which in turn are a mark of assurance of salvation.22 Finally, the elder Blumhardt himself is perhaps the chief exponent in later Pietism of “experience” as encounter with the miraculous power of God to cast out spiritual evil and to heal the body. Most Pietists shared more than one of these emphases, though few held to them all. 16

17 18

19 20 21

22

R. A. Knox, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, with Special Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 1–2, 398–9. For my own, somewhat different definition of “enthusiasm,” see the discussion of Schwärmerei below. Lehmann, Pietismus, 16. Horst Weigelt, “Der Pietismus im Übergang vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert,” in Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Brecht, and Klaus Depperman, Geschichte des Pietismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 700. Brecht, “Pietismus,” 259. Bengel did the reverse. See Lehmann, Pietismus, 17. Ibid., 16. Markus Matthias, “August Hermann Francke (1663–1727),” in The Pietist Theologians (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 107. John Wesley, “To Dr. Rutherforth,” in The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Vol. V: February 28, 1766–December 9, 1772 (London: The Epworth Press, 1931), 358, 363; see also Thomas C. Oden, John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity: A Plain Exposition of His Teaching on Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 89–90, 232, 234.

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It would appear, then, that certain discrete categories of “experience” can be identified within Pietist thought and practice: divine guidance, encounter with the divine power to perform outward miracles like healing, and “inward feelings” of spiritual peace and joy that accompany sanctificationtransformation in conversion. There is a significant problem with delineating different types of “experience” in this way, however: Experience “types” that are distinguishable conceptually are usually much harder to differentiate from one another in practice. For example, “leadings” can not only take place during and be part of the “New Birth” experience but can also occur on their own. Similarly, feelings of great spiritual peace often accompany conversion but can also be experienced in distinction from it. We will see specific examples of this in some of Blumhardt’s descriptions of unmediated “Erlebnis,” as discussed below. However, the observation that in practice these different types of unmediated “experience” events often take place at the same time for Pietists does not change the fact that they can be meaningfully distinguished theologically. Personal revelatory guidance—such as when Blumhardt feels “led” to prepare his property for the event of his death23—clearly falls into a different theological category from the spiritual transformation of “New Birth.” As we employ some of the Pietist “experience” types in our following analysis of Blumhardtian “Erlebnis,” it is important to bear in mind that distinctions that are clear theologically are often quite blurry in practice. Our typology is employed simply as an aid to establish some degree of conceptual order within the loose and dynamic category of punctiliar “experience” in Blumhardt’s thought.

Three Categories of “Experience” Using Pietist unmediated “experience” as a starting point, we can distinguish three broad categories that will serve to guide our analysis of Blumhardtian “Erlebnis.” The first is what we will call revelatory experience, in which information is communicated from God to his people apart from the instrument of scripture. The interpretation of “signs” in one’s life and in historical events, visions and dreams, and direct hearing of an audible divine voice fall into this category. In its more extreme forms, “revelatory” experience communicates new divine revelation in such a way as to imply that God’s revelation in Jesus Christ and scripture is incomplete or inadequate. More commonly, however, it describes a much more modest day-to-day divine guidance in the life of an individual believer, almost always relating to basic decision making and to evangelism. For our purposes, we will refer to the former type as “strong” revelatory experience, and the latter as “weak” revelatory experience. Biblically, God’s words to the prophets or his promises 23

Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 133–4.

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to Abraham would be examples of “strong” revelatory experience, while Philip’s being guided to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 would fall into the “weak” category. The second “Erlebnis” category is also the most straightforward: external miracles like healing or exorcism. Miraculous physical events like a healing are a kind of “experience,” both for the one healed and for witnesses to the event. Interestingly, of the types of unmediated “experience” in Pietist and Pentecostal theology, this is the only one that might not immediately be rejected as “enthusiasm” by Luther. In his letters, Luther recounts witnessing and being impressed by a few miraculous healings.24 He simply believed, with Calvin,25 that for the most part God had chosen no longer to perform this sort of external miracle. The third “experience” category is the type of punctiliar encounter with God that converts, sanctifies, and/or empowers the individual, and which is accompanied by strong internal emotional response, usually in feelings of love, joy, spiritual peace, and personal intimacy with God. In Pietism and in Pentecostalism, this category is both the most important of the three and the most fluid and complex in its definition. Although normally associated with conversion (Wesley’s “heart strangely warmed”), this type of “self-transcend[ent]”26 personal encounter is also described at times as taking place long after the “New Birth,” even on a series of distinct occasions. Pentecostals, in particular, have tended to distinguish between the experience of salvation and sanctification on the one hand, and a subsequent “Spirit baptism,” which empowers for evangelistic witness, on the other (though not all Pentecostals separate the two27). In Ward’s view, the general but not absolute connection in Pietism between conversion, sanctification, and empowerment with spiritual gifts resulted in a theological and practical “conundrum” that was never fully resolved.28 This third category of “experience” is divided in Christoph Blumhardt’s thought into two distinct subcategories. The first is what we will call “feelings” experience, which is simply the positive, affective peace and joy often produced by encounters with the Spirit. For Blumhardt, “feelings” experience was not related either to conversion or to sanctification and empowerment. Instead, sanctification and empowerment experiences are subverted in his thought into a new category, what I call negative experience. In essence, 24

25

26

27 28

Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. Theodore G. Tappert, vol. 18, Library of Christian Classics (London: SCM Press, 1955), 46, 52. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: Vol. 2, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), IV.19.18. The terms “self-transcendent” and “transcendent” are taken from Macchia’s description of Spirit baptism. See Macchia, Baptized, 14. See Macchia, Baptized, 20–1. W. R. Ward, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 354–5.

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“negative” experience is the opposite of the traditional moment of sanctification and/or empowerment in Pietist and Pentecostal theology. It is a painful encounter with the truth of one’s sin, and the destruction by God of “egoistic” pretensions to power. It is the revelation of God’s power and holiness over and against human impotence and unrighteousness, and results in “Sterben,” not “New Birth.”29

“Mediated” and “Unmediated” A further word of clarification is in order about the concept of “mediation” being employed here. Use of the term “unmediated” might appear odd in light of the fact that what we are calling “unmediated experience” is often quite obviously “mediated”—for example, “revelatory” experience through signs or visions. Strictly speaking, even revelation through a “direct” voice from heaven, such as during Jesus’ baptism, would be “mediated” through the voice, through sound waves and eardrums. An “inner” voice, too, would have to be interpreted and processed—“mediated”—by the brain. Since Kant, it is difficult to conceive of any communication or encounter as “unmediated” by a priori contextual, cultural, and psychological interpretive categories. Why then continue in the use of such a problematic distinction? What do we mean when we refer to experience as “unmediated”? First of all, the distinction is not my own—Blumhardt himself repeatedly contrasts his understanding of “Erlebnis” with other forms by calling it “direct” or “unmediated.” Interpreters of Pietism, too, find the word helpful for describing what is distinctive about Pietist conceptions of “experience.”30 What is signified in both cases is not lack of mediation as such, but rather a contrast to the traditional Protestant, and especially Lutheran, view that the Spirit’s action in the inner life of a believer is always mediated first by the verbum externum of scriptural preaching and the sacraments. “Unmediated” for Pietists and their interpreters means first and foremost “not mediated by the Word.” It is in this sense that the term is to be understood in this study. Even here, it must be stressed, however, that for Blumhardt and for most Pietists and Pentecostals this nonmediation by the Word is not to be understood as against the Word, or as never involving the Word. Rather, it means simply that the experience is not necessarily or exclusively Word dependent. Blumhardt himself, however, does not appear to mean just “not mediated by the scripturally-grounded Word” when he talks about “the Savior’s unmediated intervention.” For him, and most likely for many Pietists before

29

30

See the following for our discussion of “positive” categories of new creation and resurrection subsequent to “Sterben” in Blumhardt’s thought, which are ultimately future, eschatological categories for him. See, for example, the above quotations from Knox and Lehmann.

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him and many Pentecostals after, the term describes something fundamental about his own “experiences” of God. It signifies personal communication from God, and a “felt” directness unlike any other form of divine–human relationship. The post-Kantian argument that even an “inner voice” or spontaneous emotional response is still “mediated” psychologically, culturally, and even physiologically, would not be very interesting to Blumhardt. With these two caveats in mind, I will continue to refer to “unmediated” experience as a useful conceptual contrast to Lutheran pneumatological “mediation.”

Blumhardtian “Erlebnis” According to the Typology When we apply this three-part typology of “unmediated” experience to Christoph Blumhardt, it is much easier to make sense of his variety of “Erlebnis” language. We find both affirmation and critique of the various theologically distinguishable types of Pietist and Pentecostal unmediated experience in his preaching during the 1888–96 period.

“Revelatory” Experience There is no question that a significant part of Blumhardt’s concept of “Erlebnis” is simply direct divine speech. Blumhardt can characterize the divine speaker at different times as the Holy Spirit (“Seek out the Holy Spirit, that he might speak with you directly!”31), or Jesus Christ (“Jesus lives! . . . He won’t be quiet, he will speak! . . . Already he is . . . speaking in the stillness”32), or the Father,33 or the Son through the Spirit (“that everyone might hear the voice of the Son of God through the Spirit of God”34). Blumhardt hopes for and expects, and claims himself to experience, “hearing” the unmediated “voice of the living God,” and this is a significant part of his conception of “experience.” “Hearing” does not necessarily mean a thunderous voice from the clouds, or a physical appearance of the Risen Christ—though Blumhardt would not rule out either as a possibility. Rather, he seems usually to be referring to an “inner” voice,35 or a confluence of thoughts, impressions, and feelings that are interpreted by the “listener” as concrete instruction from the Lord.36 31 32 33 34 35

36

Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 236. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 5, 27. Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 3, 6–7. Ibid., vol. 6, 6. “this sort of inner divine speech”; “who speaks in our hearts”; and so on (ibid., vol. 6, 4, 6). Additionally, in a few cases Blumhardt refers to having prophetic visions that later came true. See Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 41, and Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 6, 18.

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Although it is clear that Blumhardt affirms both the possibility and the importance of “direct speech from God,” it is more difficult to determine what sort of content this “speech” is expected to communicate. Is it personal guidance in day-to-day matters (“weak” revelatory experience) or new, extra-biblical information about God’s relationship to humanity (“strong” revelatory experience), or both? Surprisingly, given his strong emphasis on recognizing the living reality of God in the world, Blumhardt rarely references instances of “weak” revelatory experience in his sermons. For example, on the several occasions that he publicly announces a decision to withdraw from some aspect of the Bad Boll ministry, we might expect him to justify his decision on the basis of a divine communication or sign, but he does not.37 Although Blumhardt was well known for extensive private prayer, and quite likely felt confirmed in most of his major decisions on the basis of “experiences” in prayer, he does not claim publicly to be acting on instruction from the Lord in such cases.38 In 1886, not long before the “sterbet” period, he expresses reticence about claims to revelatory experience: You [have to] be careful not to attribute too much of what goes on in your head to the Lord. For myself, I am dreadfully apprehensive before I say: “The Lord told me!” This is because I have had countless experiences where I thought I was absolutely correct about something but afterwards it turned out to be a mistake.39 Here again we see Blumhardt’s wariness about “egoism” masked in religious language: The claim to receiving direct communication from God often turns out to be grounded in self-deception. Indeed, the entire problem of the impasse between Lutheran and Pentecostal theology is present in this tension between claims to unmediated divine speech and wariness about egoistic self-deception! What is curious in light of Blumhardt’s reticence and sobriety about claims to “weak” revelatory experience is the fact that, on the few occasions where he does explicitly and publicly claim to have received direct guidance from God, the guidance falls demonstrably into the category of “strong” revelatory experience. We saw the classic example in Chapter 2, in the 1888 announcement of the “sterbet” theology: God “has made it known to me in my spirit that, . . . it is true that I have been of service to him in my labors up until this point,” but now has told him instead that his “sole endeavor should be that I . . . allow that which has taken place up until now to die,” 37

38 39

He explains the decisions instead theologically, or by the fact that he is overworked and exhausted. See Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 35–6, 96–7, and Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 438–47. For an exception, see Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 133–4. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 237.

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because “then God will want to bring something new.”40 God here has given Blumhardt direct, “unmediated” commentary on his previous work, a concrete new instruction, and a description of what to expect as a result. Blumhardt is confident enough of the divine nature of the source to claim publicly that his new theological impulse is grounded in a personal, unmediated revelation from God. Blumhardt’s “strong” revelatory experiences must be understood in the context of the eschatology described earlier. When God desires for his “little flock” to leave an old “station” behind, and move on to a specific new one, he does so first and foremost through direct communication. It is this active leading that Blumhardt has in mind in the Gedanken when he explains the eschatological importance in the post-Resurrection period of “further,” “continually renewed revelation.”41 Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s “experience” in Möttlingen and the “Station” it inaugurated is another example (indeed, the archetypal example), in his son’s view, of the close relationship between eschatology and experience.42 “Strong” revelatory experience is built into the foundation of Blumhardt’s eschatology, and the latter cannot be understood apart from it. It is “strong” revelation only within the category of eschatology, however—Blumhardt would not expect the Bible to be replaced or superceded in any way. The only “new” information God communicates on this “strong” level has to do with preparing the way for the Eschaton. Importantly, the Bible is not excluded in revelatory communication: It can act as “a sort of guiding conduit” for the divine speech, “as through a telephone.” But its usefulness in this regard is not due to “the letters” but because of the “living God” speaking through them.43 As Lim has observed, in Blumhardt’s understanding of scripture, the doctrine of “inspiration” is reversed: He talks “no longer of an inspired scripture, but of “inspired individuals” within the Bible.” The Bible is foremost a witness to unmediated encounter with God in the past, and to the “inspired” people who experienced such encounter. God speaks through it today in significant part through “inspiring” that past witness, regularly rendering it actual and relevant to present-day readers.44

40 41 42

43 44

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 78. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 56–7. In the Gedanken, Blumhardt uses “experience” language to characterize the entire Bad Boll ministry. He explains that the new developments in his ministry and theology are the result of interpreting Johann Christoph’s “foundational experiences” in light of “our present experience” (ibid., 34). Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 6, 8. For this quotation and for a more complete account of Blumhardt’s doctrine of scripture, see Lim, Sieger, 97, 95–100; as well as the discussion of “Bibliolatry” in Chapter 2.

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The view that the Bible can and often does serve as “a sort of guiding conduit” for divine communication does not displace Blumhardt’s concept of experience from the “strong” revelatory category, because he does not consider the Bible to be formally necessary for such communication.45 His description of it as a “guiding conduit,” like a “telephone,” implies that the Bible itself is not the revelation—it is rather the instrument through which a living revelation passes. Furthermore, far more common in his sermons are phrases like “personal revelations” and “direct speech from God,” which employ language emphasizing immediacy, precisely as opposed to conventional ideas of mediation through church and scripture: “what we need is revelation of Jesus Christ . . . [I]n spite of every insight, in spite of every Bible, . . . in spite of every church and of all theology, what we need is the Lord Jesus himself!”46 As we saw in Chapter 2, the contrasts Blumhardt draws between scripture on its own and “direct speech from God” must be understood in light of the fact that he read and preached from the Bible constantly throughout his life, and drew many of his theological and homiletical categories directly from it. In a sense, he oriented his whole life around scripture, and this point should not be lost sight of in the midst of his more critical, polemical statements. Nevertheless, the fact that he was willing in his sermons to draw a critical contrast, explicitly and repeatedly, between scriptural mediation and revelatory “immediacy” demonstrates a fundamental difference between his doctrine of the Word and that of the classical Reformation tradition.

Miraculous Experience Unsurprisingly, the younger Blumhardt also affirms our second broad category of unmediated “experience,” encounter with the miraculous power of God in the external world. When he refers repeatedly to the “God-ofactions” [Taten-Gott],47 it is particularly to events like healings that the term “actions” refers. More broadly, it describes biblical divine “acts” like sending plagues to Egypt, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and striking down the unrighteous. Blumhardt writes in the Gedanken that the twin task for his readers is “to abandon the ground of everything self-serving in Christianity,” and to keep “hoping for acts of God in service of the fulfillment of the Kingdom.”48 In Blumhardt’s theology, the archetypal “experience” is “my father’s foundational experiences” in Möttlingen. The Möttlingen events included forms of inner divine leading—for example, Johann Christoph felt drawn into

45 46 47 48

Ibid., 98–100; Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 19. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 121. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 423. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 130. Emphasis added.

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the Kampf by God49—as well as a prime example of “strong” revelatory experience in the eschatologically significant theological watchword “Jesus is Victor!” But at the heart of what took place there was what both Blumhardts believed to be an exorcism. Jesus’ “victory” was not just internal, or psychological, or spiritual, though it was all of those things. It was first and foremost a concrete “intervention from the Savior” that freed a “possessed” woman from a bondage that was harming her physically as well as spiritually. The physical healings for which both Blumhardts are famous are also examples of divine “intervention” as any miracle with an obvious physical result would be. When Blumhardt’s “Taten-Gott” acts, the world changes.50 Christoph Blumhardt believes strongly that “physical” experiences like this can and do take place, as they are reported to have done throughout Johann Christoph’s and much of Christoph’s ministry. Furthermore, the theological foundation for both Blumhardts’ theology—a conviction of God’s living power to act in concrete ways today—originated in an experience of that power that had a strong physical, miraculous component, as well as a spiritual one. Even so, after his father’s death “miraculous” experience comes under increasing suspicion in the younger Blumhardt’s thought. During the 1888–96 period, Blumhardt becomes as wary of the misuse of healing experiences as he is of claims to God’s direct guidance in minor matters: “as a result of religious influence, healing of the sick, too, . . . has become a thing of the flesh, instead of remaining a thing of the Spirit.”51 Here, too, the “sterbet” theology gives him a critical distance from such experiences. In April 1892, he wrote a brief letter to all the “needy and the sick, who have written to me,” explaining a newfound wariness about healing prayers, grounded in “sterbet” theology.52 Two years later, he wrote again, this time that he would no longer pray for healing on behalf of those who wrote to him and came to him.53 As he worked out the implications of the “sterbet” theology in the years after 1888, Blumhardt began to associate miracles and other “physical” experiences of God with the element in his father’s theology he saw himself to be rejecting. He summarizes his new position in the Gedanken: “God’s next goal is not blessedness, not physical health, but his righteousness, from which the other two follow naturally.”54 What is needed instead is the other type of “acts of God,” which act to judge and destroy humanity in 49 50

51

52 53 54

Ising, Blumhardt, 168. Sauter’s view that the Blumhardtian conception of the Kingdom is in significant part a “question of power” is relevant here. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 142, 138–44. For a classic discussion of his thinking on this subject, see the whole of sections nine and ten. Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 3, 1, 1–3. Blumhardt, “Freunde.” Blumhardt, Gedanken, 139.

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his or her Fleisch, in order to bring new life. We will return to this “negative” experience category in a moment.

“Feelings” Experience The element of traditional Pietist “experience” Blumhardt is least interested in is “feelings” experience, in which the individual is given for a time a “transcendent” sensation of divine nearness, peace, and joy. Although Blumhardt does not deny that there can be “blessed moments” during which “[God] sends to us . . . his sabbath,” these feelings on their own are not usually what he intends in his exhortations to “Erlebnis”: “our feelings of blessing and spiritual transcendence do no service to the Savior.”55 One [is] so often deceived in one’s feelings of blessing and spiritual transcendence. “Where did God go? I had such warm feelings, but now I am so cold!” Someone asked me this once. I answered him, “Exactly! I just wish all [such] spiritual ‘warm feelings’ would die away, so that you might be excited about heaven, instead of trying to be justified on earth!”56 The sorts of feelings produced by an experience of God, especially the “positive” ones of closeness to God, “warmth,” and peace, join “weak” revelatory and miraculous experience, in Blumhardt’s view, in tending to be co-opted very quickly by the Fleisch and its “egoism.” Once co-opted, such feelings are rendered dangerous and misleading. True “experience”—or rightly understood experience, at any rate—always orients the person toward God and away from themselves; it should never be “experience . . . resulting in a profit.”57 Nevertheless, Blumhardt does not go so far as to say that “Erlebnis” does not or cannot include positive feelings at all. His claim is simply that they are not the real point, and are easily misinterpreted. For many Pietists and most Pentecostals, as we have seen, “feelings of blessedness” or “transcendence” are considered important not primarily on their own terms, but because of their close connection with “New Birth” and “Spirit baptism.” They are the mark of being filled with the Spirit, and of the sanctification and empowerment that result. One reason Blumhardt was able to ignore this connection is that he does not share the type of Pietist soteriology that seeks assurance of salvation through such feelings. His universalistic and future-oriented eschatological soteriology renders “assurance” of salvation unimportant. However, despite this traditional association with conversion and “second baptism” in Pietist 55 56 57

Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 3, 6–7. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 218. Ibid., 222.

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and Pentecostal thought, sanctification and empowerment are theological categories that are not necessarily dependent on a specific soteriology. To explain why Blumhardt is not interested in “feelings” as assurance is not necessarily to explain the absence of sanctification-transformation emphasis in his conception of “Erlebnis.” It is with the latter in mind that we turn now to Blumhardt’s subversion of sanctification and empowerment categories into “negative” experience.

“Negative” Experience Up to this point in our discussion of “experience,” the “sterbet” theology we saw in Chapter 2 has played little role. Each of the experience types we have looked at so far is on its own terms difficult to reconcile with a Lutheran theologia crucis. Indeed, unmediated personal guidance from God, warm feelings of peace and nearness to Him, and miraculous healing and deliverance are classic examples of theologia gloriae. The God of such experiences is not acting sub contrario at all. As Blumhardt slowly integrates these types of “experience” with his “sterbet” theology, each begins to come under attack. He becomes increasingly convinced of the power of the Fleisch to usurp and co-opt such experiences to its own ends. In each case, however, Blumhardt does not deny the possibility that true, “positive” unmediated experiences of God can, and do, take place. For all the warnings and qualifications, such experiences are still an important part of what Blumhardt means in his pleas for “Erlebnis” of God. We, and Blumhardt, have arrived at a theological impasse here: The logic of “sterbet,” with its suspicion and condemnation of the person in his or her entire “Wesen as a person” is fundamentally opposed to the logic of “glory” experiences of the Divine. There is, however, a point of contact between these mutually conflicting theologies, and this point of contact becomes the cornerstone of Blumhardt’s “experience” theology in the 1888–96 period. It is the “unmediated” inner experience of divine judgment upon the Fleisch and consequent destruction of the egoistic self. He describes this dynamic in no uncertain terms in May 1890: “God’s works turn [us] into ‘nobodies’. Everything that the Savior does demonstrates to a person his or her poverty and nothingness.”58 Similarly: “When God acts, the world turns upside down.” Every divine action “proclaims the final Judgment.”59

“Truth and Righteousness” In order to understand the connection Blumhardt sees between the acts of God and his radical judgment upon humanity, we need to be aware of an 58 59

Ibid., 171. Ibid., 186.

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ongoing theme that surfaces, unobtrusively but insistently, well over 100 times in his writings during this period: what he calls the “the Truth and Righteousness of God” [die Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit Gottes].60 Blumhardt pairs the words “Wahrheit” and “Gerechtigkeit” so often that they are best understood as a single term designating a central feature of his doctrine of God.61 This feature is more than simply the absolute and consistent goodness and righteousness of God, though it is that too. It emphasizes that feature of God’s nature that cannot and will not compromise with sinfulness and untruth in human beings in any form, as in Psalm 5:4, “evil may not sojourn with thee.” Blumhardt articulates this principle in many ways: “the Holy One does not permit a life to stand in contradiction to his Law”; “for us, [the Holy Spirit] remains withdrawn, the ultimate expression of God’s holiness. It does not allow itself to mix with anything impure, and we have no right even to describe it”; “The Good Lord is only interested in something whole, he does not accept half of a thing”; “for the Lord is holy and righteous and is in heaven and not on earth”; and so on.62 Because Blumhardt sees humanity in the very negative terms of the “sterbet” theology, it is not surprising that he views “Truth and Righteousness” as fundamentally absent in the contemporary world, including in Christians. The absolute character of these terms, therefore, turns them, functionally, into eschatological categories. Only in the fulfilled Kingdom will God’s “Truth and Righteousness” come into their own; in the meantime, as the Kingdom breaks in proleptically from time to time, they represent the active eschatological judgment of God on the sin of the Kingdomless world. Most importantly for our current discussion, this breaking-in is not just conceptual. It really happens in time; it is, therefore, experienced. When the God of radical “Truth and Righteousness” breaks in and encounters the world, and especially the individuals in it, the result in the first instance is the “experience” of judgment and the annihilation of the Fleisch. “For the truth is always a judgment.”63 In other words, for those who have not yet “died” to themselves in Blumhardt’s sense, “Truth and Righteousness” serve the function of what has been known in Protestant theology as the “theological use of the Law.” They even share with the usus theologicus legis the curious feature of referring simultaneously to a static standard of behavior and to an active, experienceable spiritual force.64 60 61

62 63 64

Ibid., 527. The pairing is ubiquitous in the writings from this period, in this form and in minor variations (e.g., “the truth of life and the righteousness of life”). See, for example: ibid., 132, 237, 255, 349, 416, 527, 573; Blumhardt, Gedanken, 44, 71, 176; Blumhardt, VB 1890, vol. 1, 4, 13; Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 2, 16 and vol. 7, 13. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 178 and 175; Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 118 and 103. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 5, 17. See Chapter 7 for further discussion of the “theological” use of the Law.

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“Dying” as “Negative” Experience “Sterben” as a result of contact with God’s “Truth and Righteousness” is more than just a theological principle for Blumhardt. It is a major type of unmediated “experience.” This form of “Erlebnis” is implicit in his countless exhortations to and descriptions of “dying that Jesus may live.” As we have seen, he expects the “dying” to take place in a concrete and specific way in the life of the believer, in history, even if at times it looks more like a several stage process than a single punctiliar experience. The connection between “sterbet” and the experience of divine judgment is made explicitly many times in Blumhardt’s preaching in this period. Previously, we saw that “God’s works turn [us] into ‘nobodies’,” and that all God’s actions “proclaim the final Judgment.” Elsewhere, Blumhardt refers explicitly to “Sterben” as an experience that makes way for “Truth and Righteousness”: Neither what is seen nor what is unseen, neither what is past nor what is present, can have an effect on people who . . . have experienced his [Jesus’] victory over their own flesh, and who have made room for God’s Truth and his Righteousness in Christ Jesus.65 In another text, he characterizes divine “revelation” as an active agent of judgment: “His revelation will penetrate into the world . . . Revelation will punish and judge the world, revelation will finally bring salvation to all creatures!”66 The experience of judgment has affective as well as spiritual effects: “guilt [must] . . . be experienced apart from any consolation, in the context of unpleasant feelings.”67 Putting it even more strongly, Blumhardt claims that the most reliable sign of the Holy Spirit at work in a person is “not so much divine peace as birth-pangs, the anxiety and unsettled feeling that accompanies profound change.”68 Clearly, Christoph Blumhardt’s conception of “experience” of God includes a major role for what we are calling “negative” experience.69 65 66

67 68 69

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 98. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 5, 27. Emphasis added. Similarly: “this is how God reigns over his children on earth: there are tangible experiences, both of judgment and of grace.” (Blumhardt, Gedanken, 40). Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 8, 8. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 179. At times, there is evidence of a certain ambiguity in Blumhardt’s thinking on the relationship between “Sterben” and “Erlebnis”: Although generally the “Sterben” should be construed as itself an “experience” of God, it can also be seen as a necessary condition for “experience” (see, for example, ibid., 186). There are far more references, however, especially in the Gedanken, to “Sterben” as experience of God than to “sterben” as precondition for experience.

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This kind of experience accomplishes a specific end: the judgment and spiritual “death” of the one experiencing God in this way. It also creates “space” for the Holy Spirit, for God’s “Truth and Righteousness”—“for the Spirit is Truth and the Spirit is Righteousness”70—to interact with us in a new, positive way. “Revelation” brings judgment in order to bring “salvation” and new life. Being killed and made alive are the “acts” of God that Blumhardt longs above all for the world to experience. They fill the space in his theology that is left by the growing dissatisfaction with the miraculous, physical experience (healing, in particular) that is central to the meaning of “Jesus is Victor!”, the foundational Blumhardtian theological statement.

The Elusive “Positive” in Blumhardt’s Theology It is important to note that, although Blumhardt always connects “negative” experience with a positive result, the emphasis in this period remains on the negative. The details of the “negative” are described extensively between 1888–96, indirectly and directly, in the form of his critiques of church, Christian “egoism,” and so on. The positive, on the other hand, the new life, is usually either left vague or is conflated with the characteristics of the fulfilled Kingdom, or both. In one sermon, Blumhardt explains that the purpose and hope behind the “dying” is “that we might be born again . . . and might desire to be people of experience in the Kingdom of God.” As “people of experience” we become vessels for the Holy Spirit to go out “into the world to the glory of God . . . that everything might be ordered clearly and according to God’s will.” After this vague description, Blumhardt immediately moves into his eschatological mode: The ultimate goal of this new life is “the last and greatest experience of God’s glory,” which is “[the] salvation of all creatures”— that is, the fulfilled Kingdom of God in the world.71 The reason for this swift turn to the eschatological when talking about new life—a turn that amounts to a theological elision of the post-“Sterben” life and the final fulfilled life in the Kingdom—is complex. In part, it relates to Blumhardt’s sense of eschatological penultimacy, his hope that each “station” will prove to be the last. More significantly, it is a consequence of Blumhardt’s theological dualism, which is grounded in the vastness of the distance he perceives between people as they are and people as they should be, and between the world as it is and the world as it will be in the fulfilled Kingdom. In principle, Blumhardt does not want to conflate post-“Sterben” life with the ultimate life of the Kingdom, as the above quotation demonstrates, but the uncompromising logic of his radical view of the Kingdom and of God’s “Truth and Righteousness” makes such a conflation difficult 70 71

Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 72. Ibid., 190–1.

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to avoid. His “stations” framework allows, at least in principle, for a kind of chronological gradualism, or at least ongoing eschatological delay, which is viewed as necessary in light of the fact that the Kingdom was not fulfilled in Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s lifetime. But this gradualism stands in tension with and is continually undermined by the more powerful theological dualism—a dualism structurally integral to the theological statements: “Jesus is Victor!” and “Die, that Jesus may live!” It is not that Blumhardt is not interested in the “life” on the other side of the “Sterben”—it is that he believes that any true “Erlebnis” of the “God-ofaction,” the “God who actually does something— . . . the God of the Bible!”, will result naturally in new life, the glorification of God, and, in the end, the fulfillment of the Kingdom—“the rest will then follow naturally by itself.”72 New life does not need to be explained or encouraged, because it will be so fundamentally interwoven with God’s active power and agency in the world. It is also to be expected primarily in the fulfilled Kingdom, not before. “That Jesus may live”: Once he truly “lives” again, and we in our Fleisch are, as it were, “out of the way,” and the Spirit is no longer the “withdrawn” but has been poured out once more, there will be no further need for preachers, and the Kingdom will soon be fulfilled. For this reason, we must say that “negative” experience—judgment, suffering, and so on—rather than the “positive” type that follows from it—new life, resurrection, sanctification—is what stands at the heart of Blumhardt’s “experience” theology in the 1888–96 period.

“Negative” Experience as Disempowerment Even though he hoped that the “sterbet” station would be the Last, and believed strongly in the power of God in his day to heal, to speak directly, and to perform other concrete miracles and actions, Blumhardt did not see any of these factors as empowering “the elect” to convert the nations in the name of Christ, or as sanctifying them to be fundamentally more righteous than before. Rather, as we have seen, the reverse is the case: God’s primary manner of encountering his people is in the annihilation of their “Wesen as people.” “Negative” experience is a radical reminder of their lack of “power” and their inescapable tendency to misuse any power they might have, even power given from on high, as in the healings. “Sterben” is “the path on which we deny ourselves and realize that our own powers are always deceptive.”73 Jesus is instead seen as the sole significant agent with “power” to bring about the fulfillment of the Kingdom—“that Jesus may live.” The fulfilled Kingdom is the “province of God’s power” specifically as opposed to humanity’s. The sole task of any agency God’s people might 72 73

Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 423. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 170.

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have (if any, as we saw in Chapter 3) is to “get out of the way,” and give up or “die to” the pretension to power. Similarly, sanctification and regeneration for Blumhardt take place reliably only in the Eschaton. The “negative” experience of “Sterben” is understood not to make holy but to destroy the illusion of personal holiness in the pre-Kingdom world—a “swindle” to which Christians, with their “false piety,” are particularly susceptible.74 Lim overestimates the degree to which a meaningful “regeneration of the person” actually takes place in Blumhardt’s thought, whether through “Erlebnis” or otherwise.75 Almost always when Blumhardt talks about “the regenerated person,” he is speaking about a hoped-for state rather than a currently existing one. His “underrealized” eschatology trumps the expectation of “regeneration,” in this phase and in the quietistic fourth phase, as we shall see in the next chapter. I agree here with Sauter, who identifies the true mark of the “little flock” “under the sign of the Resurrected Lord” in both Blumhardt’s 1888–96 period and his final period as its “powerlessness”—precisely the opposite of “regeneration.” The “positive” for Blumhardt is finally located in the fulfilled Kingdom alone.76

Was Christoph Blumhardt a “Schwärmer”? In the Protestant, and especially Lutheran, tradition, the term “Schwärmer” has tended to be understood pejoratively. “Schwärmerei” is seen as a major type of heresy, to be avoided at all costs. It was Luther who popularized the term, and Luther went so far as to say that “enthusiasm” “is the source, power, and might of all the heresies.”77 Although the term “Schwärmer” is rarely used, there is a critical consensus among Blumhardt interpreters that Christoph Blumhardt fails fully to escape what Sauter calls “the danger-zone of religious subjectivism.”78 Is “religious subjectivism” the same as Schwärmerei? The answer depends on one’s definition. For Luther, the crucial defining characteristic of “enthusiasm” was quite specific: immediacy of contact with God, that is, contact not mediated via the Word.79 Theologically, the term also tends to connote endorsement of an overrealized eschatology.80 Last of all, Schwärmerei can 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 195. See Lim, Sieger, 115–16, 118–19. See Sauter, Blumhardt, 129–31, 220–3. Smalcald Articles, III, 8:9 (p. 323). Sauter, Blumhardt, 80; Meier, Blumhardt, 22, 145; Stober, Blumhardt, 237, 262. See Chapters 1 and 7. See, for example, Sauter’s question about Johann Christoph Blumhardt: “is Blumhardt a schwärmerischer enthusiast, who wants to view eschatology as realized?” (Sauter, Blumhardt, 41), as well as Thiselton’s assumption of a necessary connection between the two (see the discussion of underrealized eschatology in Chapter 3).

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become a catchword for any form of Christianity characterized by chaos, disorder, and un–self-critical naïvète. This multiplicity of meanings is problematic, especially the assumption that the first necessarily implies the second. Christoph Blumhardt is the example par excellence of theologian who holds simultaneously a strong view of unmediated contact with God and a pronouncedly under-realized eschatology. The direct causal connection so often assumed to exist between unmediated experience and overrealized eschatology depends on whether or not one understands unmediated contact with God necessarily to entail spiritual empowerment of the individual or group encountered. Usually, empowerment of this kind has been understood to mean bestowal of the gifts of the Spirit described by Paul, including healing, prophecy, and the like, in a new or particularly powerful way, to enable a final period of missionary work before the return of Christ.81 On the surface, it appears to be quite reasonable to identify a direct relationship between charismatic revival and chiliasm. Historically, one can observe many examples of such a connection, not least of which is the Pentecostal movement itself: As D. W. Faupel has shown, the early years of the movement are unthinkable apart from the robust premillenial eschatology through which the new “gifts” were interpreted.82 The Blumhardts, too, offer an example of a basic connection between unmediated experience of God, especially of the revelatory and miraculous varieties, and the recovery of eschatological urgency. Although strictly speaking neither Blumhardt’s eschatology is premillenial or chiliastic (they both rejected the idea of a 1000-year reign of Christ before the final eschatological fulfillment, though Christoph more strongly than Johann Christoph83), their views on the final return of Christ have more in common theologically with chiliastic eschatology than with the traditional Protestant sort. Crucially, however, despite this connection, Christoph Blumhardt’s eschatology was decidedly under-realized in the 1888–96 period. In place of empowerment or sanctification-transformation through unmediated “Erlebnis,” Blumhardt expected encounter with God in the first instance not to do away with but to reveal unrighteousness and powerlessness. We see, then, that when unmediated experience of God is construed in the first instance as a negative or critical judgment on and annihilation of sin, it is possible to be an “enthusiast” in the first sense without being an “enthusiast” in the second sense. Despite what the tradition has tended to 81 82 83

Anderson, Pentecostalism, 217–20. Faupel, Eschatology, 20–7, 307–9. Blumhardt, GW II.4, 1877, No. 29, 149; Blumhardt, Brevier, 146; and Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 171–2. Christoph Blumhardt did criticize his father’s eschatology because, in its great hope for a “new outpouring of the Spirit,” it had failed to rule out completely the possibility of “a false chiliastic striving” (Blumhardt, Gedanken, 190).

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assume, the connection between pneumatological immediacy and overoptimistic eschatology is not theologically necessary, even though the former is often interpreted in light of the latter. Unmediated contact with God can be construed equally coherently as stripping the individual of power, as the example of the younger Blumhardt demonstrates. Christoph Blumhardt was often accused of being a “Schwärmer.”84 Insofar as “enthusiasm” means believing in experience with the Divine not mediated by the Bible, preaching, or sacrament, the charge is clearly accurate. Blumhardt is explicitly willing to ground his theological certainty in experience: “I do not just know this from the Bible, but in my heart as well. God himself wrote [it] in there.”85 Similarly, “a true understanding of scripture is not possible unless we have already experienced something of God beforehand.”86 Blumhardt’s friend Friedrich von Bodelschwingh wrote him a sharply critical letter in 1894, calling his theology a “false teaching,” because it is grounded “on personal revelations, not the Word of God.”87 As we have seen, Bodelschwingh is not entirely wrong in his characterization of Blumhardt’s theological starting point, even if his judgment upon it is more a matter of opinion. However, Blumhardt himself explicitly rejects the accusation that this view of “experience” is necessarily synonymous with the negative connotations of Schwärmerei. Intriguingly, he counters his critics with an alternative measure for defining Schwärmerei: the criterion of “egoism” in place of the criterion of biblicism. “Anyone who hopes in God’s cause in the pure sense, and who seeks not himself but the Savior, will never be a Schwärmer.”88 “Sterben” takes up and excludes the dangers of “enthusiastic” theology, without tying the action of the Spirit exclusively to the preaching of Word and sacrament. Blumhardt is, therefore, technically a Schwärmer, according to Luther’s definition, but in such a way as to call the definition into question. Luther’s concern was to avoid idolatry and chaos. His fear was that a theology of unmediated experience would allow human nature to run rampant, setting itself up as a rival to the God of the Bible, and precipitating a Müntzerite political and spiritual disarray. Blumhardt’s “sterbet” theology shares Luther’s spiritual concern about sin (Christoph is clearly not as worried about political disorder per se as Luther was), but actually broadens the reach of sin to include biblical interpretation to a degree Luther never did. The question, of course, is whether in 84

85 86 87 88

See, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 327, 383; Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 3, 20; Blumhardt, VB 1894, vol. 4, 3. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 88. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 166. See also Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 167–8. Ibid., 42. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 327. Emphasis added. On this basis, he later claims to be “more sober . . . than any of the people who call me a Schwärmer” (ibid., 383).

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so doing Blumhardt goes too far. What final criterion for discernment can there be if not church or Bible? Is even a criterion of “negative” experience proof against the fundamental subjectivism of experience? We will return to this question in Chapter 8.

Conclusion: Experience and the “Disappearance of Reality”89 Christoph Blumhardt’s preaching in the years 1888 to 1896 is characterized to a significant degree by a call for a renewal of “Erlebnis” in the life of the church. At its simplest, “experience” for Blumhardt is a punctiliar, usually individual, personal encounter with the living God. Although “experience” can at times be mediated through the Bible, through the church, through nature, and even through the newspaper, it is fundamentally an “unmediated” encounter, understood precisely in opposition to conventional forms of mediation. This type of experience can take many forms, and it is helpful to understand it in terms of several theologically distinct categories of “Erlebnis”: “weak” revelatory experience, “strong” revelatory experience, “miraculous” experience, “feelings” experience, and “negative” or critical experience. Blumhardt accepts the possibility and legitimacy of all of these types, but his pessimistic “sterbet” theology, coupled with certain pastoral observations, gradually leads him to call all but “strong” revelation and “negative” experience into question. “Strong” revelatory experience, which is the means by which God leads his people from one “station” to the next, is integral to Blumhardt’s fundamental eschatological concerns. The “sterbet” theology is understood to have been communicated to him by such experience. “Negative” experience directly accomplishes the judgment upon and destruction of sinful Fleisch as the unavoidable consequence of unmediated encounter with the God of “Truth and Righteousness.” In doing so, it prepares the way for, and reveals a proleptic glimpse of, the reality of the fulfilled Kingdom of God. Although conceptually distinguishable, “strong” revelation and “negative” experience are closely intertwined for Blumhardt, because the latter produces and mediates the former. A true “glimpse” of the Kingdom, full of “Truth and Righteousness,” simultaneously reveals the fundamental obstacles to the Kingdom—the various “untruths” and “unrighteousness”—that persist in the world as it currently is. Just as Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s “miraculous” experience of the power of Christ to be “Victor” communicated the terrifying extent of ongoing spiritual bondage in the world around him, so Christoph Blumhardt’s “negative” experiences of God’s “Truth and

89

[Verlust der Wirklichkeit] Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 181.

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Righteousness” revealed to him the fundamental, Eschaton-stalling opposition between Fleisch and Kingdom. Gerhard Sauter interprets this theme of unmediated revelatory action on God’s part—God’s “proof though action” [Tatbeweis]90—as part of the larger thematic of “the reality question” in the younger Blumhardt’s thought.91 A fundamental theological difference between the two Blumhardts, in Sauter’s view, can be discerned in their approaches to the category of “the reality of the rule of God.”92 For Johann Christoph, “the reality of the divine victory” is simply accepted, “unquestioned” and “without reflection.”93 For the younger Blumhardt, on the other hand, it has become “clear” that Johann Christoph’s views “cannot be adopted immediately, as if the concept of the opposition between faith and history, which had become dominant in the meantime, did not exist.”94 Christoph saw that the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century problematization of miraculous biblical history had taken hold by the 1880s in such a way as to call the “reality” of a “living and active,” as opposed to merely “philosophical,” God fundamentally into question.95 Blumhardt does not ignore or repress the “fundamental question about belief about God in the sense of his living and active existence,” but “accepts its validity.”96 He longs for divine “Tatbeweis” because only such unmediated action will answer the question of God’s living reality in the world. The question is a legitimate one, and Blumhardt expects it to be answered by God himself. Only “Erlebnis” can demonstrate God’s ongoing living presence and reality. Sauter’s interpretation here is very helpful. What is really at stake in Blumhardt’s concept of “experience” is rightly understood and elucidated in terms of a fundamental “reality question.” Although Blumhardt’s preferred terminology for this thematic is the complex of vocabulary we have come to see as “Erlebnis” terminology, the term “reality” does appear, not least in the memorable lament for “the disappearance of reality” in contemporary Christianity. More significantly, there is a clear material relationship between the “experience” theme and the “reality problem.” “Erlebnis” 90 91 92 93 94 95

96

Sauter, Blumhardt, 98; Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 428 and 195–7. Sauter, Blumhardt, 95–106. Ibid., 96. Ibid., 96, 99. Ibid., 99. Ibid. Sauter’s argument here is not that Blumhardt read Lessing and others (see below) and was explicitly responding to them—a highly unlikely scenario—but that the questions that were put to the elder Blumhardt during his church trial over the Möttlingen events (“Surely healings do not still occur?”) were deeply informed by, and unthinkable apart from, the influence of Lessing’s question, and that these questions continued to penetrate into and influence Christoph Blumhardt’s thinking, especially in the years after his father’s death. Ibid., 100.

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events both establish and proleptically demonstrate the basic “rule of God” that will characterize the Kingdom of God in its fulfilled state. Furthermore, as we shall see in Chapter 5, the “actuality” or “reality” of God’s “acts” inform Blumhardt’s turn toward “physicality” and the world, the fruit of which was his political engagement with the SPD. In Sauter’s view, the “Tatbeweis” element in the younger Blumhardt’s theology provides an answer to the great Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment problem, associated in particular with G. E. Lessing,97 and still championed in the first half of the twentieth century by Rudolf Bultmann,98 of the perceived opposition between faith and history in an enlightened world. Lessing’s thesis, that “contingent truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason,”99 seeks to rescue Christianity from the crisis of skepticism by turning the lack of “proof of the Spirit” in the current, as opposed to the Apostolic, age into a “virtue,” a sign of development to a higher understanding. As Sauter puts it, for Lessing, “the absence of the proof of the Spirit and of power is no historical disaster, but rather the final stage of a necessary development of revelation as an historical process.”100 Christoph Blumhardt, in Sauter’s interpretation, acknowledges this fundamental “modern” problem of lack of “proof of the Spirit”—a problem seen to have persisted since the end of the Apostolic period—but understands the Möttlingen events to be a long-awaited divine answer to the problem: “the year 1843 represents the continuation of the story of the proof of the Spirit and of power and transforms at a stroke the entire modern opposition between faith and history.”101 The living “intervention of God” we have been discussing is a serious and legitimate answer to Lessing’s serious and legitimate question. For Sauter, the brilliance of Blumhardt’s theological position is that it does more than merely reply to Lessing’s question and provide a pat answer to the skeptical “embarrassment about faith” and “lack of certainty about God” in post-Enlightenment Europe. Rather, it perceives a divine counterquestion: “the actions of God immediately raise the question of power: ‘Who is Lord?’”102 In an ironic role reversal, the encounter with the “reality” of the living God immediately places the human person in his or her entire existence into question. When the God of “Truth and Righteousness” acts, what occurs in the first instance is not a gentle reminder of his continued loving existence, but a radical judgment (“negative” experience), even as this 97

98 99 100 101 102

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power (1777),” in Philosophical and Theological Writings, ed. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). See Sauter, Blumhardt, 15, and 98, note 8. Lessing, “Proof,” 85. Sauter, Blumhardt, 98. Ibid. Ibid., 100.

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judgment is also a “proof of the Spirit.” “In this way Lessing is essentially corrected; his question is not set aside but encompassed, and the result is that it is simultaneously undone and transformed.”103 This theological move is well-trodden territory in twentieth-century theology, first and foremost as a result of Karl Barth’s second edition of Romans, and in connection with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s christology. What is striking is that Christoph Blumhardt was saying this sort of thing as early as 1888, as the “Taten-Gott” of his father’s theology and ministry was reinterpreted through the lens of a theology of the cross. However, the problem of the post-Enlightenment divide between faith and history, so important to Sauter’s study, is less of a pressing theological concern at the beginning of the twenty-first century than it was in the early 1960s. The return of (what are perceived to be) miracles and healing to the broader Christian church was radical and revolutionary in 1843, and was perhaps even more so in 1896; by the turn of the millennium, however, at least one in four Christians worldwide belongs to Pentecostal and charismatic traditions that see such events as a standard feature of Christian life. New theological problems have arisen in light of this astonishing twentieth-century development, and the burden of this study is to help address what in my view is the most fundamental of them: the problem of claims to unmediated experience of God in light of the doctrine of sin, specifically in terms of human nature’s tendency toward self-deception. Lessing has faded somewhat into the background; Feuerbach has come into focus once again. And behind Feuerbach stands the first-generation Reformation critique of “enthusiasm.” It is in service of these questions that we have undergone a more extensive analysis than Sauter of the varieties of meaning attached to “Erlebnis” in Blumhardt’s thought. In relation to Lessing, a general explanation of “Tatbeweis” was adequate, and the problem of how such acts of God are perceived, that is, “experienced,” was secondary. To map Blumhardt onto the theological conflict between classical Protestantism and charismatic theologies, however, a more complex and precise typology of punctiliar personal experience has been necessary. Unsurprisingly, a basic difficulty and tension in Blumhardt’s thought between “experience” and his theology of the cross has become apparent in his own discussions and development during the “sterbet” period, from 1888 to 1896. The sole theological point of contact that appears capable of withstanding this tension is the category of “negative” or critical experience of God. The task of the next chapter will be to examine more broadly the fate of this tension, and of the “negative” experience category, over the course of the remaining two decades of Christoph Blumhardt’s life.

103

Ibid., 101.

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5 blumhardt’s life and thought, 1897–1919

Ever since he became a member of the German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, henceforth “SPD”) in 1899, Christoph Blumhardt has been best known to theologians for his prophetic involvement with Socialist politics at the turn of the century. His move between 1899 and 1906 from the pastoral into the political arena on behalf of the German working class served as an immediate theological and social inspiration for a generation of Swiss theologians uncomfortable with the intellectual legacy of nineteenth-century liberal theology. Hermann Kutter, Leonhard Ragaz, Eduard Thurneysen, and above all Karl Barth rightly saw the younger Blumhardt as the spiritual “father” of the “Religious Socialism” movement.1 Blumhardt’s influence on Barth, the undisputed giant of twentieth-century theology, has long been recognized, though also underestimated. Blumhardt’s impact on the Swiss Religious Socialists, and through them on modern theology, would be difficult to imagine apart from his widely publicized, and widely criticized, entry into the SPD in 1899, and the theological reasons he gave for doing so. Although there is some dispute as to whether he was the first ordained German clergyman to join the SPD,2 Blumhardt was by the far the best-known national church figure to join the “atheistic” workers’ party in the early years, and was immediately defrocked by local 1

2

According to Buess and Mattmüller, the leading experts on this group, the “unity of the movement” is to be located not so much in its Socialist leanings, but rather “ . . . is evident in the proclamation and the example of Christoph Blumhardt . . . In other words, it could just as appropriately be described as a Blumhardt Movement.” See Eduard Buess, and Markus Mattmüller, Prophetischer Sozialismus: Blumhardt—Ragaz—Barth (Freiburg: Edition Exodus, 1986), 11. Emphasis added. A young ordinand named Theodor von Wächter joined the SPD as early as 1891, but was stricken from the list of “candidates” as a result, and was never ordained. Paul Göhre likely joined briefly before Blumhardt, and Eduard Schall and Johannes Hillman were involved around the same time. See the discussions in Meier, Blumhardt, 54–5, 68–9.

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church authorities for it. He was certainly the first clergyman to serve as an elected official within the party, which he did in the Württemberg Landtag from 1900 to 1906. Due to the dramatic and pioneering character of Blumhardt’s turn to politics, and its widely acknowledged theological influence, it is not surprising that the “third phase” of Blumhardt’s development, from 1897 to 1906, has received more attention in the secondary literature than the other phases. Klaus-Jürgen Meier’s thorough historical and theological study, Christoph Blumhardt: Christ—Sozialist—Theologe, which ranks among the best and most useful of recent works in the field, focuses primarily on Blumhardt’s political period. Similarly, Frank Macchia’s study is interested first and foremost in the relationship between Blumhardtian spirituality, strongly influenced by Pietism, and the theological grounding of social action. Blumhardt’s fourth period, lasting from his departure from the Landtag in 1906 until his death in 1919, has received less attention, in part because it is seen as an undramatic, “mild” period, of little new theological significance. This characterization of Blumhardt’s last decade is largely correct. But there is one major exception, the full historical significance of which has not been recognized by Blumhardt scholars to this point. The exception consists in what in my view is as remarkable and prophetic an event in Christoph’s life and legacy as the involvement with the SPD: his theological critique of the First World War and the spirit of German nationalism from the earliest months of the war. As has been indicated, for the purposes of our current study, which is interested primarily in the relationship between Blumhardt’s charismatic pneumatology and his pessimistic anthropology, the important events of the third and fourth phases are for the most part of only indirect relevance, and merit only one chapter here, while the 1888–96 period required three. The purpose in this chapter, then, is primarily to indicate the accuracy of my thesis that the key developments in Blumhardt’s core theological principles had already taken place by the end of his “second period.” The events and theological emphases of Blumhardt’s final two decades can be explained to a significant degree, and should be understood primarily, as variations on, rather than developments away from, the core themes that had evolved by 1896. This view will be explored over the course of a brief biographical and theological sketch of the last two decades of Blumhardt’s life. Along the way, we will expand our understanding of some of the basic eschatological, pneumatological, and anthropological themes by observing how Blumhardt applied his core principles at different points and in different situations. We will also demonstrate the explanatory power of our interpretation of Blumhardt’s theology in relation to his “prophetic” historical stances in support of the industrial working class and against German militaristic nationalism in the First World War. 112

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I will begin with a brief biographical overview of Blumhardt’s life between 1897 and 1906, focusing on the turn to politics and his career in the Württemberg parliament. Next will be a sketch of that decade’s chief theological themes, as they relate to our larger pneumatological and anthropological concerns, including his increasing emphasis on the category of bodily physicality or “Leiblichkeit,” and his theological justification for joining the SPD. The following section will provide another biographical overview, this time of his final years from 1907 to 1919. Fourth will be a sketch of Blumhardt’s theological development during this latter period, including his disillusionment with the SPD and with politics, and aspects of his contact with the Swiss Religious Socialists. Because the primary biographical break between the two periods (1906) is not quite the same as the theological break (starting in 1903), the biographical and theological sections will cover slightly different periods. The final section will focus on Blumhardt’s remarkable First-World-War sermons, in which the central themes from the “sterbet” period—anthropological pessimism, “stations” eschatology,3 and the call for unmediated “experience” of God—continue to be determinative of his theological outlook.

Biographical Overview I: The Turn to Politics, 1897–1906 The years immediately following the publication of the Gedanken were uneventful in Blumhardt’s life. In the early months of 1898, Blumhardt fell ill with a heart problem, causing him to cut back further on his activities at Bad Boll,4 though he continued to preach regularly. In the Spring of 1899, a former assistant of Blumhardt’s named Richard Wilhelm, who had recently become engaged to his daughter Salome, moved to the city of Tsingtau (Qingdao) in China to be a missionary. Wilhelm’s move sparked a long and theologically rich correspondence with Blumhardt, which lasted until the outbreak of the First World War. Their many letters comprise one of the few significant sources for Blumhardt’s theology that is not homiletical in form.5 Christoph was also kept abreast of the outbreaks of healing ministries in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland around this time 3

4 5

Blumhardt’s explicit use of the term “stations” to describe his eschatology is limited to his second period, especially the Gedanken. The framework described by the terminology, however, does not change. For the sake of clarity, I will continue to refer to his eschatology in terms of “stations.” Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 96–7. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Christus in der Welt: Briefe an Richard Wilhelm (Zürich: Zwingli Verlag, 1958). This source is of particular interest for the detailed insights it provides into Blumhardt’s missiology.

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and before, which proved to be immediate precursors to the Pentecostal movement. He spoke out critically against them, particularly their view that the hoped-for renewed outpouring of the Spirit of Pentecost was already beginning to take place.6 Before April 1899, when he first described himself as a “Socialist,”7 there is little direct indication that Blumhardt was becoming interested in Marxism and the political plight of the working class— though Meier believes it is likely he had begun reading Socialist texts and thinking intensively about the “social question” soon after his illness in 1898.8 Blumhardt’s helper and assistant in the final years, Schwester Anna von Sprewitz, reports his expressing interest in “Social Democracy” even earlier.9

Entry into the SPD, 1899, and Public Reaction10 Blumhardt’s first move toward active political involvement, as far as can be determined, was to attend a workers’ protest in Göppingen on June 19, 6

7

8

9

10

“This whole business about the healings [in American, England, and Switzerland] . . . has corrupted the deeper spiritual nature of faith, and has brought ‘His Day’ into discredit. My current experiences lead me to believe that we should seek after not ‘that Day’, but a ‘Day’ right now, in this world. Not that I would condemn experiencing bodily healing . . . [b]ut it must not be valued too highly!” (Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 137). Blumhardt is likely referring here to healers in the United States and the United Kingdom associated with the Holiness movement, such as Charles Cullis and William Boardman, and to the ministry of Dorothea Trudel and her successor in the Swiss village of Männedorf. Fifteen years earlier, because of his and his father’s reputations as healers, Blumhardt had been invited personally by Boardman to the “International Conference on Divine Healing and True Holiness” in London, but declined on grounds of what he took to be Boardman’s overrealized eschatology, counseling Boardman instead to wait in stillness like him: “The [eschatological] pathways . . . do not appear to have been opened yet, in my view” (Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 77–9). For a full discussion of late nineteenth-century healing movements and their relationship to the Holiness movement and Pentecostalism, see Dayton, Pentecostalism, 115–41. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Ihr Menschen seid Gottes! Predigten und Andachten aus den Jahren 1896 bis 1900, vol. III, Eine Auswahl aus seinen Predigten, Andachten, und Schriften (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1936), 289. Meier, Blumhardt, 46–7, 60. For more detailed discussion of the whole of Blumhardt’s political period, see chapters IV–VIII in Meier. Anna von Sprewitz, Auf ewigem Wege. Eigenhändiger Lebenslauf (Gnadau: Verlag der Unitätsbuchhandlung, 1923), 31. “Schwester Anna,” as she was known, joined the Bad Boll household in 1895, after a miraculous recovery from illness there. Over the years, she became Blumhardt’s primary assistant, in charge of many duties in the house, and she went along with Blumhardt when he moved to a house in nearby Jebenhausen in 1907, accompanied him on his trips, and cared for him after his first stroke in 1917. I am relying to a significant degree on Meier’s account of Blumhardt’s political career, which is by far the best to date. See in particular Meier, Blumhardt, 59–91 and 107–17.

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1899. The protest was against a proposed law, introduced by the Kaiser, which sought to turn striking by workers into a jailable offense. While at the protest, Blumhardt apparently called the proposed law “a crime against justice,” and said that he was “thoroughly sympathetic” with “the efforts of the workers.”11 On October 2, he attended another meeting in Göppingen, this time on the question of married women working in factories. On October 24, he was invited to an SPD party meeting to explain more precisely where he stood. According to the main extant report, which Meier finds essentially trustworthy, Blumhardt called himself a Socialist at this meeting, though without saying in so many words that he had officially become a member of the SPD. The following day he told the Boll community, “I never dreamed that I might one day belong to the Social Democrats”—implying that he did see himself as a Social Democrat by this point.12 There is some dispute as to the precise date Blumhardt officially registered as a member of the party, whether before or after the speech on the 24th.13 In any case, by early November 1899 Christoph Blumhardt was a full-fledged member of the “atheistic” SPD. The news that Christoph Blumhardt had become a Social Democrat was widely reported in the press, and provoked much public and private response. He wrote to Richard Wilhelm in December (with perhaps some exaggeration), “You have I am sure heard about the storm I have gotten into. Every newspaper mentions my name, and all Germany is discussing my position.”14 His stance received particular attention in the Swiss press, and was reported and commented upon in newspapers as far away as Berlin. Social Democratic commentary was very positive, his Christianity notwithstanding; commentary from Christian circles tended to be negative, with Pietist opinion the most damning. One Pietist commentator stated bluntly that “a professed Christian cannot be a Social Democrat and a professed Social Democrat can never remain a Christian.”15 According to Hartmut Lehmann, “It was a scandal in the eyes of every Württemberg Protestant.”16 Blumhardt spent a great deal of time in the initial months explaining and defending his decision on theological grounds.17 This was due in part to the strong critical backlash, but also out of a desire to “witness” to the reasons 11 12

13

14 15 16 17

Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 458. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 186. For the reports of his statements at these first three rallies, see ibid., 142–3, 180–1, and 184–5, respectively. See also Meier, Blumhardt, 60–4. Meier’s conclusion that the official registration took place after, not before, the third Göppingen meeting is the most likely. See ibid., 63–4. Blumhardt, Welt, 43. Quoted in Lehmann, Pietismus, 286. Ibid., 285. See Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 443–52; Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 186–190 and 190–5; Blumhardt, Welt, 42–4.

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he saw Christ and his Kingdom at work among the industrial class and their political party. Shortly after Blumhardt’s new political loyalties became public, the Württemberg Konsistorium (church authority) asked him to give up the title of “Pastor,” and he did so. He did not have much choice, and was not given an opportunity to explain himself—he confided to Wilhelm, “The Konsistorium stripped me of the title and rank of pastor without any further ado, simply on the basis of newspaper reports”18—but he had given up his parish duties years earlier in 1894, and cared little for the title. He put up no particular protest.

Election and Career in the Landtag At the end of March 1900, after some months of giving speeches at Socialist rallies and political gatherings, Blumhardt agreed to run for election as an SPD candidate in the local parliament, the Württemberg Landtag. In May, he requested that his sermons no longer be written down, regardless of whether “I am elected to the Landtag or not.”19 His wish was honored for the most part, resulting in the significant 1901–5 lacuna in the Lejeune edition of his sermons.20 Representing the region around Göppingen, including Bad Boll, he campaigned regularly in the area. In the final run-off vote on December 18, Blumhardt defeated his opponent 5132 votes to 3826,21 and became a full-time elected official. Blumhardt applied himself enthusiastically to the new duties for the first two and a half years. The learning curve was steep, and he rarely took part in Landtag debates for which he did not feel qualified. The main discussion in which he was active, which took place in early 1903, toward the end of his first term, was over the role of the church in the supervision of schools. Blumhardt saw the church to be using its role in schools in a manipulative and unhelpful way that actually stood in the way of religion as he conceived it: “our state primary schools are not there to place their mechanisms of authority at the disposal of confessional groups.”22 In his view, the cause of Jesus Christ would be furthered, not hindered, the less the state church was involved with schools. Blumhardt was elected to a second term in the Landtag in 1903. Around that time he resisted an effort within his party to persuade him to run 18 19 20

21 22

Ibid., 43. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 232. Johannes Harder has managed to gather a substantial amount of source material from this period from various talks and lectures Blumhardt gave, and from some morning devotionals that were written down despite his prohibition. See ibid., from 233. Meier, Blumhardt, 84. Quoted in ibid., 89.

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for a seat in the national Reichstag. By 1905, his interest in active political involvement had begun to wane demonstrably. Meier reports that in 1905 and 1906 he was absent from the chamber more often than he was present. Blumhardt traveled a good deal in this period, accompanied by Schwester Anna. In November 1905 he went to Egypt on the advice of his doctor; in May 1906 he traveled to Naples; and in October 1906 he visited Syria and Palestine. He began to express a desire to spend more time in Bad Boll, and announced shortly after the Egypt trip that he would not be running for reelection. The reasons he gave his party were that Bad Boll needed him, and that his health was no longer strong enough to handle the stresses of parliamentary work.23 With his withdrawal from elected office, the “third phase” of Blumhardt’s historical and theological development came to a close.

Theology to 1903 On the many occasions when Christoph Blumhardt defended his decision to become a Social Democrat and to focus his time and energy on political activity instead of ministry at Bad Boll, he nearly always justified his decision theologically. Socialism was explained and defended in terms of Blumhardt’s understanding of the Kingdom of God and the ethics of Jesus Christ, and never the other way around. Nontheological factors must also have played a role: He was growing restless and feared stagnation in his Bad Boll ministry; he may have wanted an excuse to get away more often from the house, where he was continually exhausted by the attention focused on him; his somewhat contrarian personality, always drawn to radicality, may have enjoyed the chance to confound his Pietist critics even further; and so on. Nevertheless, Blumhardt himself understood the step to be a “Fortschritt” for the Kingdom, and, therefore, justified on theological grounds. My purpose in this present section, therefore, will be to explain the theological foundation for his decision, with special reference to the role of the core loci of anthropology, eschatology, and experience.

Clearing the Ground for Theological Socialism: The “Leib” Theme in the 1890s A major premise behind Christoph Blumhardt’s eventual identification of the Kingdom activity of God with the alleviation of society’s structural oppression of the industrial working class is the theme of the spiritual 23

Ibid., 111.

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importance of the body, not just the soul. Although this theme is as old in Blumhardtian thought as supernatural physical healing, it begins to surface more regularly and more insistently in the early- to mid-1890s. A whole chapter in the Gedanken is devoted to the younger Blumhardt’s conviction that “it is a law of God and of nature that body and soul belong together.”24 It is a mistake, he contends, to address physical illness as if it stands in isolation from spiritual life, and vice versa. Johann Christoph Blumhardt had observed this point decades earlier—the first “healings” in Möttlingen were always connected with confession of sin. But where Johann Christoph had continued to prioritize the spiritual side of the body–spirit connection, Christoph begins at least as early as the 1890s to give the two more or less equal weight. Christoph’s usual argument for emphasizing the importance of “corporeality” [Leiblichkeit] is to ground it in God’s affirmation of Creation in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ. The “practical application” of “our belief in the Resurrection” is the “high valuation of the body” because “God blessed the physical body in the Resurrection of Christ.”25 In 1894, he asked one critic, “Is this Creation, to which our bodily life also belongs, simply to be put to the side? Or does it contain within it the seeds of eternity?”26 Initially, the “high valuation of the body” is interpreted simply to mean that taking care of the sick, being careful about what you eat and drink, and avoiding overwork are activities deeply valued by God, and should be undertaken with appropriate seriousness.27 Blumhardt also connects honoring the “body” [Leib] with the “that Jesus may live” part of his “sterbet” motto28: Only once we have learned to take care of our bodies properly will we become “genuine creatures of God, . . . through whom life can stream out in every direction.”29 Meier aptly dubs the development of the “Leib” theme Blumhardt’s “turn to life.”30 Closely related here are three further themes we have seen in Blumhardt’s theology: (1) critique of a “sacramental view of death”; (2) the sheer active physicality of miraculous experience of God in healing and exorcisms; and (3) the historical, “this-world-ness” of the eschatological Kingdom. If death involves the destruction of the physical body, then the Kingdom must entail the reverse, its celebration and nurture. If God is experienced physically, directly, and miraculously in the world, rather than just as an idea or principle, then he must care about the physicality of the human 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 146. Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 3, 20. Blumhardt, VB 1894, vol. 2, 3. See, for example, Blumhardt, VB 1893, vol. 6. Ibid., vol. 6, 14–15. Ibid., vol. 6, 15. Meier, Blumhardt, 41.

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objects of such experience. And if the Kingdom will be fulfilled in this physical world, and not in an ethereal future “spiritual” world, then the Creation and especially our physical bodies must carry “the seeds of eternity” within them. What we have, then, is a complex of theological themes that each points toward a theological valuation of the body as well as the spirit. Blumhardt sees the common Christian, and especially Pietist, dualistic prioritization of spirit over body as a mistake that is structurally inherent to heaven-oriented soteriologies. The emphasis on “spiritual” soteriology is in turn a consequence of the Fleisch and “egoism.”31 The Fleisch wishes to avoid facing judgment and the negative consequences of sin, and does so by relegating that judgment to the afterlife, where it can again be avoided as long as one has undergone conversion. “In this way, poor Christianity runs to Death as its true redeemer.”32 The anti-“Leib” heaven-orientation masks an antinomian impulse—it is trying to find a way around facing the reality of sin. To recognize the intimate connection between body and spirit is to be grounded in this world rather than the next, which in turn entails facing the reality of God’s “Truth and Righteousness” in its powerful contradiction to human “egoism.” The consequence of this contradiction, which is also a judgment, is the penalty of death, the “wages of sin.”33 Blumhardt’s “high valuation of the body” is structurally linked to, and cannot be understood apart from, his pessimistic anthropology. The second stream in this “complex” of ideas that results in a high view of corporeality and physicality is unmediated experience of “acts of God.” This stream began in Möttlingen with the exorcism of Gottliebin Dittus and the healing miracles of the “repentance battle.” The conviction that “Jesus is Victor” is the conviction that God acts in power in this world, not the afterlife only; he is “Victor” over this world’s problems, including “physical” disorders like illness. In performing concrete miraculous deeds of this sort, both Blumhardts view God as fundamentally affirming physicality and corporeality. This second stream, grounded in miraculous experience, both informs and confirms, and to some degree precedes, the anthropological stream for Christoph. Both streams that push toward proper honoring of the body are brought together under the umbrella of eschatology: The Kingdom will be fulfilled in this world and not the next, and will involve the abolition of physical death rather than a baptized capitulation to it. Our physical bodies contain “seeds of eternity,” as does all of Creation, and will, therefore, be preserved in the eschatological Kingdom. To support and nurture our bodies as well

31 32 33

See the discussion of the “sacramental” view of death in Chapter 2. Blumhardt, VB 1894, vol. 2, 10–11. Ibid., vol. 2, 10.

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as our souls is, therefore, an act of hope and faith in the yet-to-be-fulfilled Kingdom. Bodies and the Kingdom are inextricably connected: The works [of God] are [intended] to live in the Truth and Righteousness of the body. I say the body, because it is there that the next step forward [Fortschritt] and the path to the final goal of the Kingdom of God must manifest itself, so that our corporeal life, too, might emerge as a “truth” of God in Creation.34 This “Leib” theology, which follows organically from Blumhardt’s core anthropological, pneumatological, and eschatological principles, becomes very important for Christoph over the course of the 1890s. It is out of the prioritization of the body that Blumhardt begins toward the end of the decade to see the Kingdom of God at work in the alleviation of physical suffering on a societal, not just individual, level, and above all in the plight of the industrial class. Once Blumhardt had begun to see physicality and corporeality as of special significance for the Kingdom of God, it was a short step for him to apply the insight on a societal rather than just individual plane. The Kingdom for Blumhardt, as for his father, had always been global, and indeed cosmic, in scope. National divisions are no more ultimately significant than denominational divisions in the Blumhardtian picture. The younger Blumhardt had long held a universalist soteriology grounded in the conviction that the fulfilled Kingdom would encompass the whole of the cosmos—it was inconceivable to him that anyone or anything might be left out of it. If one person’s physical existence is important to God, then all people’s physical existences must be. “Thus this battle [Kampf] is really a social battle”; “What Jesus is talking about is much more a social matter, something to do with all humanity, so that every person might come to have a true feeling for God and for God’s Creation.”35 Sauter articulates this point very helpfully in his discussion of Blumhardt’s third period: Because the Kingdom of God affects the whole sphere of life, communal living in society is not just one area, touched upon only secondarily, or derivatively, from a decision carried out in some sphere or other (such as the individual-soteriological sphere); rather, it is itself the primary place where the reality of God’s rule comes into its own, and out of which individual lives are themselves determined.36

34 35 36

Ibid., vol. 4, 7. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 294, 302. Sauter, Blumhardt, 137. Emphasis original.

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The “Leib” theme, extended to the societal plane, is the primary theological foundation for Blumhardt’s turn to the SPD in 1899.

A New “Station” and “Signs of the Times” Both the eschatology and the theology of experience from the 1888–96 period play a significant role in Blumhardt’s turn to Socialism. As we have seen, his basic eschatological framework of “Fortschritt” toward the “Ziel” of the Kingdom entails the expectation of regular divine leading—through revelatory experience—toward new arenas of theological and pastoral emphasis. The focus on societal problems as the new front line of the eschatological Kampf, crystallized in 1899 in the direct identification of the Socialist movement with God’s work toward his Kingdom on earth, is a classic example of a new “station.” Blumhardt makes this clear in a devotion on November 17, 1899: “You must fight for a Kingdom in which the masses are relieved of life’s burdens” . . .“This is the sort of goal that makes me move forward. . . . It is only in this way that we will move a step further on God’s path to the final Ziel.37 “Ziel,” “moving forward,” “step”: We see here and in many other statements from the period exactly the dynamic, teleological language that is characteristic of Blumhardt’s eschatological framework. The only difference is that it is now understood to describe the activity of Socialism in alleviating the burdens of the “masses.” This difference is itself consistent with the old framework, however, because each “station” is always expected to have its own particular content. As with every “Fortschritt,” Blumhardt has high hopes the political one will be the last: “I no longer expect any major new revelations. . . . We are living in such a time as has not been seen for thousands of years. . . . Jesus can only come quite practically [now], in the Truth.”38 Even as he expects no further revelations, however, the political turn itself is based in what he believed to be divine communication: “Blumhardt interpreted his step of joining the Social Democrats . . . as a divine ‘leading’.”39 The discerning of the “signs of our times”40 becomes Blumhardt’s dominant method in this period for interpreting God’s will and action in the world. God speaks through events and developments on a societal scale. Blumhardt describes the new historical and international form of unmediated experience of God in 1898: Earlier, God revealed himself in monasteries and churches. . . . But today I value much more highly God’s speech among the nations, the 37 38 39

40

Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 200–1. Emphasis added. Ibid., 233. Meier, Blumhardt, 60. See, for example, Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 354 and 449; he attended his first “workers’ meeting” because he felt “inwardly compelled.” Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 293.

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movement of minds towards certain ideas about what is right and good and humane, the speech of God for everyone, for Jews, heathens, and Christians,—today, God’s international speech is more important to me than everything that Abraham and Moses and the Apostles experienced! Today God is speaking grandly, with holiness, truth, and grace for the whole world.41 Not only is God speaking on a societal scale, he is speaking universalistically, to all peoples and all religions. At different points during his third phase, Blumhardt mentions specific instances of “God’s international speech.” For example, he comments on the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899 that, although he does not expect “much practical” to result from it, an antiwar political conference on such a scale can only be “something from God himself.”42 Another example is the industrial class’ new-found political voice: “the foment of the peoples, the seething of humanity’s underclasses, the cry for basic rights— . . . [all] this is the sign of our Lord Jesus Christ.”43 Ultimately, the Social Democratic movement itself is the surest “sign” of all. Interpreting world events providentially, as a form of “weak” or “strong” revelatory experience, is nothing materially new for Blumhardt. Rather, what is distinctive in this period is first, the emphasis on sociopolitical events as the dominant mode of God’s guidance, rather than as one among several equal forms of revelatory experience; and second, the new tone of historical optimism Blumhardt takes on as he gets increasingly excited about God’s movement in the political world. It is to this latter, and to the anthropological questions it raises, that we now turn.

Blumhardt’s New Historical Optimism: A Less Pessimistic Anthropology? There is an undeniable note of increasing “optimism” detectable in Blumhardt’s preaching during the third period. Commentators refer to a “demonstrable historical optimism,”44 even an “astonishing optimism about progress,”45 in this phase. In January 1898, Blumhardt as yet shows little sign of such optimism: “The outlook for the world as it is will remain dim until the point when Jesus appears in the world as the Resurrected One. . . . Until that happens, we remain in a state of affliction, and must carry our cross.”46 41 42 43 44 45 46

Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 115, 118. Emphasis added. Ibid., 307. Ibid., 295–6. Sauter, Blumhardt, 216. Meier, Blumhardt, 49. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 97–8.

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By August and September 1899, however, his view of the world appears to have altered dramatically: “There is a thundering today in every society. . . . People are beginning . . . to stand up who want to change our society; there are thousands now who are saying: ‘It can’t go on like this, there is something wrong with the structure of our society!’; ‘we . . . are living in a completely new, an astonishingly new time.’”47 He begins to focus on “the good that exists in people”; “Christ has great faith in people . . . and already he sees in them something that has ripened, something God can use.”48 The primary evidence that this “goodness” has finally “ripened” is the growing international Socialist movement. Meier interprets this movement toward optimism to be a fundamental shift in the core of Blumhardt’s theology, especially in his anthropology. The pessimistic anthropology of 1888 is deliberately contrasted with “Blumhardt’s new optimistic view of human nature.”49 Blumhardt, as Meier sees it, has become optimistic not just about God’s work in society, but about “the good that exists in people” in particular. He points out Blumhardt’s 1901 claim that, freed from the chains of oppressive government, church, and capitalism, “An inwardly free person progresses towards the good.”50 Is Meier’s interpretation, that Blumhardt’s low anthropology underwent a drastic optimistic shift during the third phase, correct? Could Blumhardt’s pessimism about human “egoism” and Fleisch, without which his valuation of the body and of the physical conditions in society would not have come about, vanish so quickly? The answer is both yes and no. The question of Blumhardt’s new “optimism” is a complex one. His excitement about societal developments around the turn of the century stands in stark contrast to his prophetic critique of societal developments in First World War, fifteen years later. In the late 1890s, Blumhardt goes along in his own way with the general European turn-of-the-century confidence that, due to political, cultural, and technological developments, a new golden age in humanity’s history is dawning. In theological terms, his conviction that the SPD represents a new, final, concrete, and divinely inspired inaugural stage in the Kingdom’s fulfillment (see the following) leads him to believe that what he had long hoped for is finally happening. Put another way, he shifts from an underrealized eschatology to a quietly realized eschatology. Hopeful waiting and preparatory ground-clearing have given way to joyful Kingdom building. It is in this light that his statement that “I no longer expect any major new revelations”—a remarkable one for such an 47 48 49

50

Ibid., 336, 351. Ibid., 407–8. Meier, Blumhardt, 96. Lim’s characterization of Blumhardt’s overall anthropology as quite high derives in significant part from the apparent “optimism” of Blumhardt’s third period. Unpublished source, 1901, quoted in ibid.

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experience-oriented theologian—is to be understood. New revelations, he hopes and believes, are no longer needed, because the period of guidance from “station” to “station” has passed and arrival at the “Ziel” has begun. His “historical optimism,” therefore, is grounded in faith that the new Kingdom developments will achieve their aim because God himself is the agent behind them. It is an “optimism” about God, first and foremost, rather than about human nature. Human nature is viewed positively, but only because—and insofar as—it has been taken up by God in a new way as a Kingdom-building instrument on a global societal level. Blumhardt’s view is not that there is less sin in the world, but that sin has ceased to matter so much. His view of individual sin had already begun moving in this direction in 1897: “Sin, too, is like the moss on a rock. There is no way I can give it the colossal significance people attribute to it.”51 Similarly, in late 1899 and early 1900 Blumhardt advises Richard Wilhelm to avoid criticizing or judging the Chinese, but instead to stand “in front of sinners like a shield, so that no one condemns them anymore.”52 Furthermore, the apparently optimistic statements about human nature tend to be more complex in context. For example, the excitement we saw above that the “goodness” in humankind has become “ripe” for the Kingdom is qualified in the same sermon by the explanation that one becomes “ripe” only through “affliction,” “heat,” and “a great trial and a great battle, which consists in giving up hope for ourselves, . . . and in [our] faith disappearing, along with everything else that is good.”53 Any “goodness” in a person must have come about through suffering and despair over oneself—through “negative” experience and “Sterben.” Sauter gets to the heart of Blumhardt’s apparently higher anthropology in this period. In this phase, he explains, “what becomes decisive” is not humanity’s “total distance from God,” but its “belonging to God, which is limited only in a secondary sense.”54 The optimism about human nature is an optimism about Jesus Christ, who has taken humanity up into himself and his purposes in a decisive new way. Most of the positive statements, then, are to be understood as a proleptic, hope-based imputation of Christ’s goodness and power onto societies as a whole, rather than as a straightforward statement of fact. “The sentence, ‘You people belong to God!’ is an address, not a statement.” It derives from a “prophetic insight”55 on Blumhardt’s part, not a realization that he had been wrong all this time about human nature. 51 52 53 54 55

Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 51. Blumhardt, Welt, 27, 45. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 409–10. Sauter, Blumhardt, 162. Ibid., 164. Emphasis original. “You people belong to God!” [Ihr Menschen seid Gottes] is a common watchword for Blumhardt in this period.

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Interestingly, despite his unconditional language about human goodness, in practice Blumhardt’s optimism has only a specific segment of humanity in mind: “[he] often emphasized . . . that the address, ‘You people belong to God,’ applies specifically to the very ‘class’ that does not understand itself this way, that is, the proletariat.”56 This limitation explains Blumhardt’s remark to Wilhelm that “the hard places in scripture”—that is, the critical, judgmental sections—“apply only to the pious, not to heathens and sinners; . . . the hard words do not apply to the proletariat”; we are free to remain critical “of Pharisees and scribes, of popes and bishops and the whole army of clerics. God’s wrath applies to them, never to the people.”57 Blumhardt’s optimism is about the “proletariat,” the “masses,” not about humanity in general, and it is given on the basis of an imputation of goodness grounded christologically, not anthropologically.58 In comparison to his “sterbet” period critiques, which were grounded to a significant degree in specific pastoral encounters with “egoistic” Christians, his “positive” anthropology in this period is oddly abstract. As we will see, Blumhardt’s eventual political disillusionment comes in significant part from years of observation of his fellow SPD members, who turn out to be as “egoistic” as anyone else.

Blumhardt’s Explanations for Supporting the SPD Where there are nationalistic ambitions, where there is glorifying of an honor attained through war and bloodshed, where religious conviction is fought against in the name of a particular denomination, where one-sided economic interests are pursued at the expense of others—in short where the driving force behind an activity is more or less egoism or capitalism, in these places it is far more difficult for me, in the Spirit 56 57 58

Ibid., 165. Blumhardt, Welt, 34. Most interpreters point to the significance of incarnational christology for Blumhardt during the third phase (Sauter, Blumhardt, 153–62; Macchia, Spirituality, 134–6; Lim, Sieger, 47–51; Collins Winn, Significance, 117–22, 138–9). I do not have space here to explore this view at length. Briefly, it can be affirmed that Blumhardt does indeed focus in a new way on incarnational christology as a means of grounding his affirmation of “Leib.” It would be a mistake, however, to see incarnational christology necessarily to be the most important controlling theological theme behind the turn to the world and to Socialism. Incarnational theology describes what Blumhardt is trying to say in this period, but it does not completely explain it. He is equally capable of grounding the affirmation of physicality in a not explicitly christological doctrine of Creation, or in the eschatological unmediated encounter of the Spirit with this world. Christology is very important to Blumhardt, and he uses christological language constantly (“Jesus is Victor”; “that Jesus may live”; etc.), but a closer look reveals quite blurry lines in his thought between the different the members of the Trinity, in terms of their practical action in the world. Such action is always oriented toward the eschatological Kingdom, and in my view that Kingdom is the controlling theme in his theology.

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of Christ, to participate than where a new society is sought for on behalf of those who are weary and heavy-laden, on behalf of the disinherited and the oppressed, on behalf of the lifeless masses . . . [In this case,] as a true disciple of Christ what should stop me from getting involved?59 It is with confident, confrontational words like these that Blumhardt defends his decision to join the SPD against the criticism of his fellow Christians. One does not have to look far in Blumhardt’s writings from this period to find theological defenses of his positive, Christian interpretation of Marxist thought. The more subtle themes we have been discussing—the affirmation of corporeality, the priority of sociality, and the eschatologically derived historical optimism—are the primary theological foundation for Blumhardt’s decision to endorse the SPD, but there are also some more straightforward reasons he gives that build upon that foundation. Because these reasons are clearly articulated by Christoph himself, and because they have been explained and parsed extensively elsewhere in the Blumhardt literature,60 we will address these themes only briefly. The first reason he gives is ethical: The prioritization of “those who are weary and are heavy laden,” “the disinherited and the oppressed,” which Blumhardt sees in the SPD, is an expression of the ethic of Jesus Christ, who was a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19) and came for the unrighteous and the sick, rather than the righteous and the healthy (Mark 2:17). The poor, meek, and persecuted of the Beatitudes are identified directly with the industrial working class: “Today you have to say: blessed are the proletariat, for the Kingdom of Heaven is coming to them.”61 In Blumhardt’s view, the Christian, like Christ, is called to be an advocate for society’s outcasts. In turn-of-the-century Europe, this means the working class; if the SPD is the only group fighting for these people, then the Christian must go to the SPD. The second affinity Blumhardt sees between Christianity and Socialism is a shared hope: “the idea of a future salvation in society and between nations.”62 Socialism, with its revolutionary orientation toward a future world free of the tyranny of capitalism and oppressive hierarchical social structures, is a form of secular eschatology.63 Blumhardt understands the 59 60

61 62 63

Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 449. Meier, especially, has done a great deal of research into questions such as which specific Socialist authors Blumhardt had read at this point (mainly Marx, Engels, Mehring, and Staudinger), and where he fell in relation to certain intraparty ideological disputes (closer to Bernstein’s revisionism than he realized). See Meier, Blumhardt, 81–3, 99–105. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 217, as reported in the Schwäbische Tagwacht. Blumhardt, Welt, 43. Sauter, Blumhardt, 144.

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aim of the Socialists to be the Kingdom of God in his sense, whether they realize it or not.64 He finds in the SPD the kindred spirits of hope that he has failed to find among Christians. Third, Blumhardt finds the SPD’s focus on physical and social problems in the world to be very similar to his own emphasis on the body: “the idea that Jesus wants the Kingdom of God on earth as it is heaven.”65 This element would of course be true of any political party, because politics is inherently focused on “this world” rather than the beyond. In this regard, then, Blumhardt’s affinity is for political activity as such, rather than the SPD especially. The fourth aspect of the SPD Blumhardt finds appealing is what he observes to be a selfless, antiindividualistic concern for others. In Christoph’s mind, the word “Socialism” represents the exact antithesis of “egoism”: “At the moment, the greatest battle against egoism is being fought by the Socialist party”; “the path the Social Democrats follow is [characterized by] . . . the power of self-denial. [In their view] [e]goism has got to go.”66 The ethic of the SPD is the opposite of self-centered, overspiritualized Christianity. Where Christians claim to serve others, but serve only themselves, the Socialists actually do love their neighbor. Blumhardt is clearly struck, in his initial impressions, by a spirit of nonegoistic self-sacrifice among the Socialists he meets early on.67 As we shall see, he becomes less impressed in later years. The next point is closely related: Blumhardt begins to identify the capitalist economic system more or less directly with the human egoistic impulse.68 The Kampf against Fleisch and “Me-Christianity”69 has become “a battle . . . against capitalism.”70 “The overthrow Jesus announced” is “the overthrow of capital!” Capitalism is seen as a spiritual principality: “The devil of Capital, . . . the sovereignty of Capital . . . is the prince of this world! . . . Christ wants nothing to do with this capitalist economy!”71 “The rule of Capital [treats] the mass of humanity as nothing more than slaves.”72 In seeing capitalism as fostering an egoistic tyranny of the rich and powerful over the “masses,” Blumhardt is able to integrate his critical anthropology with a Marxist interpretation of society. In doing so, however, as we have seen, he allows a massive exception to the anthropological pessimism: The proletariat is viewed as basically good, an enslaved victim of the structural evil of 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 190, 217; Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 446–7. Blumhardt, Welt, 43. Emphasis original. See also Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 447–8. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 185, 189. Ibid., 236. Ibid., 171; Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 449. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 222. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 189. Ibid., 194. Blumhardt, Welt, 43.

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capitalist economics. In their specific case, “the sin is not in people, it is in the bad conditions that surround them.”73 A final reason Blumhardt gives for supporting the SPD is related to the eschatological one: He believes that the proletariat and those who fight for them are doing the primary work of the living God in the world in their time. The Socialist struggle is not just an analogy for Kingdom work; it is at this point precisely the location of, and instrument for, the inbreaking of the Kingdom on earth. In other words, it is a new eschatological “station.” The SPD “follow Christ unknowingly.”74 Defending the SPD against the Christian accusation of “atheism,” Blumhardt says that they are antichurch, but not antireligion—their “basic principle” on this issue is that “religion is a private matter.”75 More important for Blumhardt, however, is the fact that the Spirit of God really is with them in their Kampf, whether they realize it or not: “Often God is more present in Spirit and truth in the heart of someone who denies God with their mind than in someone who confesses him with their mouth.”76

Biographical Overview II: Withdrawal from Politics and the Quiet Years, 1906–19 As a result of a growing dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the SPD, and with the political process in general, Blumhardt withdrew in 1906 from his active political role, and began to devote his time once more to Bad Boll. Sauter points out signs of Blumhardt’s quiet differentiation from the SPD in the Wilhelm correspondence as early as March 1903.77 According to Meier, Blumhardt was particularly troubled by the national SPD meeting in Dresden in 1903, which was characterized by bitter conflict within the party over Bernstein’s revisionism.78 Although Blumhardt insisted he was not a revisionist, his unwillingness to reject the revisionist point of view out of hand was criticized within the party. These experiences were disillusioning for Christoph, and precipitated in significant part his withdrawal from politics. The immediate aftermath of Blumhardt’s political period was not as restful as he had hoped. During the October 1906 trip to Palestine, he became 73 74 75 76

77 78

Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 228. Ibid., 189. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 445. Ibid., 444. This principle is central to Blumhardt’s rejection of conversionism, and to the theology of missions he develops with Wilhelm in contrast. See Blumhardt, Welt, 27, 29, 32, 36, 48, etc. Sauter, Blumhardt, 170; Blumhardt, Welt, 103–5, 110. Meier, Blumhardt, 107–10.

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very ill with malaria and continued to be plagued with poor health off and on for the rest of his life. For this reason, he moved in 1907 from Bad Boll to a house called Wieseneck in nearby Jebenhausen. He commuted to Boll regularly to preach and work, but only when his health permitted.79 A large number of the morning devotionals we have from this period were given at Wieseneck, not Bad Boll. Schwester Anna moved with him to the new house, and it is around this time that Blumhardt’s wife began to spend long periods—years at a time—abroad with their children in New Zealand and in China.80 As he withdrew further from Bad Boll, Blumhardt called Eugen Jäckh, his eventual successor as well as his first biographer, to take over many of the day-to-day duties there. In the years between the withdrawal from politics and the outbreak of First World War, Blumhardt became quieter, and somewhat milder in his message. It was during this period that Karl Barth began to visit Bad Boll with Eduard Thurneysen, and Blumhardt continued to receive many guests from all walks of life. He corresponded regularly with Leonhard Ragaz, and was seen as the spiritual father of the Swiss Religious Socialist movement. When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, from the start Blumhardt preached with lonely, prophetic insight against it and the nationalist spirit that swept Germany in those days, though he also rejected Ragaz’s call from Switzerland to pacifistic political activism. In 1916, he published a book of morning devotions given at Wieseneck.81 It is worth asking whether the milder tone of Christoph’s preaching during the fourth-period years can be attributed primarily to the exhaustion of sickness and age, rather than genuine theological development. Ragaz, in a 1916 letter to Barth explaining his rejection of an essay on Blumhardt for the Neue Wege journal, raises this possibility.82 The confident, incisive, and not at all mild tone with which Blumhardt criticized the German war cause in 1914–15, however, weighs somewhat against Ragaz’s view. In any case, it is always a mistake to distinguish too strongly between biography and theological development in Blumhardt’s life and work. Blumhardt’s 79 80

81 82

Jäckh, Blumhardt, 184. Werner Jäckh refers to quiet marital difficulties between the Blumhardts in later years, though whether this was caused by or resulted in the long separations is not clear. Schwester Anna von Sprewitz, whom Jäckh calls his “spiritual companion of many years,” and without whom many of Blumhardt’s writings would not be available, was his primary companion and confidant in these final years of his life. See ibid., 190–4. Blumhardt, Hausandachten. “As he has now become old and more subdued, at least externally, should we, especially very young people, copy him?” Leonhard Ragaz, Leonhard Ragaz in seinen Briefen. Vol. 2: 1914–1932 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1982), 89, quoted in Collins Winn, Significance, 269. See also Leonhard Ragaz, Der Kampf um das Reich Gottes in Blumhardt, Vater und Sohn, und weiter! (Erlenbach-Zürich: Rotapfel-Verlag, 1925), 302–3.

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understanding of “Erlebnis” ensured an irreducibly empirical-inductive element in his thought that did not wane. Tragedy was never far from Blumhardt in his final decade. Three of his eleven grown children died between 1909 and 1918, including one in an accidental house fire.83 A stroke in 1917 paralyzed him on his right side, and he suffered a second stroke the following year. His prophetic homiletical witness to the coming Kingdom, strong through many decades, at last grew quiet after the first stroke, and he was unable to visit Bad Boll anymore. A few months later, on August 2, 1919, not long after his 77th birthday, Christoph Blumhardt died in his sleep.

Theology from 1903–1914 Disillusionment with the SPD: Anthropology and Eschatology During a talk at Bad Boll in September 1903, Blumhardt refers to the fact that he is “not as close to the Social Democrats anymore.” He says that he is glad he joined them, because he “had to” (i.e., believed he had been led to it by God), but then differentiates himself from them: “The Social Democrats’ hope is that the right order will come about through educating people. My hope is that it will come about through the Spirit of God. That is the difference between us.”84 Blumhardt’s implicit criticism here of Socialist ideology, grounded now in extensive personal and practical experience of the SPD, is a critique of their anthropology. Blumhardt is too wary of human nature to believe that people would do the right thing if only they knew what it was. His appeal is to a different agency: Only the Spirit of God can truly bring about “the right order,” that is, the Kingdom. People as they are, even with great good will and a clear idea of what the Kingdom should look like, will never create the society for which Blumhardt and the Socialists long. In 1904, Blumhardt begins to state his disagreement more strongly: The problem with German Social Democracy is that “it has no love of enemies.” There is very little room for disagreement within the party: “One is always supposed to think and speak like the Party. It is just like in the church.”85 Coming from Christoph Blumhardt, who has spent most of his adult life criticizing the Christian church, this statement signifies a very deep disillusionment. He has found the SPD, which was supposed to be his brother in arms in the Kampf against “egoism,” to be ridden with that very flaw. As Meier puts it, with some understatement, “his political praxis 83 84

85

Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 52–4, 217–18. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 299. Emphasis original. See also Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 8. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 314. Emphasis added.

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in the Party and in the chamber led him to the view that the theologically qualifiable difference between Social Democracy and other political parties was not so radical [after all].”86 Later Blumhardt writes to his old friend Eugster-Züst that there is an “understandable bitterness” in the working class that has unfortunately been brought in “as a weapon in the fight,” with hypocrisy as the result: “They condemn war even as they themselves conduct the bitterest war.” The Kampf becomes a vendetta against the rich instead of a patient, utopian striving against unjust circumstances and social structures.87 Hypocrisy always bothered Christoph more than unrighteousness,88 and he is deeply disappointed to find the same hypocrisy in the SPD that he so disliked in the church. It is striking that a theologian with such a pessimistic anthropology in the earlier period genuinely expected people in the SPD to be different, to be qualitatively more free of hypocrisy and “egoism.” The fact that Blumhardt is so surprised at these flaws in his fellow party members comes across to the later reader as strangely naïve. The most likely explanation is simply that he really did at first believe that the German workers and their political party were God’s special instruments for the building of his Kingdom—that the Ziel of the Kingdom is fundamentally realized or inaugurated in the SPD in a manner unprecedented in salvation history.89 This explanation is further supported by the fact that, for Christoph, the discovery that “egoism” holds sway even in the SPD immediately implies that the party is not the divinely chosen final eschatological instrument after all. If God were truly present to the extent Blumhardt had hoped and believed, such hypocrisy and vicious infighting simply would not be possible. Here we see once again the dualism in Christoph’s thinking that he was never fully able to escape. Despite his many attempts to articulate a concept of growth or development toward the Kingdom, for Blumhardt eschatology is finally an either/ or—either fully “already” or fully “not yet.” This dualism is to be attributed primarily to Blumhardt’s extremely high view of the Goodness and Righteousness and Truth of God (“Gerechtigkeit

86 87 88 89

Meier, Blumhardt, 114. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 3–4. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 195. Contra Meier’s view that “theologically, for Blumhardt the Party was never the Ultimate . . . There is no theological theory of the development of the Kingdom of God through the influence of Social Democracy in Blumhardt” (Meier, Blumhardt, 114–15). Between 1899–1902, Christoph really did believe, or at any rate hoped profoundly, that the SPD was the Kingdom’s primary instrument on earth. As with every “station,” he hoped that this would be the “last.” At the same time, Blumhardt’s eschatological framework, the orientation of which was always determined by hope rather than certainty, was flexible enough to accommodate the sort of disillusionment he experienced starting in 1903.

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und Wahrheit”). The power and scope of Blumhardt’s “theology of hope”90 stands in direct proportion to how little hope he has for the world as it is in itself, even at its most pious. Blumhardt becomes similarly disillusioned with the political process itself. Rather than serving as a powerful tool for the building of the Kingdom, in practice political activity involves long arguments about minor things, with minimal results. I often lament how ineffective it usually is these days when you speak up in public on behalf of the oppressed. For example, in parliament and the like, the very best speeches and the most just demands are completely ignored, if not outright scorned.91 The slow, boring reality of the legislative process is not at all what Blumhardt’s eschatological idealism had led him to expect.92 An important question at this point is whether Blumhardt comes to see his entry into SPD politics to have been a mistake. Specifically, given the force of his disillusionment, did Christoph believe that he had “misheard” God— that the political step was not a true “Fortschritt” at all? Blumhardt never says so explicitly. The closest he comes is to comment that “my attempt to carry my idea of God out into the world was premature.”93 Strictly speaking, this is an indirect admission that he misinterpreted the feeling of being “inwardly compelled,” if only in the sense that he was overly optimistic about what would come from it. Furthermore, the renewed quietism in the face of his disappointment, which is accompanied by a stronger than ever emphasis on divine agency over and against human agency, stands in stark contrast to the salvation-historical optimism of the third period. At the same time, Blumhardt remains an official member of the SPD all his life, and continues to express solidarity with the workers and their social and political plight, as well as to maintain his stress on the importance of the bodily and the physical. Most likely, Blumhardt eventually came to believe that he had been partially but not completely mistaken about the relationship between the Socialism and the Kingdom. He shows no sign of having regretted his step, and he refuses to condemn Christian political activity outright, even as he becomes far less optimistic about its effectiveness.94

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91 92 93 94

For a discussion of Christoph Blumhardt as a “theologian of hope,” see Jürgen Moltmann, “Christoph Blumhardt—ein Theologe der Hoffnung,” in Warten und Pressieren: Blumhardt in Bad Boll, ed. Albrecht Esche (Bad Boll: Evangelische Akademie Bad Boll, 2002), 57–71. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 3. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Welt, 146–7. From an unreferenced source, quoted in Jäckh, Blumhardt, 174–5. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 117.

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Quietism and the Return of “Sterbet” Period Themes The theology of Blumhardt’s postpolitical period is characterized by a return to his second period themes of dynamic eschatology, unmediated personal experience of God, and the contrast between divine and human efforts to bring about the Kingdom. The two differences from that period, slight though they may be, are (1) the addition, though in much weakened form, of the third period theme of “Leiblichkeit” and the importance of social circumstances; and (2) the resolution, for the most part, of the old agency tension in favor of the priority of divine action, resulting in a greater quietistic emphasis on “waiting” (as opposed to “hastening”) than ever before. In a 1911 letter to Ragaz, Blumhardt summarizes the latter point somewhat bluntly: “[God] is leading me into stillness. . . . Whatever is true, whatever is from God, has to come through on its own; this is the ‘New Age’. I am holding fast to this, and have no desire to be the kind of person who ‘accomplishes’ things.”95 Similarly, “God’s Kingdom takes care of itself”96; “we people cannot accomplish anything in the Kingdom of God; all we can do is stand there and say: ‘Here we are, do what you want with us!’”97 There is the occasional reference (reminiscent of the Gedanken) to preparing the way for God to come,98 but by far the greater emphasis is on God’s power over and against human powerlessness. His painful experiment in anthropological optimism has left its mark. There is a return in this period to Blumhardt’s old eschatological language: “Fortschritt,” “moving forwards,” “Ziel,” “the Fulfilled,” “that . . . the Kingdom of God may come,”99 “striving forwards towards a great goal,”100 and so on. We hear once again that “God is not sectarian,”101 that “God’s Kingdom” is much more than just a “concept,”102 and that “after the time is fulfilled . . . through the name ‘Jesus’ eternal life will arrive on earth.” Even now, “the Kingdom of God is at the door.”103 In terms of their theological content, a great many of the post-1906 sermons and letters could as easily have been written during the “sterbet” period. After largely disappearing during the political years, Blumhardt’s emphasis on “experience” comes back stronger than ever. As Meier puts 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

102

103

Ibid., 117–18. Ibid., 70. Ibid., 90. Ibid., 190. Ibid., 42–3. Ibid., 127. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, “Der Geist der Wahrheit. Pfingstpredigt,” (Stuttgart: Chr. Scheufele, 1911), 9. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, “Selig seid ihr, die ihr hier weinet. Predigt am 12. n. Trinitatis,” (Stuttgart: Chr. Scheufele, 1912), 7. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 114.

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it, “the belief in an unmediated relationship with God, with its individualistic tendency, is fully preserved to the end.”104 In a 1909 sermon, he affirms once more that “the Lord Jesus still speaks to us today through his Spirit; he himself testifies in our hearts.” As before, this personal, unmediated revelation takes priority, when necessary, over the biblical revelation: “at this point I am indifferent to whether or not [certain statements are] in the Bible; he revealed it to me himself.”105 Unless “the heavens speak,” faith, hope, and love are all worthless.106 In 1913, in a classic example of what we have called weak revelatory experience, Christoph explains that he has been told by God to prepare his house for continued ministry after his death.107 In his final decades, as before, strong emphasis on unmediated experience and a very low anthropology go hand in hand for Blumhardt.

Blumhardt and the Swiss Religious Socialists No aspect of Blumhardt’s theological legacy has received more scholarly attention than his relationship to the Swiss “Religious Socialists.” The two chief members of the group, Hermann Kutter and Leonhard Ragaz, saw Blumhardt as their primary inspiration and mentor, though both ended up personally somewhat estranged from him in his final years. According to Meier, Kutter’s popular 1904 theological defense of Social Democracy Sie Müssen! is materially an “abstract and theoretical” working out of Blumhardt’s political ideas.108 Likewise, a few years after Christoph’s death, Ragaz wrote a book on his and his father’s message, explaining that since his first encounter with the younger Blumhardt, “Ever since then, [Bad] Boll was the most precious place in the world [to me], and the center of my thought.”109 The story of the Religious Socialists, their activities and disagreements, their theological debt to Blumhardt, and above all their role in Barth’s early theological development, has been told many times, and need not be rehearsed again here.110 That the younger generation associated with 104 105 106

107 108

109 110

Meier, Blumhardt, 119. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 37. Ibid., 107. There are many other explicit affirmation of the importance of unmediated experience in this period. See ibid., 43, 75, 110, 161; Blumhardt, Welt, 213; etc. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 134. Meier, Blumhardt, 112–15. Similarly, according to Mattmüller, Kutter’s earlier work Das Unmittelbare “reads for long stretches like a philosophical interpretation of Blumhardtian ideas.” See Markus Mattmüller, “Der Einfluß Christoph Blumhardts auf schweizerischen Theologen des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 12 (1968), 238–40. Ragaz, Kampf, 11. See Sauter, Blumhardt, 195–215; Buess, and Mattmüller, Sozialismus; Mattmüller, “Einfluß”; W .R. Ward, Theology, Sociology and Politics: The German Protestant

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Religious Socialism and its circle—Thurneysen, Barth, and Brunner—had its own close relationship to the Blumhardts, and especially Christoph, is also well established.111 The role of Barth’s personal and theological encounters with the younger Blumhardt, above all in the aftermath of his longest Boll visit in April 1915, in the shaping of both Römerbrief editions has long been recognized, but only recently has it been done full justice, in Christian Collins Winn’s important and comprehensive study “Jesus is Victor!” The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth.112 For our purposes, the “Religious Socialism” question is most relevant in terms of Blumhardt’s theological critique of both Kutter and Ragaz’s interpretations of his thought. In both cases, he is dubious not of the content of their theology—both use the close connection between the Kingdom’s breaking into the world and the Social Democratic movement as their starting point—but of their implementation or “use” of it. Speaking in 1904, Blumhardt says he finds the tone of Kutter’s Sie Müssen hasty and presumptuous: “Sie müssen is an agitation piece, and we should ask ourselves: Do we have the right to write such pieces in God’s name . . . ? Jesus does not

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Social Conscience 1890–1933 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1979), 122–64; Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909–1936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 78–125; and especially Collins Winn, Significance, 222–91. Emil Brunner was the godson of Friedrich Zündel, author of the well-known biography of the elder Blumhardt, and close friend to both Johann Christoph and Christoph. In his briefer overview decades earlier, Sauter argues for a strong connection between Blumhardt’s second period theology and the early Barth: “The antithesis ‘God–Man’ that was determinative during the second phase of Blumhardt’s proclamation was most likely systematized and intensified in the young Barth’s dialectical thought.” (Sauter, Blumhardt, 240). Busch, likewise, lists Blumhardt’s thought as one of the three determining influences in the break with liberalism and the genesis of dialectical theology (Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth & the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth’s Critique of Pietism and Its Response, trans. Daniel W. Bloesch. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004, 26). See also Berger, Verwurzelung. Collins Winn points out the curious lacuna of Blumhardtian theology in McCormack’s otherwise exhaustive and penetrating study of Barth’s early development (Collins Winn, Significance, 28–31). One reason for this omission, in my view, seems to be that McCormack does not pay adequate attention to the fact that Kutter and Ragaz’s theologies are essentially explications and interpretations of the thought of Christoph Blumhardt (McCormack, Realistic, 83–5, 117–25). Although there is not enough space here to address more closely the complex question of historical intellectual influence between the Blumhardts and Barth, it should be noted that, materially, Blumhardt’s understanding of God’s presence in “negative” experiences of judgment and Umsturz bears many striking similarities to Barth’s later “theology of crisis.” For a complete overview of the literature on the Barth–Blumhardt connection to date, see Collins Winn’s first chapter.

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force himself upon anyone.”113 As Blumhardt sees it, Kutter is trying to make himself, or his book, the agent of the Kingdom, rather than waiting on God. Kutter’s “hastening” is premature. He is too quick to identify the SPD with the Kingdom itself—the same mistake Blumhardt himself had made, and had recently begun to regret. In criticizing Kutter, Blumhardt is criticizing his own optimistic turn a few years before.114 Ragaz and Blumhardt do not part ways until a decade later, during the First World War. Here again, the issue is not over content—both men are staunchly antiwar, as we will see in our next section—but over its implementation. Ragaz championed an active pacifism, calling for Religious Socialists to unite in political protest against the war.115 Blumhardt’s disagreement with this position is subtle: I agree with Ragaz to a significant extent, and I desire very strongly that the Christian world would engage in energetic protest against the war and everything it involves. I just wish for it first and foremost in the Spirit, not in outward activities. . . . In the essays in Neuen Wege what is missing in my view is the idea that only God can bring about and empower a true opposition to the contemporary world and to the war.116 In Blumhardt’s view, we must protest the War, but the protest is to be taken up with God, not with “external” powers and authorities. Only God has the power to change the situation, because the problem is beyond human power. “Where I differ from Neuen Wege is in their way of appealing to people as if a person could act differently, if only he or she wanted to.”117 Ragaz’s activistic error follows, in other words, from an overly high anthropology.118 Blumhardtian quietism is neither ambivalence nor absolute passivity. In it, the fallen world order is indeed protested against, and powerfully so. But the protest must be filtered through a basic wariness about human nature. Only God can act meaningfully in the world, and the great danger in a given situation is to assume too quickly that the Spirit is acting “through” human instruments, rather than over and against them.

113 114

115 116 117 118

Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 308. See Meier, Blumhardt, 113–14; and Mattmüller, “Einfluß,” 239. Kutter later came to represent the more quietistic side of the Religious Socialist spectrum, during the First World War, but he and Blumhardt had long been out of touch by that point. McCormack, Realistic, 118–21. Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 177. Emphasis added. Neuen Wege is Ragaz’s periodical. Ibid., 178. Emphasis added. Blumhardt hints at this critique a few years earlier, in a 1912 letter to Ragaz explaining his renewed quietism. See ibid., 116–18.

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The First World War: Lonely Prophet in a Sea of “Enthusiasm” When First World War broke out in Europe on August 4, 1914, Germany, like many other European countries, was swept up in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and militaristic fervor.119 In the first week of August, this fever, known in Germany as the so-called “Spirit of August,” found concrete expression as former pacifists volunteered for the army and the hitherto highly divided Reichstag voted unanimously in favor of the war budget. Even the pacifist SPD, which had expressed strong opposition to the War as late as July 25, had by August 4 undergone a complete about-face, explaining that “in the moment of danger [we] will not let down our Fatherland.”120 The German Protestant theological establishment joined the rest of the educated classes in submitting wholeheartedly to what was called the Kriegsgeist, or war spirit; like the Reichstag, the Protestant clergy and theologians were essentially of a single voice in their support of the German war cause that day and afterwards. On Sunday, August 7, German citizens packed into local churches in unheard-of numbers, and listened to sermon after sermon defending the war cause. According to the two major scholarly studies of German war sermons and war theology during the period,121 Christoph Blumhardt was the only well-known figure in the German Protestant world— whether liberal or conservative, Pietist or mainstream Lutheran—who was an exception to the rule of the Kriegsgeist, and argued in his sermons during the early months of the conflict against the Kaiser’s decision to go to war.122 Blumhardt preached from August 7 onward against the fevered patriotism that overcame his Protestant contemporaries. Addressing the prevailing 119

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122

Germany was not unique in its militaristic and patriotic enthusiasm. As Roger Chickering puts it, “generalizations about the German ‘spirit of 1914’ must accommodate evidence that the public reception of war was similar in other countries, and that the scenes in Berlin and Munich were indistinguishable from those in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg” (Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 16). The focus for our purposes is on Germany because Blumhardt was speaking in his statements about the War to his own German context. Quoted in Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 159. Wilhelm Pressel, Die Kriegspredigt 1914–1918 in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967); Karl Hammer, Deutsche Kriegstheologie (1870–1918) (München: Koesel-Verlag, 1971). Pressel and Hammer mention only one other Christian opposer of German militaristic nationalism from the start of the War, an eccentric soldier and “unofficial field chaplain” named Rudolf Schlunk. See Pressel, Kriegspredigt, 324–36; and Hammer, Kriegstheologie, 55–7. As the death toll rose and the War dragged on, a number of German theologians came to qualify their initial war enthusiasm. Blumhardt’s originality is in the fact that he critiqued the war cause from the start. See ibid., 58–72.

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view that the outbreak of the War was a divinely inspired event, Blumhardt couched his disagreement in explicitly theological terms. In the best study to date of German Kriegstheologie [war theology] in the First World War, Wilhelm Pressel considers Blumhardt’s sermons to be so striking in their contrast with “most of what was said from German pulpits during the World War” that he devotes an entire chapter to them: “The younger Blumhardt’s war sermons are so starkly different in their material content from the average war sermon that they have . . . virtually nothing in common with them.”123 Pressel’s 1967 study, with its chapter on the younger Blumhardt’s war theology, is widely cited by historians of the period.124 It seems, however, to be unknown to Blumhardt scholars to this point—it does not appear in bibliographies in Lim, Macchia, Meier, or Stober. Due to an understandable lack of expertise in the history of the First World War, Blumhardt interpreters have failed to recognize the profound historical significance of his war stance, quietistic though the critique was.125 To address the question of why Blumhardt was able to take his prophetic stance toward the First World War, it is useful to distinguish three categories: his view of who is to blame for the outbreak of the War, his view of the War’s purpose, and his interpretation of the nature of the war spirit, the “Spirit of August.” In each case, it is helpful to contrast Blumhardt’s interpretation with the generally prevailing one among German Protestant clergy and theologians of the period. On the question of blame, the overwhelming consensus in Germany in the early weeks and months of the War was that they were fighting a “defensive war” [Verteidigungskrieg] against foreign aggressors. The Kaiser’s statement from the first week of the War, that “It is with a pure conscience and with pure weapons that we enter into this battle,”126 was often repeated from the 123

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Pressel, Kriegspredigt, 251, 251–67. The exceptional character of Blumhardt’s war sermons is also recognized by Hartmut Lehmann in his magisterial study of Württemberg Pietism (Lehmann, Pietismus, 293). See, for example, Frank J. Gordon, “Liberal German Churchmen and the First World War,” German Studies Review 4, no. 1 (1981): 39–62; Kevin Cramer, “A World of Enemies: New Perspectives on German Military Culture and the Origins of the First World War,” Central European History 39 (2006): 270–98. Lim, Sieger, 89–93; Sauter, Blumhardt, 223–34; Meier, Blumhardt, 123. Lim, Sauter, and Meier acknowledge and explicate Blumhardt’s war critique without realizing how extraordinary it was. Macchia, oddly, states that Blumhardt “lacked the boldness to make public and explicit protest against the war,” even though Blumhardt does exactly that throughout the war sermons in the fourth Lejeune volume. Macchia here is most likely overinterpreting Blumhardt’s critique of Ragaz’s antiwar political activism (Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 176–9). Blumhardt’s quietistic skepticism about human, political efforts to put an end to the War is not the same as “failing to make public and explicit protest against the war” (Macchia, Spirituality, 143–4). Quoted in Hammer, Kriegstheologie, 209.

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pulpits. A famous statement, signed on September 4 by twenty-nine leading theologians and churchmen, boldly declared assurance of the innocence and righteousness of the German war cause: We declare with quiet confidence before our Christian brothers abroad that the blame [for this War] does not fall on our nation. . . . In this we know we stand in unity with all the Christians of our people, that we may and we must absolve our people and their government of responsibility for the terrible crime of this War and all its consequences for the development of God’s Kingdom on Earth.127 This “defensive war” point of view was almost universally accepted in Germany at the time. Blumhardt rejects the Verteidigungskrieg interpretation, though for theological rather than historical reasons. As early as the fourth day of the War, he addresses the issue of war guilt by saying, “no one in particular made this happen. I find it ridiculous when people today simply lay the blame on Russia.”128 Similarly, in November, he says, “We are all to blame for this War; all the nations worked together to cause its outbreak. We [nations] must repent together.”129 In a September sermon, Blumhardt explains the theological reasoning behind this understanding of blame: “We find ourselves in a world of sin, and all sin comes out of the self-centered will of individuals and of nations. . . . In the present time, it is human self-centeredness that has brought us this War, people thinking . . .‘I want to be greater than the next guy!’”130 The War is simply the latest symptom of human “egoism,” projected onto an international stage. In his analysis of the First World War, Blumhardt’s anthropology is as low, and his eschatology as underrealized, as they have ever been. As a result, he is immune to the national obsession with proclaiming German innocence and blaming others for the War. “Some are French, others English, 127

128 129 130

See Gerhard Besier, ed. Die Protestantischen Kirchen Europas Im Ersten Weltkrieg: Ein Quellen- Und Arbeitsbuch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 44. This statement is not to be confused with the better-known “An die Kulturwelt! Ein Aufruf,” published one month later. The latter was signed by ninety-three German intellectuals, including a number of the same theologians who signed the earlier one, and it too sought to defend Germany against the accusation of having started the War. For the text of the later statement, which Barth called “the terrible manifesto” (Karl Barth, “Nachwort,” in Schleiermacher-Auswahl, ed. Heinz Bolli. Munich: Siebenstern Taschenbuch Verlag, 1968, 293), see “An die Kulturwelt! Ein Aufruf (4. Oktober 1914),” in Band V. Das Zeitalter der Weltkriege und Revolutionen, ed. Martin Greschat, and Hans-Walter Krumwiede, Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte in Quellen (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999). Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 359. Ibid., 441. Ibid., 440.

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a third group is Russian, a fourth German, and each one desires on this earth to be in the right. But on this earth no person is in the right.”131 Blumhardt also disagrees with his contemporaries on the issue of the divine purpose of the War. He agrees that there is a divine purpose, of sorts—indeed, his very first war sermon, referring to the outbreak of the conflict, is entitled “It is the Lord!”132 But the similarities end there. For most German clergy and theologians, because the “Spirit of August” was considered in some sense to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God, divine sanction of the war cause was implied.133 The reasoning was that, if God wanted to unify Germany for the purposes of this War, which he clearly had done, he must have some specific historical mission for the German people—a “great divine duty,”134 “our great and serious task in God’s world”135—toward which the War was the first step. For Blumhardt, by contrast, the divine purpose was not to be deduced from the experience of the war spirit, and certainly had nothing to do with a particular political or military calling on the German nation. Rather, he understood God to be at work in the outbreak of the War insofar as the sin of the world was revealed and brought to light through it. In the words of one early sermon, the purpose of the War was that “the works of God might be made manifest.”136 In Blumhardt’s view, Jesus demonstrates that he is “Victor” in precisely the place where Fleisch and evil hold sway: I am not worried; I foresaw long ago that something needed to happen that would shake up the world, even if it be the greatest of evils—and 131 132 133

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Ibid., 376. Emphasis added. Ibid., 358–61. “Again and again in official church announcements and sermons the attempt was made to interpret the [patriotic] awakening of August 1914 in terms of enthusiastic revelation and the Holy Spirit. The self-revelation of God was . . . to a significant degree identified with the historical process as such, the high point of which was seen as given in the experiences of the beginning of the War . . . The Spirit of God was . . . identified with the ‘Spirit of [August]’” (Pressel, Kriegspredigt, 16). Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Christ und Krieg: Predigten aus der Kriegszeit (München: Verlag Chr. Kaiser, 1916), 14. Friedrich Lahusen, quoted in Gottfried Mehnert, Evangelische Kirche und Politik 1917–19: Die politischen Strömungen im deutschen Protestantismus von der Julikrise 1917 bis zum Herbst 1919 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1959), 33. Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 367. The analogy Blumhardt uses in this sermon (“Dass die Werke Gottes offenbar werden”) is the story of the blind man in John 9:2–3. The disciples ask who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind, and Jesus replies: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” A few weeks later, on October 13, Blumhardt makes a similar point using another text from John: The War is like Lazarus’ illness, which “does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). See ibid., 440.

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a war like this one is surely the greatest of evils. . . . O my dears, the War is . . . meant to bring the works of God to light.137 Similarly, “There is evil in the world, and right into the middle of this evil comes Jesus Christ, . . . equipped with the light of God, which overcomes all evil.”138 In this sense, and in this sense only, there is for Blumhardt a divine purpose to the War. In his view, the War, though “caused” by sin and false national pride, is at the same time being used by God as a catalyst for “negative” experience on a massive scale. It is “sterbet” theology applied to the “egoism” of the European nations. He puts it most succinctly in April 1915: “The collapse of our era is meant to clear the way for a resurrection.”139 The final significant difference between Blumhardt’s critical interpretation of the War and his colleagues’ positive view is in their respective understandings of the nature of the Kriegsgeist, the “Spirit of August.” His contemporaries saw it as in some sense a manifestation of the Holy Spirit,140 where for Blumhardt it is either the “spirit of world history”141 that “always stands in opposition to the victory of Jesus Christ,”142 or simply a diabolical spirit: “this war spirit, this Satan.”143 For our purposes, this last difference is particularly striking. There is a great irony here, that the theological proponent of unmediated “Erlebnis”—who was no stranger to “the danger-zone of religious subjectivism”144—is virtually the only German theological figure who does not associate the “Spirit of August” experience with the Spirit of God. Baptizing a meaningless war in the name of Jesus Christ is precisely the sort of error Luther and his spiritual successors are worried about in their critique of “enthusiasm”; one of FirstWorld-War Germany’s few formal “enthusiasts” proves to be far less of a Schwärmer than its Protestant theological establishment. In the case of the 137 138 139 140

141 142 143

144

Ibid., 371. Ibid., 369. Ibid., 383. Troeltsch, for example, on August 8 called it “the living breath of God” (Hammer, Kriegstheologie, 263–5). See also Adolf von Harnack, Aus der Friedens- und Kriegsarbeit (Gießen: Verlag von Alfred Töpelmann, 1916), 289; and Ernst von Dryander, Errinerungen (Verlag von Velhagen und Klasing, 1922), 258. Pressel believes one of the main reasons for the nearly unilateral support for the War among German Protestants was theological Schwärmerei in the classical Lutheran sense: “As a consequence of its understanding of the Spirit and of revelation, in [First World War] war theology there was in practice no longer any distinction between the pneumatic community of saints and the German national community,” etc. (Pressel, Kriegspredigt, 340–2). Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 392. Ibid., 389. Ibid. Similarly, he says later that “there was a dark spiritual power at work when this war broke out” (428). Sauter, Blumhardt, 80.

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1914 German war cause, Blumhardt is more worried about “egoism” than about sola scriptura, and it is his criterion, not Luther’s, that is vindicated. To quote once again Blumhardt’s view on Schwärmerei: “Anyone who hopes in God’s cause in the pure sense, and who seeks not himself but the Savior, will never be a Schwärmer.” During the outbreak of the First World War, Christoph Blumhardt does indeed prove to be “more sober . . . than any of the people who call me a Schwärmer.”145

145

Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 327, 383.

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6 blumhardt’s pneumatology: contributions and critical reflections

The previous four chapters of this study have been an analysis of three core theological themes from Christoph Blumhardt’s 1888–96 period, as they were first articulated and as they developed later in his life. These themes are theology of the cross, as summarized in the motto “Die, that Jesus may live!”; the “stations” eschatology, which attempts to articulate expectation of the imminent historical arrival of the fulfilled Kingdom without “binding” God to a specific eschatological time table; and a theology of unmediated “experience” of God. There have been two purposes for this analysis, one primary and one secondary. The primary purpose relates to our larger question about the impasse between Lutheran and Pentecostal pneumatologies. It has been to establish that Christoph Blumhardt, beginning in the “sterbet” period, held both to an extremely pessimistic anthropology and to a vigorous affirmation of unmediated experience of God in the Christian life. These unlikely theological partners were held together under the umbrella of a dynamic “stations” eschatology. Having established in this way that Blumhardt’s theology is in this manner particularly appropriate for exploring the contemporary pneumatological impasse, my initial task in the present chapter is to give a summary outline of Blumhardt’s primary pneumatological emphases, in order to prepare the ground for our final two chapters, which will address the fundamental question more directly. Alongside this primary purpose in Chapters 2 through 5, we have had a secondary goal: namely, to outline an interpretation of Christoph Blumhardt’s thought that views his second phase as determinative of the final two phases. The argument has been that the younger Blumhardt’s turn to anthropological pessimism around 1888 is his primary theological novum in relation to his father, and is critical for understanding both his involvement with Socialism 143

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and his critique of war enthusiasm from 1914 to 1917. This interpretation also faces the fact of Blumhardt’s “enthusiastic” doctrine of the Spirit more directly than previous interpreters, and underscores my assertion of the relevance of his critical yet charismatic theology today. Following the outline of his pneumatology, then, the second major section of this chapter will explore in greater detail the originality of this interpretation of the younger Blumhardt’s message in relation to other recent interpretations, summarizing the contribution of this study to the field of Blumhardt research. The chapter will conclude by addressing aspects of Blumhardt’s thought from a more critical perspective.

An Overview of Blumhardt’s Pneumatology One of the directions from which Christian pneumatology can be approached is from an explicitly Trinitarian starting point. In this approach, the Spirit is described primarily in terms of its relation to the Father and the Son. Following the Creed, the focus is often on issues like “procession.” An alternative to this approach uses the Spirit’s interaction with human beings as its point of departure, especially as those interactions are described in the biblical narratives. These two approaches are complementary, and ideally each should lead toward and ultimately include the other. Christoph Blumhardt employs the latter approach almost exclusively. He is interested in the Spirit first and foremost in its interactions with the world and especially with human beings. For this reason, the outline of his pneumatology in what follows will focus on the Spirit primarily in terms of the nature of its agency in the contemporary world, and, following Blumhardt’s lead, will address the Spirit’s place within the Trinity only as necessary. Blumhardt’s most comprehensive and penetrating articulation of his pneumatology is in the Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes, and it is to this work that I will refer most often in the discussion. His views on the Spirit do not change significantly after his second period.

The Spirit as “Other” Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s great hope was for a new “outpouring of the Spirit”: a sort of second Pentecost that would fundamentally change the world and bring about the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. Implicit here is a conviction that the Spirit is in some sense “absent” in the contemporary world: It needs to be “poured out” again. Although Christoph emphasized less a specific historical and preeschatological second Pentecost and more a general sense of the need for the Spirit in the Kampf for the Kingdom’s 144

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fulfillment, he shares with his father the view that the Spirit is fundamentally absent from the world. It is “the part of God that is withdrawn.”1 A consequence of viewing the Spirit as essentially “withdrawn” from the world rather than immanent in it is that when the Spirit does “break into” the world for any period of time, its presence takes the form of an event. The Spirit stands over and against the fallenness of the created order, such that contact with it cannot but result in a radical discontinuity within the world in a specific moment in time. As we shall see, this discontinuity usually takes the form of either a judgment or an act of creation, or both. “The Holy Spirit [is] not to be found . . . where there is no major upheaval [Umsturz].”2 Until the Kingdom is fulfilled, in this world the Spirit is always encountered by individuals as “Other”: “Whatever God reigns over, whatever is truly ruled by the Spirit of Jesus Christ in God’s name, those things are, as it were, completely cut off from humankind. We are never able to get hold of them with our human hands.”3 Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit really can be encountered, because it really is “given” from time to time, even thought its “default state” is withdrawal. “[The Spirit of God] remains sovereign, withdrawing itself from whom it wills, offering itself to whom it wills, leading whomever it wills into the truth to the degree that it desires.”4 But the Spirit is still not present the way it will be in the fulfilled Kingdom: “An outpouring of the Holy Spirit still lies in wait for the whole world. This promise has yet to be fulfilled.”5

The Spirit of Creation Blumhardt also sees a strong connection between the Holy Spirit and Creation—it is “the Spirit of God’s Creation.”6 The development of life in the world is the result of an “outpouring of the Holy Spirit over the chaos.”7 An understanding of the Spirit as immanent in Creation, at least to some degree, is implied. In the contemporary world, however, Blumhardt seems to associate the Spirit far more with new creation than with the original Creation. The creative action of the Spirit results in something new, precisely over and against the world as it currently is.8 The Spirit is best viewed not as immanent but as “withdrawn,” and our task is to hope and pray for its return. 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 180; see also 175–6. Ibid., 179. Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 172. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 176. Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, “Die Bitte um den heiligen Geist. Predigt am Sonntag Jubilate 1915,” (Stuttgart: Chr. Scheufele, 1915), 4. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 179, 178. See Lim’s discussion: Lim, Sieger, 172–6. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 177. Ibid., 180.

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There is a theological imprecision here that is characteristic of Blumhardt’s use of Trinitarian language: In nearly the same breath, he associates the Spirit with the created world as such, but then defines the sign of the Spirit as Umsturz, or fundamental discontinuity with the fallen created order. Even during his third phase, when Blumhardt is most likely to affirm the goodness of all created things, he tends to ground that goodness less in the Spirit’s role in the original Creation than in Christ’s affirmation of human flesh in the Incarnation.9 For Blumhardt, fallenness seems to supercede createdness. This is why, when he refers to the third person of the Trinity as “the Spirit of Creation,” what he has in mind is primarily the “new,” eschatological creation. Here is a good example of Blumhardt’s approach to pneumatology: He is interested in the Spirit’s action in the contemporary world, not in describing a dogmatically comprehensive doctrine of the Spirit.

The Freedom of the Spirit A major pneumatological theme for Blumhardt, especially during his period of theological differentiation with his father, is the complete freedom of the Spirit in relation to human expectations. His favorite way of describing this freedom is in terms of a critique of “systems” or “mechanisms”: It is a mistake when people believe that the Holy Spirit goes along naturally with human mechanisms and traditions. This view turns the Spirit of God into nothing more than an amplification of human opinions, so that every “christian” phenomenon ends up being viewed by its proponents as a work of the Spirit, even if it is wrapped up in the most monstrous superstition.10 Although the immediate context makes it clear that Blumhardt has his father’s ministry, especially the Kampf against forces of spiritual evil, particularly in mind here, he also applies this principle on a much wider scale, as a fundamental feature of the Spirit’s interaction with human beings: This, too, has become clear to me, that these living interventions of God do not repeat themselves once and for all according to the same schemas, or take place mechanically through “means of grace” alone; God’s intervention comes much more like a thief in the night.11 9 10 11

Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 3, 20. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 176. Ibid., 47.

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The scope of his critique includes the “means of grace” of the sacraments12 and the Bible, as well as theology, healing ministries, confessional dogma, and ecclesial structures. “God is all sorts of things, just not a system. . . . Wherever people have made a religion into a system, that religion is always distant from God.”13 Blumhardt’s critique of “systems” captures key features of his pneumatology. The first is the unsurprisingly “enthusiastic” conclusion that the Spirit’s direct action in the world is not restricted to sacrament or Bible. Both can be, and often are, instruments through which the Spirit works, but Blumhardt is deeply critical of the traditional Protestant and Roman Catholic views that God has chosen to give his Spirit to the inner person only through certain specific instruments. Second, Blumhardt’s theology of the freedom of the Spirit is grounded to a significant degree in his low view of human nature. If God only worked through the Spirit in certain ways, and through specific, predictable instruments, the door would be left wide open for superstition and idolatry. In Blumhardt’s view of human nature, people are always trying to escape having to face the living reality of God, because encounter with that living reality entails judgment and being pulled out of comfortable spiritual habits. If people believe they can secure God’s blessings, especially eternal life, through sacraments, reading the Bible, going to church, adhering to a specific theological confession, or other “usual tracks,”14 they will do these things in place of engaging directly with the Spirit. “Instead of using the gifts that have been given to look forwards, in order to attain the final goal, people instead turn around and marvel at the gifts, and ultimately make an idol out of them.”15 Similarly, “One of the great dangers for the Kingdom of God is . . . that those who have been moved through a divine initiative might end up seeing the movement itself as more important than the Spirit who caused the movement in the first place.”16 In Blumhardt’s view, none of these “Christian” practices is inherently able to prevent the egoistic self from blunting their critical edges and turning them into idolatrous mechanisms for controlling the Spirit to one’s 12

13 14 15 16

See, for example, Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 152, 179: “Baptism and Communion have become instruments of power in the church”; “The blood of Christ is no magical formula.” Towards the end of his life, Blumhardt becomes slightly more positive towards the sacraments. The “Bollers” appear to have learned his antisacramental lesson too well, and he has to remind them that just because the Spirit does not work through such things “mechanically,” this does not mean it never works through them at all (Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 139–40). Blumhardt, Gedanken, 57–8. See also Ragaz, Kampf, 310–12. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 39. Ibid., 116. Ibid., 122.

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own ends. For Blumhardt, knowing how to anticipate and “trigger” the action of the Spirit in the world leads to “egoistic” manipulation of the Spirit. If the Spirit restricted its action in this way, such a restriction would be tantamount to a capitulation to the sinful human ego. “Mechanical” or “systematic” self-restriction would be an antinomian compromise on God’s part.17 The Spirit would then rapidly become merely “an amplification of human opinions.” The freedom of the Spirit in Blumhardt’s pneumatology undermines the human desire to control God by turning him into a “system.” Taken alone, Blumhardt’s insistence on the freedom of the Spirit over and against human attempts to anticipate where, when, and how it will act comes close to a dangerous pneumatological arbitrariness. For example, would it be idolatrous systematizing to say that the Spirit always acts out of love? Or that as the “Spirit of truth” it cannot lie? Upon closer examination, however, Blumhardt’s pneumatology is less arbitrary than it might appear. He cautions strongly against anticipating where and how the Spirit will act not because the Spirit is capricious but because human beings tend nearly always to expect the Spirit in the wrong places. The nature of human “egoism” is such that we are usually looking for the Spirit we want to find, rather than the Spirit as it actually is. The Spirit we want to find is one that we can control, who blesses and empowers us without calling our desires or behaviors into question, and whom we are free to ignore as it suits our interest.18 It is only in relation to the skewed expectations of the homo curvatus in se that the Spirit comes across as capricious or arbitrary. In Blumhardt’s theology, the statement, “the Spirit blows where it chooses” (John 3:8), means first and foremost that the Spirit does not blow where we choose.

The Spirit and the Kingdom One way in which the Holy Spirit is not arbitrary in Blumhardt’s theology is in its fundamental orientation toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. It is only “through a new, a completely new effective activity of God, through a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes the Old to be overthrown and the New to be built up” that true eschatological Fortschritt can take place.19 The Spirit is the true effective agent of the Kingdom on earth. It is the Spirit who leads the “little flock” in its eschatological Kampf from “station” to “station” through revelatory experience. And it is in the absolute “Truth and Righteousness” of the Spirit that the uncompromising goodness of the Kingdom, which stands at such odds with the world as it 17

18 19

For an example of Blumhardt’s critique of dualistic soteriology as antinomian, see Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 8, 5–9. See Blumhardt, Gedanken, 127. Ibid., 42. Blumhardt regularly associates the Spirit with the Kingdom. See, for example, ibid., 35, 182–3; Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 298; Blumhardt, “Wahrheit,” 4, 12.

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is, is revealed on earth. Due to its eschatological orientation, the Spirit is always associated positively with creation, resurrection, and life, and negatively with death, decay, the old-world order, and divine judgment over sin. When the Spirit acts, it acts to promote life and peace for the sake of the Kingdom, though often the initial means by which it does so is preparatory destruction and Umsturz. Because the Kingdom is global and cosmic in scope, Blumhardt also sees the Spirit as tending to operate on societal and international, rather than just individual, levels. The Spirit promotes unity and not sectarianism. This theme is strongest during Blumhardt’s third phase, but is present throughout. The Spirit will bring about the Kingdom, and the Kingdom includes the whole world; therefore, the Spirit often acts on a global scale.

The Spirit and “Experience” “Experience” of God, as we understood it in Chapter 4, is a fundamentally pneumatological category. In the period since the Ascension and Pentecost, God interacts with the world as Spirit. Properly speaking, since then even “experience” that is described and understood as encounter with the risen Christ is pneumatologically mediated—it is encounter with “Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19). As we have seen, in practice Blumhardt moves freely between christological and pneumatological language to describe the One encountered in “Erlebnis,” though there is a slightly greater emphasis on the Spirit. “The Spirit of Jesus Christ” is one of his favorite pneumatological designations.20 In light of the connection with “Erlebnis,” we see that, even though the Spirit must not be viewed as “mechanical” or predictable in its work, it does tend to be associated with certain types of activity. It communicates and guides, via revelatory experience; it can evoke positive feelings of “warmth” or intimacy with the Divine; it resurrects and restores health and life and deliverance from spiritual bondage by means of miraculous interventions; and it destroys and judges, releasing individuals and communities from bondage to the old creation by means of “negative” experience. However, it is important to note that Blumhardt’s critique of “systems” has some of these varieties of “experience” precisely in mind. For example, although the Spirit can and does heal physical ailments, the “mechanistic” error is to expect it do so regularly or in a predictable way. Broadly speaking, according to Blumhardt’s theology, we must not expect the Spirit to perform straightforwardly “positive” or “beneficial” actions in accordance with a reliable “system,” but we do not need to be quite so careful in relation to “negative” experience.

20

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 42, 66–7; Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 172; and so on.

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The Spirit of Truth: “Negative” Experience There is one major “experience” category that Blumhardt seems to view as the territory of the Holy Spirit nearly exclusively, almost never describing it in christological terms: “negative” experience. In the pre-Kingdom world, when the judgment and “otherness” of God is encountered, Christoph’s preferred descriptor is the Johannine “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13; 1 John 4:6), rather than “the Savior” or “the Spirit of Jesus Christ,” which are so common elsewhere in his preaching. Such experience is often understood to take place for the sake of Christ—“Die, so that Jesus may live!,” and so on—but the direct agent of the experience is the Spirit, not Christ. Although the category of “negative” experience is important in Blumhardt’s theology from the start of the “sterbet” period, it becomes particularly central during his final period. At this point, the only “preparatory step” necessary for the Kingdom is the judgment of the world by the Holy Spirit: “The world has to be prepared in such a way that we might finally know what is the ground of all sin; this is what must be revealed, and to that end the Spirit of God will judge the world.”21 The central text for the critical or negative function of the Spirit is also one of Blumhardt’s favorites, John 16:8–13: “And when the [Comforter] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment,”22 and so on. Perhaps Blumhardt’s clearest statement about the relationship between the Spirit and judgment appears in an exposition of this passage in a 1915 sermon: We need to receive [the Spirit of Truth] directly [unmittelbar] from heaven. . . . The Holy Spirit will come and will convict concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. For the Lord Jesus himself, everything depends on this. His future must be prepared, must have a forerunner and predecessor, and that will be the Holy Spirit, gravely, with fire and sword, not affectionately or agreeably, but shining severely in our hearts and telling us what is wrong with us. This is in order that we might seek the will God with all our hearts, and serve him according to that will, until the Lord Jesus arrives.—This is the great promise of Jesus Christ.23 Here we have the same dynamic as in the “sterbet” period—sin is what is standing in the way of the Kingdom—but the agent behind the necessary 21 22

23

Blumhardt, “Wahrheit,” 10. Based on Luther’s translation, which Blumhardt used, where elegzein is translated as “strafen.” The NRSV uses “prove the world wrong,” but lists “convict the world” as an alternative reading. Blumhardt, “Bitte,” 6–7.

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judgment and destruction “with fire and sword” is no longer ambiguous. It is the Spirit alone, “directly from heaven,” who can accomplish the final eschatological clearing of the ground. Blumhardt’s quietism is, to a significant degree, a waiting on the Spirit to be poured out unmediatedly in judgment. Blumhardt’s concept of “judgment” [Gericht] can be described in many ways. It is expressed sometimes in individualistic, affective terms, and sometimes in more theological or spiritual terms: “the death of our ego”24; “truly . . . to suffer anguish on account of God’s will”25; accepting physical illness and decay as unavoidable before the Kingdom is fulfilled; “affliction”26; “the opposite” of “a comfortable life”27; the revelation of hidden and unknown sin in one’s life; judgment upon the expectation for God to act always in the same ways he has before, “mechanistically”; a deeply uncomfortable thwarting of the will and desires of the Fleisch, experienced as “birth-pangs” and “the anxiety and unsettled feeling that accompanies profound change”28; the giving up of “our Wesen as a person”29; a visceral and destructive experience of the contrast between God’s “Truth and Righeousness” and human beings’ untruth and unrighteousness; and a “mighty upheaval of existing conditions”30 on a broader, societal level. There is one thing, however, that “Gericht” does not mean, even thought it has often been construed this way by the church: damnation. Judgment is an essential component of the Kingdom God,—not condemnation—it is a great error when people associate the Gospel more with condemnation than with the just restoration of the world; this is one of the greatest errors that Christianity has ever produced—but judgment: it is absolutely critical that I have never experienced and never hope to experience anything more welcome than a firm encounter with the Spirit of God in judgment.31 Blumhardt’s robust concept of God’s active, experienceable judgment of individuals and the world by the Holy Spirit does not compromise his eschatologically grounded universalist soteriology. In light of the painful contrast he observes between the world as it is and the world as it will be in the fulfilled Kingdom, Blumhardt takes sin and evil too seriously to believe God can ignore them or brush them aside. A good God cannot bring about the 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 2, 10. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 143. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 174–75. Ibid., 201. Blumhardt, Gedanken, 179. Ibid., 187. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 451. Blumhardt, Auswahl IV, 173.

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Kingdom of “Truth and Righteousness” apart from a radical judgment upon that which is unlike himself. Here we have the discontinuity between world and Kingdom that makes the Spirit’s actions radically “new” in the context of the old creation. Nevertheless, genuinely painful though it is, the Spirit’s “judgment” is for the sake of the Kingdom, for the sake of those being judged, and not for the sake of punishment. What we find in Blumhardt’s concept of the Spirit’s judgment upon the world is a deeply Johannine understanding of the connection between Spirit, truth, judgment, and “redemption.” Commenting on John 8:32 in 1889, he explains, The Truth will set you free, and this should be made clear, so that we might pray for this Spirit who has judged and convicted us, . . . that we might once again experience what Truth is, what communion with God is, so that our fleshly nature might be thrown down through God’s judgment, [and] flee to the blood of Christ. . . . We need to calm and prepare ourselves in the stillness for judgments, for the Truth is always a judgment [Gericht].32 Nine years later, again commenting on God’s judgment, Blumhardt explains that “[Christ’s future] depends upon a judgment of all flesh together, but a judgment for the sake of redemption, just as every judgment is really an act of redemption.”33 Blumhardt’s understanding of the critical or “negative” role of the Spirit indicates a deep internalization of the pneumatological connection in Johannine thought between judgment and freedom. For the Johannine author, the truth sets us free (John 8:32), and the “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13; 1 John 4:6) is the one who will come “to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). Furthermore, the “Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:6), and “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Or, to summarize in Blumhardt’s words: “the Spirit is Truth and the Spirit is Righteousness,”34 “the Truth is always a judgment,” and “every judgment is really an act of redemption.”

Interpreting the Theology of Christoph Blumhardt: Contribution and Reflection As was pointed out in Chapter 1, any account of Christoph Blumhardt’s theology needs to engage seriously with the question of continuity and 32 33 34

Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 5, 16–17. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 223. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Auswahl II, 72.

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discontinuity with his father’s thought. Unquestionably, the younger Blumhardt’s theology is hugely dependent on the Kingdom-oriented conviction of the living, “experienceable” rule of God that is the foundation of Johann Christoph’s theology and ministry. In this sense, it is difficult to disagree with Gerhard Sauter’s assessment that the theology of both Blumhardts is “complementary,” and “best viewed as a single overall picture.”35 At the same time, Christoph is best known for his turn to “high valuation of the body” and the theologically determined political activity that resulted from it, and these cannot be understood apart from the critique of human “egoism” he developed in the late 1880s, the radicality and rigorous extrapolation of which pushed far beyond the limits of the elder Blumhardt’s view of sin. Because of the nature of its larger pneumatological question, this study has stressed Christoph’s theological differences from his father. Blumhardt’s own assessment in the 1888–96 period, that his new Kampf against Fleisch and “egoism” signifies a fundamental anthropological departure from Johann Christoph’s thought, has proven to be materially accurate. Despite the elder Blumhardt’s strong conviction of the “poverty” of the contemporary church, in his thought it is external factors, the spiritual “powers and principalities,” that remain the primary obstacle to the Kingdom, not human nature.36 The extent of Christoph Blumhardt’s turn to anthropological pessimism places his thought closer to Luther’s than to his father’s on this crucial issue. This study’s primary contribution to the field of Blumhardt interpretation has been to demonstrate the centrality of this pessimistic anthropology for determining Christoph’s theology from 1888. Among interpreters of the younger Blumhardt, the mistake has often been made of understanding his anthropology first and foremost in terms of the more optimistic statements from the political period.37 Even those who have to some extent avoided this mistake have not fully recognized the consistent importance of Blumhardt’s anthropology and theology of the cross for each of his major theological developments after 1888. His low view of human nature is seen rather as one aspect of his thought among many, part of a larger development, and primarily significant during the second period.38 In contrast to these interpretations, it has been shown that Blumhardt’s critique of “egoism” is of central importance for his theological differentiation from his father, his critique of religion, the dialectical complexity of his eschatology, his fourth 35 36

37 38

Sauter, Blumhardt, 329. The elder Blumhardt’s concept of “waiting and hastening” does contain in nuce the sort of quietism that comes to dominate his son’s thought in the later years. But Johann Christoph’s “waiting” is grounded more in a high view of God’s action in the world than in a low view of human nature as such. See especially Lim, Sieger, 115–19; and Macchia, Spirituality, 118, 139, 166, 168–70. See Meier, Blumhardt, 17–22, 129–30; and Sauter, Blumhardt, 116–26, 237–8.

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period quietism, and his critique of First-World-War enthusiasm. It has also proven to be the necessary theological ground for his “turn to the world,” despite the apparent anthropological optimism he at times expresses during that period. Christoph Blumhardt’s critical prophetic insight into the events and conditions of his time and his influence on dialectical theology are unthinkable apart from his radically low anthropology, and this point has been inadequately recognized in the major interpretations of his life and thought. A consequence of recognizing the centrality of Blumhardt’s “sterbet” anthropology from 1888 onwards is the theological prioritization of the second period of his development over the other three. The working out of the new anthropology in the eschatological and experiential categories Blumhardt had largely inherited from his father resulted in a basic theological outlook that did not change very much materially after the second period. The whole of Blumhardt’s theology can be understood more or less in terms of a matrix of anthropology, eschatology, and “experience”-focused pneumatology that was firmly in place by the time Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes was published in 1895. As Blumhardt conceives them, each of these categories is intimately related to the other two. The anthropological focus of the “sterbet” theology—the problem of Fleisch and “egoism”—is understood in light of its eschatological purpose of clearing the way for the Kingdom, and takes place through “negative” experience of the Spirit; the danger “stations” eschatology seeks to avoid is an idolatrous and egoistic “standing still,” and guidance from “station” to “station” can only take place through revelatory experience of the Spirit; and true “Erlebnis” of God is always Kingdom oriented, and in its most profound and reliable form consists in the judgment and annihilation of sin in order to pave the way for resurrection and new life. The interpretation in this study is the first to place the second period at the center of Blumhardt’s thought. It also stands somewhat in contrast to interpretations such as Macchia’s and Lim’s, and to some degree Collins Winn’s, which put christology at the center of his theology. Despite Blumhardt’s extensive use of christological language, materially speaking there is little in his thought that can be explained only in christological terms, and there is equally little that can be explained apart from the anthropology, eschatology, and pneumatology described previously. The simple fact that the Kingdom was not fulfilled once and for all after the Resurrection demonstrates this point. This is not to say that christology is not very important to Blumhardt interpretation. The argument is merely that christology has been overemphasized, and anthropology underemphasized, in a great deal of Blumhardt scholarship. A further contribution of this study has been to understand Blumhardt’s theology of experience in the context of the classical Protestant debate about 154

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anthropology and unmediated “Erlebnis” of the Spirit. This has resulted in the disclosure of the crucial category of “negative” experience in Blumhardt’s thought. The repeated acknowledgment we have seen in earlier studies of the problem of “religious subjectivism” in his theology has paved the way for this interpretation. Lim’s comprehensive, if imperfect, exposition of the theme of experience of God and Macchia’s dialogue between Blumhardtian and Pentecostal theology39 have been particularly influential in this regard. Lim makes some mention of what I have called “negative” experience,40 but only Sauter has recognized more fully the abiding significance of negativity, suffering, “powerlessness,” and divine judgment in Blumhardt’s understanding of the divine–human relationship prior to the realization of the Kingdom.41 This study is the first to identify the pneumatological category of “negative” experience as the crucial category. The final major contribution has been to demonstrate the as yet underappreciated theological and historical significance of Blumhardt’s critique of the war cause in Germany from August 1914 onwards. This is the first exposition of Blumhardt’s thought to take into account the findings of Wilhelm Pressel’s classic study of First-World-War theology, Die Kriegspredigt 1914– 1918 in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands, which demonstrates that Blumhardt’s early critique was almost unprecedented in German pulpits at the time. Blumhardt’s remarkable theological immunity to the “war fever” underscores the incisive critical power of his creative synthesis of “enthusiastic” pneumatology and Reformation anthropology.

Critical Reflections on Blumhardt’s Thought The unsystematic nature of Blumhardt’s thought, expressed as it was primarily through sermons rather than academic theological treatises, makes it difficult in some ways to criticize his theology. His emphasis on the dynamic freedom of the Spirit over and against “mechanisms and traditions,” and his consistent critique of academic theology, shield him to some degree against the obvious charge of theological inconsistency, for example, in his somewhat arbitrary use of Trinitarian language or his conflicting statements about human and divine agency in the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Later interpreters must respect his insistence that he was not trying to articulate a coherent theological system. At the same time, as we have seen, and as Blumhardt interpreters have long recognized, there is a great deal of theological consistency in Blumhardt’s sermons. Broadly speaking, there is after all a coherent 39 40 41

See especially Macchia, Spirituality, 161–70. Lim, Sieger, 115–19. What he calls “the powerlessness of the congregation.” See especially Sauter, Blumhardt, 130–1, 191–2, 220–3.

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and integrated message expressed in different ways over the decades, especially after 1888. Furthermore, he explained his many prophetic critiques of society and the religious life around him on explicitly theological grounds. Rather than addressing the finer points of certain inconsistencies in his thought, then, a contemporary critical appraisal of his thought does better to focus on some broader concerns that are either problematic or have not fared very well over time. One major critique that has often been leveled at Christoph Blumhardt’s thought is that of spiritualistic subjectivism.42 Lim has demonstrated that Blumhardt explicitly attacked this point of view,43 and the discussion of Schwärmerei in Chapter 4 has further substantiated his conclusion. The fact that Blumhardt formally attacked it, however, does not necessarily mean that the charge is materially mistaken. The question at hand is whether it is possible to affirm unmediated experience of the Spirit without compromising traditional Protestant anthropology. Our discussion has shifted the ground on this issue from a simple dualism of Schwärmer/ not Schwärmer to the question of whether “negative” experience can serve as a meaningful hermeneutical criterion for “discerning the spirits.” My conclusion—that it can, at least in a limited way—will be explored further in Chapter 8. For now, it suffices to point out that the critique of a “dangerous subjectivism” in Blumhardt’s thought is based on precisely the reductive pneumatological dualism this study has been attempting to critique and move beyond. A more substantial critical problem in Blumhardt’s thought is connected with his eschatology. He consistently extrapolated concrete eschatological “instructions” of global and even cosmic significance from his “negative” experiences of God’s “Truth and Righteousness.” Visceral experience of God’s judgment upon Fleisch and “egoism” need not necessarily imply that a renewed spiritual death to self on the part of a small Schwabian community will trigger the final historical fulfillment of the Kingdom of God on earth. Likewise, in the early part of his political period, Blumhardt took the characteristic step of interpreting a profound insight into the structural societal oppression of the working class as a divine revelation that the SPD was at that time God’s primary eschatological instrument in the world. Blumhardt’s tendency, especially in the middle two periods, to draw eschatologically universalized conclusions from his experiences on the basis of his Kingdom framework is difficult to defend. Indeed, it could be argued that the solipsistic “eschatologizing” of his experiences is a form of the kind of unconscious egoism he so often criticized in others. The other problematic aspect of Blumhardt’s theology worth drawing attention to here relates to soteriology. Blumhardt consistently argued against the traditional Protestant understanding of salvation, which he 42 43

Ibid., 80; Meier, Blumhardt, 22; and Stober, Blumhardt, 237, 261–2, 267. Lim, Sieger, 102–05; see also Blumhardt, Gedanken, 31.

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believed turned mortality into a sort of sacramental gateway to an otherworldly heavenly Kingdom. He was able to reject this soteriology, with its tendency toward individualism, only because he had collapsed soteriology into eschatology. The fulfillment of the Kingdom alone is salvation, and it is salvation for the whole world. One major problem with this schema is pastoral: It unintentionally diminishes Christianity’s enduring consolation, the hope that death is not the end of the human story. All Christian hope for Blumhardt is funnelled into an imminent global and historical Eschaton. In a world where the Kingdom has not yet come, and may not come for a very long time, the ongoing rule of death is dark indeed without the consolation of heaven.44 The second potential issue with Blumhardt’s eschatological soteriology is that it tends to minimize the significance of the life and especially the death of Christ. The divine mission that began in Bethlehem and was “finished” on Golgotha (John 19:30) is not really finished at all for Blumhardt—in some ways it is hardly even begun. The soteriological “effects” of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion remain basically future—a sort of “potential energy” still waiting to be released. Christology, too, becomes collapsed into eschatology. At the same time, however, this underrealized eschatology is also a crucial strength in Blumhardt’s theology. Blumhardt is able to “call [a] thing what it actually is” instead of calling “evil good and good evil.”45 His prophetic critical insight is unintelligible apart from his low view of the world as it currently is. Bearing this in mind, however, there are ways of articulating this sort of pessimism without reducing soteriology and christology to eschatological subcategories. Luther’s theme of simul iustus et peccator is particularly worth exploring in this regard. ******* We turn now from analysis of Blumhardt’s theology to its constructive pneumatological possibilities. The first step will be to put Blumhardt’s view of the Holy Spirit in dialogue with two contemporary Pentecostal theologians, and then with aspects of the pneumatology of Martin Luther.

44

45

It should be noted that even at the height of his polemic against a “sacramental view of death,” Blumhardt is still able in specific pastoral situations to refer to heavenly hopes in a more traditional way (e.g., in his reflections on the death of Friedrich Zündel, Blumhardt, VB 1891, vol. 5, 4). Also, his polemic on this point softens in his final years, as he approaches his own death (Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 163, 196). Thesis 21 of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, as translated in Forde, Cross, 81.

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7 blumhardt’s pneumatology in dialogue: contemporary pentecostal theology and martin luther

This study maintains that Christoph Blumhardt’s pneumatology can be helpfully understood to stand “between Wittenberg and Azusa Street.” The close connection in his thought to both contemporary Pentecostal and classical Lutheran theology is more material and thematic than formal and explicit, however. Although Blumhardt mentions Martin Luther and the Reformation on many occasions, the references are usually vague and general, demonstrating little familiarity with specific Lutheran theological works beyond the Small Catechism and Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession. Blumhardt appears to be unaware of the many points of contact between his own thought and Luther’s, especially on subjects relating to human nature and sin. He confines his theological engagement with the Reformer to a vague critique of the doctrine of justification by faith, which he believes leads to a mistaken focus on the afterlife and a consequent antinomianism.1 Accepting the critical consensus among scholars of Pentecostalism that the movement’s beginning is best identified as the events leading up to and surrounding Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906, Blumhardt did not interact directly with any branch of the Pentecostal movement as such. In histories of Pentecostalism, Christoph and his father Johann Christoph are themselves understood to be precursors of the movement, especially in the area of supernatural physical healing.2 The closest Christoph came to direct engagement with “Pentecostalism” was when a major figure in the proto-Pentecostal “healing movement,” William Boardman, contacted him in 1885. Blumhardt’s reply consisted of a short and friendly, but trenchant critique of 1 2

Blumhardt, VB 1892, vol. 7, especially 13. Anderson, Pentecostalism, 24, 30; Dayton, Pentecostalism, 120–1.

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Boardman’s movement for having an overrealized eschatology that can only lead to egoistic division.3 However, in its focus on unmediated “experience,” its eschatological orientation, its critique of confessionalism and classical Protestantism, and its witness to supernatural healing, Blumhardt’s theology is clearly “proto-Pentecostal” in a number of important senses. The purpose in what follows is to place Blumhardt’s pneumatology in dialogue in certain relevant areas with contemporary Pentecostal theology, and with the thought of Martin Luther, in order to demonstrate more precisely both the continuities and the discontinuities with those schools of thought that make his theology appropriate for attempting to move beyond the impasse between them.

Blumhardt and Pentecostal Theology Given the great theological diversity within Pentecostalism, the discussion in this section will be limited to two recent and seminal works of contemporary Pentecostal theology, Steven Land’s Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom and Frank Macchia’s Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology.4 It is only in the past few decades that the field of Pentecostal studies has begun to come into its own in mainstream academic theology, and Land and Macchia’s theological work has played a significant role in this development. Their respective books are entries into the debate that remains at the heart of the Pentecostal academic discussion, over the question of Pentecostalism’s central distinctive in relation to other Christian traditions.5 I have chosen these two books to represent contemporary Pentecostal theology in the dialogue with Blumhardt because of their extensive grappling with the “experience” question, their broad goal of defining Pentecostalism, and their academic quality. In what follows, I will compare their views on three key subjects: unmediated “experience,” which is closely related in charismatic theology to the event of “Spirit baptism”; the relationship between holiness and empowerment in such experience; and what we have called “negative” experience.

Unmediated Experience of the Spirit in Pentecostal Theology That Pentecostal theology puts “experience” of God, and especially unmediated experience, at the heart of its message and practice is beyond dispute. The debates over Pentecostalism’s central distinctive take this point more or less for granted. The disagreement is not over the importance of experience of the Spirit, but over the nature of that experience; the degree to which it is 3 4 5

Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 77–9; see Chapter 5, Note 6. Land, Passion; Macchia, Baptized. For the best overview of the debate thus far, see ibid., 20–60.

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connected to a premillenial eschatological orientation; how that experience relates to conversion, sanctification, and “Spirit baptism”; and whether the distinctive is an experiential praxis rather than a particular way of conceptualizing Pentecostal worship experience. Land and Macchia’s use of the term “experience” is subject to the same caveats and limitations that we found in Blumhardt’s use of it. Broadly speaking, both intend the term to signify punctiliar individual encounter with the “transcendence,” love, and power of God, resulting in a strong “sense of wonder and enthusiasm” and “conscious participation in the justice of the kingdom, the growth in sanctifying grace, and the charismatic openness to bless others and to glorify God.”6 For Macchia, “experience” is essentially Spirit baptism, which is both a specific defining moment in the life of a Christian and an “ongoing” series of “moments of spiritual renewal.”7 Land tends to avoid Spirit baptism language, and constantly attempts to redefine classical Pentecostal “experience” language in terms that deemphasize emotionalistic and antiintellectual tendencies: Pentecostalism’s “experiential center” is an “affective integration” of “beliefs, affections, and actions.”8 Nevertheless, his focus on “integration” assumes, and begins with, the “experiential center.” The conceptual bridge for Land between punctiliar experience and long-term affectional “dispositions” is the doctrine of sanctification. Sanctification is initiated in conversion and empowered through specific moments of encounter with the Holy Spirit, but continues on a “dispositional” level long after the emotions and excitement of a given experience have passed. Change is both “gradual” and “instantaneous.”9 In Pentecostal theology, “experience” continues to prove, as with Blumhardt, to be a slippery category, even when it is more or less identified with a general concept of Spirit baptism. It can entail “charisms and signs,”10 including supernatural events like healing (“miraculous” experience), dayto-day guidance and sense of specific vocation from God11 (revelatory experience), and strong feelings of “self-transcendence”12 (“feelings” experience). It is usually associated with Spirit baptism, but not always and never completely. It is primarily centered in the feelings and affections, rather than the brain, but it is not pure emotionalism either. It is mainly punctiliar, but also ongoing. A comprehensive and conceptually complete definition remains elusive. 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

Ibid., 271, 154; Land, Passion, 123. Macchia, Baptized, 153–4, 271. Because of the disagreements among Pentecostals on this issue, Macchia carefully avoids overdefining “Spirit baptism” as either simultaneous to water baptism or necessarily distinct from it. Land, Passion, 46, 41. Ibid., 23, 63, 128, 136. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 87–8, 117. Macchia, Baptized, 282.

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For all the variety and imprecision of the term both in Blumhardt and among Pentecostals, they do seem to be talking about the same thing. There is a strong thematic correspondence in their respective “experience” talk. Along with the miraculous, “feelings,” and revelatory elements, Blumhardt, Land, and Macchia all take for granted that such “experience” has a fundamentally eschatological orientation, provoking longing for and expectation of the fulfillment of the Kingdom and the return of Christ. It also gives rise to sharp critiques of rigid confessionalism, and evokes lament for the rationalization of Christianity at the expense of feelings and of human embodiedness.13 As in Blumhardt, it is viewed as an antidote to a perceived antinomianism inherent in the traditional Protestant understanding of justification.14 Finally, charismatic theology joins Blumhardt in rejecting an overly narrow concept of the mediation of the Word in experience of the Spirit, while continuing to value scripture highly. There is one very significant difference, however, between Pentecostal conceptions of “experience,” especially relating to Spirit baptism, and Blumhardtian “Erlebnis.” Overwhelmingly, Pentecostal theology associates experience of the Spirit with the sanctification and empowerment of the individual. This thematic is not present in Blumhardt’s theology—in fact, it is actively criticized. This difference bears great relevance for our larger pneumatological and anthropological discussion.

Holiness and Empowerment in Pentecostal Pneumatology Land and Macchia agree that “the unfinished task of Pentecostalism [is] to integrate the language of holiness and the language of power.”15 They take for granted that Pentecostal experience of the Spirit is deeply connected with both “growth in sanctifying grace” and “empowerment for prophetic witness.”16 In Macchia’s view, “Spirit baptism . . . as an experience of charismatic power and enrichment cannot be separated from regeneration/sanctification and Christian initiation.” It is an experience that is “both sanctifying and empowering.”17 The first encounter with the Holy Spirit is “a regenerative act which gives the believer a new source for life; now he or she [can] walk according to the Spirit and not the flesh.”18 Although the Spirit comes to us “by grace alone,” “it does not omit our participation in the process [of baptism from death to life, that is, salvation]. It liberates us unto such 13 14 15 16 17

18

Land, Passion, 13, 106–7, 113–17. Macchia, Baptized, 137–8; Land, Passion, 126–7. Ibid., 23, quoted approvingly in Macchia, Baptized, 46. Ibid., 154, 76. Ibid., 84. Although Land prefers to view justification, sanctification, and Spirit baptism as three distinct events, they each include affective “experience” in some form, and are intimately related to one another. See Land, Passion, 82–93. Ibid., 88.

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participation.”19 Land is correct in his assessment that “Pentecostalism is more Catholic than Protestant in emphasizing sanctification-transformation more than forensic justification.”20 And it is through unmediated experience of the Holy Spirit that the “sanctification-transformation” of the individual is both inaugurated and maintained. Christoph Blumhardt takes a rather different view on transformation and personal holiness: “The entire doctrine of Sanctification is a false one, because it divides me from other people,—I want nothing to do with it!”21 Elsewhere he comments to his congregation, “I have never yet experienced someone really being born again. You are still the same old person you were ten and twenty and thirty years ago.”22 For Blumhardt, no meaningful transformation in the sense of sanctification will take place in the individual or in the world until the Kingdom is fulfilled.23 In the meantime, as far as holiness on this earth is concerned, the Spirit remains “withdrawn”—even as it can be experienced! In Blumhardt’s view, to experience the Spirit directly is either to be filled with longing for the Kingdom and a deeper sense of how powerless and unchanged we remain, or to be judged and annihilated, or both. Even healings through the laying on of hands are ascribed to God’s agency alone, not in any way to lasting spiritual “empowerment” of the “healer.” Blumhardt sees the doctrine of sanctification—and any view of Christianity as “[some sort of] self-improvement school”24—as nothing more than a path to “false piety.” It is very important for Christoph that Christians face up to the world as it actually is (still under the power of death), and themselves as they actually are (“still the same old person you were ten and twenty and thirty years ago”), because only then will they truly seek the fulfillment of the Kingdom. “I prefer the reality of sin to the swindle of religions.”25 “Experience” of the Holy Spirit is not understood to result in ontological transformation26 that empowers the believer to conquer the sinful nature. It is on this point that Blumhardt and Pentecostals part ways. 19 20 21 22

23

24 25 26

Macchia, Baptized, 88. Land, Passion, 30. Blumhardt, Auswahl III, 305. Emphasis added. Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 340. See also Blumhardt, VB 1888, vol. 8, 8, and the discussion of underrealized eschatology in Chapter 3. In the final years of his life, Blumhardt remained convinced that “[the] powers of darkness . . . still have not been overcome” (Blumhardt, Ansprachen III, 161, 199). Interestingly, he bases this conclusion not just on logical deduction from his eschatological framework, but on personal experience and observation of precisely those Christians who experienced the revival and healings under the elder Blumhardt. Blumhardt, VB 1889, vol. 3, 20. Blumhardt, Ansprachen II, 195. Although Land does believe Christians are “ontologically changed” through the Spirit, like most Pentecostals he also believes the change can be reversed or “lost” (ibid., 33, 87–90).

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The significance of this difference should not be underestimated. Although Pentecostal theology is far from the only major branch of Christian theology to place a high premium on ontological transformation of the believer, it could be argued that this element is fundamental enough to Pentecostal thought to render the material-theological connection with Blumhardt, argued for throughout this study, somewhat tenuous. As was explained in Chapter 1, however, the degree to which Blumhardt’s pneumatology can be considered charismatic or “proto-Pentecostal” depends on a theological judgment about what is most distinctive in Pentecostal thought, and this question remains hotly debated among Pentecostal theologians. In my view, the position held by Anderson and Macchia, among others,27 which understands a type of experience characterized by both affective immediacy and life-altering effects (as Anderson puts it, “transformation of life”28) to be the most fundamental of the key distinctives, is the most persuasive. Clearly Blumhardt’s understanding of Erlebnis includes the first of those elements, the immediacy. The second, however, is more ambiguous in his thought. Without question he rejects an interpretation of “transformation of life” as sanctification in the traditional sense, that is, as moral improvement or ontological change that empowers the will more effectively to resist sin. Nevertheless, a good case can be made that for Blumhardt “negative” experience is still deeply life altering, just in a different way. A person is not the same after having their sin and Fleisch powerfully exposed by God. “Sterben” paves the way for new life, though it is not identical with it. As we have seen, Blumhardt often seems to insert an eschatological gap between “sterbet” experience and the sanctification of new life—the former takes place now, but then we are to a significant degree suspended in that “negative” place until arrival of the imminent Kingdom. It is right to acknowledge that this “suspension” subverts the “transformation” element in Blumhardt’s thought to such a significant degree that his theology is finally rendered, broadly speaking, more Lutheran than Pentecostal. Our analysis has demonstrated an important asymmetry in terms of Blumhardt’s connection to the respective two dialogue partners. But it is by no means an absolute asymmetry. There is still transformation of a certain kind, if only the transformation of suffering and having sin revealed, in Blumhardt’s thought. Even more importantly, Blumhardt’s emphasis on affective immediacy of encounter with the Spirit, often in explicit rhetorical contrast to mediation through scripture, fits firmly within key parameters of the most important Pentecostal distinctive as articulated by Anderson and Macchia, and does so in stark contrast to Luther. The spirit of Blumhardt’s theology may in the end be somewhat more Lutheran than Pentecostal, but

27 28

See Chapter 1, Note 66. See previous note.

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not so much as to undermine his real value as a theological dialogue partner between the two traditions. But how is the major difference over “experience” as leading to sanctification and empowerment to be explained? The disagreement is particularly striking because Blumhardtian and Pentecostal understandings of pneumatological “experience” bear so many other similarities.29 There are two main factors at work in the persistence of Blumhardt’s anthropological pessimism despite unmediated contact with the Spirit. The first dates back to the elder Blumhardt’s experiences in Möttlingen in the 1840s. As Ising explains, in relation to “Holy Spirit manifestations,” “the eschatological orientation of [Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s] thinking prohibits him from being satisfied with this experience; for him it is merely the prelude to a worldwide development, which is still to come.”30 Despite the exorcism, the healings, and the revival, Johann Christoph Blumhardt was convinced that “the gifts of the Spirit and power to heal are not yet granted in full measure.”31 In Blumhardt’s eschatology, Möttlingen did not signify the beginning of the “last days,” it only pointed toward such a beginning in the (hopefully near) future. By contrast, from the start Pentecostals interpreted their experiences as the eschatological “Latter Rain” (Joel 2:23), or “restoration of Pentecostal power . . . for last-days evangelization,” itself. “Early Pentecostals understood the outpourings of the Spirit in the first century at Pentecost and at the inception of the twentieth-century Pentecostal movement as the fulfillment of divine promises, especially Joel’s prophecy concerning the last days.”32 In Land’s view, it is this “eschatological shift within the Holiness movement toward premillenialism that signals what is decisive” at Azusa Street and after.33 Pentecostal “Latter Rain” theology is a more realized eschatology than Johann Christoph Blumhardt’s. The gifts have been fully given, for the sake of a final evangelistic push before the Christ’s Millenium begins. Johann Christoph’s experiences of “manifestations of the Holy Spirit,” by contrast, are understood to be a paradoxical reminder of how inadequate the current “gifts” are in comparison to what is needed. He lived in this hope for a “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit” for the next thirty-seven years, and died without seeing it fulfilled.34

29

30 31 32 33 34

That Pentecostal Christians would interpret their experiences to signify fundamental regenerative change is not at all surprising, given the movement’s background in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition. See Dayton, Pentecostalism, especially the second and third chapters. Ising, Blumhardt, 229. Ibid., 214. Land, Passion, 54, 58. Ibid., 63. Ising, Blumhardt, 397. It should be noted, however, that Blumhardtian ‘pre-premillenialism’ is still closer to premillenialism than more traditional ‘already/not-yet’ eschatologies

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Similarly, the “spiritual renewal of the whole congregation” during the Möttlingen revival was not interpreted as an ontological change on the part of the “revived.” The “renewal” was attributed less to the “manifestations” than to the Spirit-inspired repentance and confessions that also characterized the revival, and this “repentance” was seen as “not a oncefor-all event,” but something that “must be experienced anew each day.”35 In light of his father’s eschatology, then, it becomes clear that Christoph Blumhardt’s failure to attribute both basic anthropological “sanctificationtransformation” and “empowerment for witness” to unmediated encounters with the Spirit—and the fact that his eschatology was less realized than early Pentecostal eschatology—can to a significant degree be traced back to the beginning of the Blumhardtian ministry in the 1840s.36 The second reason for Christoph’s theological differentiation from Pentecostal thought over the “sanctification-transformation” issue is less easily attributed to his father. The radically low view of human nature, especially in relation to Christians, that the younger Blumhardt held from 1888 stands in sharp contrast with the relative anthropological optimism of Pentecostal Spirit-inspired sanctification. Blumhardt’s pessimism, which is his primary theological novum in relation to his father, is applied foremost to the “false piety” of Württemberg Pietists, his own congregation among them. One of the key disillusionments in Christoph’s life came from observing the “egoistic” impulses of people who had been supernaturally healed by the Spirit through his ministry. As a result, it is axiomatic for his thought from the start of the “sterbet” period that, for all its importance, “Erlebnis” does not result in a meaningful change in personal holiness. This is applied both on the individual level (“I have never yet experienced someone really being born again”) and on the cosmic, eschatological level (“the [eschatological] pathways . . . do not appear to have been opened yet, in my view”37). The fact that Blumhardt did not view “experience” as transformational in the Pentecostal sense, then, is grounded in the eschatological understanding of spiritual gifts inherited from his father, and in empirical pastoral observation of people, including himself, who had undergone intense experiences of the Spirit without demonstrating any long-term change for the better. But this does not fully answer our question. Pentecostal theologians have the same access to post-“Erlebnis” pastoral “data” as Blumhardt, and appear

35 36

37

in that it is deeply concerned with and looks for an historically imminent inauguration of the ‘End Times.’ Ibid., 192. As previously noted, Johann Christoph Blumhardt was less anthropologically pessimistic than Christoph, but he attributed the transformational “infusion” of righteousness to water baptism, not to the types of pneumatological experiences he encountered during the revival. Blumhardt, Ansprachen I, 78.

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to come to very different conclusions.38 Clearly the two sides are in some way predisposed to unlike interpretations of very similar information; they must be operating with different hermeneutical “grammar.” The question of why Blumhardt did not view “experience” as transformational, then, is really the question of why he had such a low anthropology in the first place. This latter question can have no complete and final answer, any more than Lessing’s “big ugly ditch” can be bridged. The empirical disappointment of his father’s eschatological hopes likely played a significant role. Having to live in close quarters for decades at Bad Boll with many who had been spiritually touched by his and his father’s ministry perhaps would have made it difficult for rose-tinted glasses to stay on for long. One might even speculate that Luther’s anthropological pessimism was somehow “in the water” for Protestant ministers in Schwabia in that time, unconsciously giving Blumhardt powerful categories for interpreting recidivism and Christian hypocrisy. In my view, perhaps the most significant factor is the “not-yet” emphasis in Johann Christoph’s eschatology, which interpreted the Möttlingen events pneumatologically as a “prelude to the prelude.” This “somewhat underrealized” eschatology bore within it the seed of Christoph’s more deeply underrealized view. The younger Blumhardt’s great hope for the fulfillment of the Kingdom was gradually matched over time by a lack of hope for the world in its current state. As a result, he had little vested interest in any church, structure, theology, or even spiritual experience on this side of the Eschaton. Very little was finally at stake for Christoph in this world on its own terms, and this fact gave him a remarkable freedom to interpret events his own way. This freedom is demonstrated repeatedly throughout his career, for example, in his willingness to alienate his father’s supporters in 1888, his fearless entry into the SPD, and his critique of the German war cause in 1914, to name only the most obvious examples. One result of his “freedom” was that it did not make a great deal of difference to Blumhardt whether people had become somewhat more sanctified or not. For him, gradations of holiness pale in light of the much greater “Righteousness” of the fulfilled Kingdom. Furthermore, the fact that he did, for a time during the political period, become more optimistic about real change in this world, demonstrates that his empirical pessimism cannot be attributed simply or straightforwardly to a vested interest in pessimism as such. In Pentecostal theology, on the other hand, a great deal is at stake in the belief that experience of the Spirit creates sanctification-transformation. Specifically, the premillenial “Latter Rain” understanding of “empowerment for witness” that was so crucial early on would be invalidated if the long-term truth of that empowerment were called into question. Even more importantly, Pentecostal theology defends the validity of its pneumatological 38

See the remarkable early Pentecostal testimony quoted in Land, Passion, 153–5.

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experiences primarily on the basis of the “proof” of the “holy lives of witnesses.”39 “The chief protection against [delusion by false spirits] is the Christian character yielded to and sustained by God.”40 If the lives of the witnesses do not appear over a long period of time to be becoming more holy, if “Christian character” does not appear to be sustained after all, for Pentecostal theology this would call into question the experiences that are its central and determining distinctive. There is a huge vested interest for Pentecostals in viewing the lives of their own as basically more holy than those of nonbelievers.41 The point is not that Christoph Blumhardt was somehow truly free of his context, such that his actions and interpretations were “objective” while other people’s are determined by a preexisting theological and historical grammar. It is rather that on the specific subject of sanctification-transformation by the Spirit, Blumhardt was less invested in a specific outcome than Pentecostals are traditionally obligated to be. A final note: Pentecostals have always defended their conceptions of sanctification and empowerment on biblical, as well as empirical, grounds. It has been argued quite plausibly, for example, that pneumatology in Luke-Acts is understood particularly in terms of empowerment—“you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8).42 Similarly, the relationship between the Holy Spirit and sanctification is an important—though long disputed!—Pauline theme (Galatians 5:16–25, etc.).43 In my view, as has been implied, Blumhardt’s interpretation of “experience” as nontransformative is more plausible on the theological and empirical terms put forward in Blumhardt’s sermons and Land and Macchia’s respective studies. This is not the same as claiming that it is the most biblically plausible interpretation. Debate over biblical anthropology and pneumatology, especially on the subject of sanctification, is as old as Christianity itself, and moves beyond the scope of this study. In the constructive section in the last chapter, I will propose “negative” experience as a useful and overlooked category within biblical pneumatology, especially in the Johannine writings, but that must

39 40 41

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Ibid., 162. Ibid., 164. The claim about “sanctification-transformation” as a meaningful increase in holiness does not necessarily imply perfectionism, although there can be that tendency due to the Holiness background. What is meant is simply a qualitative increase in righteousness that results in a discernable difference over time between the sanctified and the unsanctified. The best study of this theme is Robert Menzies, Empowered for Witness: The Spirit in Luke-Acts (London: T & T Clark International, 2004). One of Macchia’s goals is to bring together these Lukan and Pauline pneumatologies under the category of the outpouring of divine love (Romans 5:5). See especially Macchia, Baptized, 14–18.

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be the extent of our direct theological engagement with the Bible within the limits of this study.

“Negative Experience” in Pentecostal Theology Christoph Blumhardt integrated pneumatological “enthusiasm” with anthropological pessimism through what we have called “negative” experience. For him, the Spirit’s Johannine role as “Spirit of truth” entails encounter with individuals and with the world that is marked by judgment, “birth pangs,” and Umsturz. Given the relative anthropological and eschatological optimism of Pentecostal theology, it is worth asking whether and to what degree the category of “negative” experience has a home in Pentecostal pneumatology. The answer is that affirmation of “negative” experience can be found, but only on a small, even marginal scale. There are two brief material references to “negative” experience in the whole of Macchia’s treatise. Peter Hocken is quoted as observing that “deep conviction of sin” was one of the “signs that are classic indications of the Spirit’s work” in early Pentecostal testimonies of Spirit baptism,44 and Macchia himself notes in passing the fact “that this presence [of the Spirit] is also experienced in anguish and suffering is testified and preached about in Pentecostal churches as well, though, admittedly, not nearly . . . often enough.”45 In Land, there is no clear or straightforward reference. There is a “searching of the Spirit” that reveals areas of sinful “resistance” in the Christian life, but it is conceived mainly as a communication of information to the sanctified will (“You have sin in this area. Now it is up to you, who are sanctified and empowered, to do something about it”).46 There is a “dying to self,” but the believer, not the Spirit, is its agent.47 Primarily, however, in both Land and Macchia the Spirit blesses, empowers, sustains, and directs the now sanctified believer over and against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil—the Spirit is the agent of the “positive” against the “negative,” rather than being associated with the “negative” directly. It is unlikely either scholar would deny the possibility and reality of “negative” experience, especially in the initial repentance that is related to conversion, but their interest, especially in the Christian life, is overwhelmingly focused on God’s presence in blessing and empowerment, rather than judgment or the frustration of the human will. Unsurprisingly, we find a strong correlation between anthropology and interest in “negative” experience: Blumhardt, the pessimist, is quite focused on it; Land and Macchia, who are relatively optimistic about the Spirit-filled believer, are not.

44 45 46 47

Quoted in ibid., 47. Ibid., 56. Land, Passion, 146–7, 90. Ibid., 145.

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Concluding Observations: The Strengths and the Weaknesses of Pentecostal Pneumatology The great and enduring strength of charismatic and Pentecostal theology, from which Reformation Protestantism has much to learn, is its witness to the living “experienceable” reality of the Holy Spirit. Implicit in this witness is a theological anthropology that views the affective self, rather than the ratio, as the heart of the person. Both factors are much-needed corrections to certain trends in classical Protestant thought. There is a tendency in Protestant orthodoxy, attributable in significant part to sola scriptura and the rejection of unmediated experience of the Spirit, toward rationalistic confessionalism.48 If God is only really encountered through the preaching of the Word, and salvation appears in the first instance to consist of abstract assent to a message rather than particular and personal encounter with the living God, the priority is soon placed on “correct” understanding of specific biblical passages, and on proper conceptualization of the message to which people must assent. More specifically, the central event between God and human beings—proclamation—becomes reduced to the communication of information to the individual via the ratio. Luther’s great anthropological insight that right knowledge cannot on its own produce right behavior—in Melanchthon’s terms, that the will is at the mercy not of the mind but of the affections49—has tended to be subverted and lost in the implicit rationalism of sola scriptura. Pietism arose in the seventeenth-century Lutheran church as a protest against this reduction of the Christian Gospel to the proper presentation of inspired information. Pentecostal Christianity, like its Pietist grandparent, rightly protests “the outdated and fruitless antinomy of reason and ‘feelings’,”50 and remembers that people are also emotional and embodied creatures. At the same time, it corrects the potential within Protestant theology for antienthusiastic reduction of God’s instrumentality in the world to the indirections of providence: God can and still does act directly, in power, to disrupt sin and decay, as an “active demonstration” of the continuing “rule of God,” as well as an outpouring of divine love. The astonishing growth of charismatic Christianity in the past century is due in significant part to its theologically profound appeal to the affective self as the heart of the human person, and to the excitement and hope generated by witness to God’s living, experienceable activity in the world. 48

49

50

For a version of this argument, see Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma. Vol. VII, trans. William M’Gilchrist (London: Williams & Norgate, 1899), 230–67, especially 235–6, 240, 249–50. Philip Melanchthon, Loci communes theologici (1521), trans. Lowell J. Satre, vol. 19, Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 27–30. Land, Passion, 13. See Land’s rather Melanchthonian discussion of the primacy of the affections in ibid., 105.

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Pentecostal theology has a great weakness, as well: a fundamentally inadequate mechanism for self-critical discernment of the Spirit. The result—or, more likely, the cause—is a mistakenly high anthropology that is built into the structure of charismatic and Pentecostal theology. Discernment of the Spirit is grounded either in the tautological assumption that the Spirit-filled believer can reliably recognize the activity of the Spirit (spiritual discernment as “gift of the Spirit”!), or in the related criterion of obvious, discernable sanctification in the life of the one claiming to have experienced the Spirit (“the holy lives of witnesses”). Both methods are profoundly vulnerable to Feuerbachian—or Marxist, or Freudian, or Lutheran—critique. They assume that the conscious self is basically the whole self—that the perceptions of the “sanctified” believer can essentially be trusted at face value. Although there is perhaps a short-term recognition that the devil can mislead from time to time, there is no room for the possibility of long-term, radical self-deception in the Christian. Strong subconscious motivations—whether psychological, socioeconomic, cultural-contextual, or simply sinful-“egoistic”—are ruled out. The result is that there is no inherent mechanism for distinguishing between genuinely divine desires and communications and the self-deceived baptizing of one’s own desires by projecting them onto “God.” In light of this anthropological naïvète, it is not surprising that there is a strong tendency in Pentecostalism toward a superficial theology of victory and blessing of the believer on his or her own terms. Unfortunately, the inclination toward “prosperity gospel” is built into the structure of Pentecostal pneumatology and anthropology. This has always been the Reformation critique of “enthusiasm,” and is a large part of why unmediated experience was rejected in the 1520s. In this regard, Luther’s early analysis has proved most prescient. It is nevertheless possible for Pentecostal theology to incorporate a lower anthropology and a stronger critical mechanism into its structure without having to jettison unmediated experience and the appreciation of the affective and the embodied in human nature. The theological antidote would be a strong affirmation of “negative” experience as not just a sign, but as a primary and most reliable sign of the Spirit’s presence and activity. But how to incorporate a new affirmation of this sort into an expression of Christianity that values witness and testimony far higher than doctrine or confession? The place to start is the life-long testimony of Christoph Blumhardt to “negative” experience as the ground of a Christian witness that is both “affectively integrated” and self-critically aware of the darker features of Christian existence.

Blumhardt and the Pneumatology of Martin Luther In this section, Christoph Blumhardt’s concept of “negative” experience of the Holy Spirit will be placed in dialogue with certain relevant 170

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themes in the theology of Martin Luther, including Luther’s concept of “Erfahrung,” his limitation of the action of the Holy Spirit to the mediation of the preached Word, and his understanding of “second” use of the Law (the usus theologicus). The extensity of Luther’s writings, and the immense scale of the field of Luther studies, prevents me in this space from providing more than a sketch of these interwoven themes as they relate to Blumhardt’s pneumatology. Particular use will be made of his treatise Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matters of Images and the Sacraments (1525) and the Lectures on Galatians (1535), which are his main treatments of “enthusiasm” and of the theological use of the Law, respectively.

The Problem of “Erfahrung” in Luthers’ Thought In the classic study of “experience” [Erfahrung] in Luther’s theology, Hans Michael Müller identifies a basic problem for interpreters of Luther: an apparent self-contradiction on the subject of religious experience. “What is Luther trying to say, in terms of content, when he talks on the one hand of experience as opposed to faith, and on the other of experience as the feeling produced by faith?”51 Ulrich Köpf notes the same problem: “Among Luther’s numerous comments, one [repeatedly] finds . . . negative evaluations of experience. . . . However, such statements are far outweighed by the positive valuations.”52 In Müller’s interpretation, Luther places faith over and against experience “only as concerns natural human behaviors,” by which he means “nature, reason, [and] conscience.”53 On the other hand, “Erfahrung” tends to be construed positively when it is contrasted with merely verbal or rational knowledge and understanding.54 This latter sense of “Erfahrung” bears similarities to Blumhardt’s positive contrast of “Erlebnis” with confessionalism and academic theology. The difference, of course, is that for Luther such “experience” is always mediated by the verbum externum, while for Blumhardt it need not be mediated at all.

The Word as “Encounter” According to Oswald Bayer, Luther’s decisive “reformational discovery” was the “understanding of the Gospel as constitutive speech-act, as effective Word.”55 Whether or not one joins Bayer in placing this concept at the center of Luther’s thought, there is no question that for Luther the proclamation of 51 52 53 54 55

Müller, Erfahrung, 5. Köpf, “Erfahrung,” 114. Müller, Erfahrung, 25–6. Köpf, “Erfahrung,” 114. Bayer, Theologie, 47–8.

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the Word is much more than a mere verbal communication of information. It is an event, a determinative encounter with the living God. As Gerhard Forde puts it, “proclamation [of the Word] . . . does not signify some other thing. It is the saying and the doing of the deed itself.”56 Gerhard Ebeling calls the Word in Luther something “active and effective” that “possesses the character of an event.”57 The classic example is the word of absolution, “Ego te absolvo!”: To speak this word is already for the absolution to be accomplished. The “event” of the Word, ultimately, is the creation in the “hearer” of the faith that justifies.58 As “encounter,” the saving Word is, therefore, experienced. The nature of this “experience”—which I will define more closely in a moment—is determined by the irreducibly twofold nature of the Word as it encounters us, namely, as Law and as Gospel: Those who are to be justified . . . are disciplined by the theological use of the Law for a time. . . . The Law is like a stimulus that drives the hungry toward Christ . . . Therefore the proper function of the Law is to make us guilty, to humble us, to kill us, to lead us down to hell, and to take everything away from us, but all with the purpose that we may be justified, exalted, made alive, lifted up to heaven, and endowed with all things. Therefore, it does not merely kill, but it kills for the sake of life.59 The Gospel, on the other hand, calls us “to a fellowship of righteousness and eternal life, to the kingdom of Christ, where [our] conscience is at peace, where there is no Law but only the forgiveness of sins, peace, quiet, happiness, salvation, and eternal life.”60 It is the good news of a “passive righteousness which excludes Moses and the Law and shows us the promise of Christ, who came for the afflicted and for sinners. Here a man is raised up again and gains hope.”61 Within the Word, then, there is a fundamental distinction—two different messages, as it were—and this “distinction between the Law and the Gospel . . . is necessary to the highest degree; for it contains a summary of all Christian doctrine.”62 As Ebeling puts it, for Luther, “the distinction between the law and the gospel is . . . the central issue of theology. . . . For the gospel only comes into action when it does so in distinction 56 57

58

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60 61 62

Forde, Proclamation, 2. Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to his Thought, trans. R. A. Wilson (London: Collins, 1972), 119. ‘The text creates faith’ (Notger Slenczka, “Das Evangelium und die Schrift. Überlegungen zum ‘Schriftprinzip’ und zur Behauptung der ‘Klarheit der Schrift’ bei Luther,” in Der Tod Gottes und das Leben des Menschen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 56). Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians 1535: Chapters 1–4, trans. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 26, Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1963), 344–5. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 117.

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from and in opposition to the law.”63 The Word is always encountered either as Law, which humbles, reveals sin, and effects the despair over the self that clears the ground for the good news of grace, or as Gospel, which is the divine promise that sins are forgiven and that Christ’s saving righteousness has been imputed to the sinner. Law and Gospel are innately opposed to one another, calling the hearer to mutually exclusive standards of righteousness: “It is impossible for Christ [i.e., the Gospel] and the Law to agree and to share the reign over a conscience. . . . One of these two will have to yield to the other.”64 Nevertheless, Law and Gospel are closely related in the Word, each serving a unique and necessary function in producing justifying faith. Where there remains in a person “immense pride, self-trust, smugness,”65 God uses the Law to reveal to the sinner just how bad their situation actually is. Once this plight has been revealed, however, then the Word comes not in judgment, but with grace, comfort, and peace for the troubled conscience. “For God wounds in order to heal; he kills in order to make alive.”66 The primary purpose in this proclamation of the Word and “carrying out of the distinction” between Law and Gospel67 is soteriological: the justification of the sinner. The decisive element in the “Word-event,” therefore, takes place coram deo, and is not formally dependent on a particular emotional response. At the same time, the encounter also takes place in time and has effects in the emotional (and cognitive) life of the “hearer” at a specific moment, not just coram deo. The old Pietist objection, taken on by Pentecostals, that Luther’s doctrine of justification is cold and abstracted from life cannot be sustained from Luther’s own descriptions of the encounter with the proclaimed Word.68 The Law attacks the false “peace and self-confidence” of works. The hearer “feels [its] terrors,” becomes “frightened” and “humbled,” feels “miserable” and full of “despair,” “blanching and quaking,” and is unable to feel “tranquil [of] mind.”69 For Luther, this sort of affective, embodied, emotional language is not merely rhetoric for signifying abstract existential angst. He believes the Law really has these concrete effects on a person—not just existentially but physiologically, you could say. Likewise, the Gospel grants us “a good conscience and joy,” “filial

63 64 65 66 67 68

69

Ebeling, Luther, 117–18. Luther, LW 26, 54. Ibid., 310. Ibid., 348. See Deuteronomy 32:39, Hosea 6:1–2. Ebeling, Luther, 116. See, for example, Land on “the failure of the more Reformed (and especially Lutheran) approaches to appreciate salvation as affective integration” (Land, Passion, 46). In my view, the Pietist view observes the symptom correctly, but is mistaken in its diagnosis. The “cold” tendency in classical Protestantism is to be attributed to the pneumatological limitation of sola scriptura, not to forensic justification as such. Luther, LW 26, 150, 163, 126, 148–9.

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confidence,” “devotion,” “love,” “patience in affliction,”70 and all the other fruits of the Spirit.71 According to Köpf, for Luther, “realization (cognoscere) of one’s own sin . . . means not rational comprehension but felt experience.”72 Luther’s disagreement with the Schwärmer, then, should not be construed as a wariness of emotionalism as such—far from it. As Notger Slenczka explains, Luther’s pneumatology has no problem, in principle, with “an effect of the Spirit in the inner person,” or even with “gifts like speaking in tongues or emotional-corporeal symptoms that accompany the work of the Spirit,”73 particularly in the context of preaching of the Word. The “Word” encounter, then, has a strong affective component, especially in its work as Law. Placing this concept of “encounter” in dialogue with Blumhardt’s pneumatology, we arrive at the first thesis of this section: the “experience” of the Law in its “theological” use includes, though is not reducible to, something very like Blumhardtian “negative” experience. Before we can explore this correlation more fully, however, we must examine the relationship between the Law and the Holy Spirit in Luther’s thought. Is “experience” of the Law for Luther an experience of the Spirit?

Law and Spirit in Luther’s Theology of Proclamation The Reformer’s pneumatology has been somewhat underexplored in Luther studies.74 For Luther, the Holy Spirit is the effective agent behind the Word’s “encounter” with human beings. It is the Spirit who “preaches to us and brings us to Christ.”75 Within the Word, Luther most often associates the Spirit with the Gospel, over and against the Law: “Now the Spirit is freedom from the Law, from sin, death, the curse, hell, and the wrath and judgment of God.”76 Likewise, “The Law never brings the Holy Spirit. . . . But the Gospel 70 71

72

73

74

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Ibid., 151–2, 155. Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians 1535: Chapters 5–6. Lectures on Galatians 1519: Chapters 1–6, trans. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 27, Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), 93–6. Köpf, “Erfahrung,” 114. Köpf quotes Luther, WA 40/2, 360, 1f., “Non est simpliciter ‘congnoscere’, sed er erferts, fults.” Notger Slenczka, “Das Wunder des Durchschnittlichen. Die systematisch-theologische Reflexion der lutherischen Pneumatologie angesichts charismatischer Bewegungen,” Jahrbuch des Martin-Luther-Bundes 54 (2007), 69. Egil Grislis, “Luther in Review: Approaches in Major Studies—A Bibliographical Perspective,” Word and World 3/4 (1983), 445. Some recent studies, in particular the work of Ulrich Asendorf, have begun to rectify the problem. See Ulrich Asendorf, Heiliger Geist und Rechtfertigung (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2004), and the chapter “Der Heilige Geist” in Ulrich Asendorf, Die Theologie Martin Luthers nach seinen Predigten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 203–304. Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, The Book of Concord (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 436. Luther, LW 26, 296.

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does bring the Holy Spirit.”77 The Spirit “encourages and comforts” “the afflicted, the terrified, and the despairing,” and “intercedes” for us “when we are at our weakest.”78 Here the Spirit is the answer and antidote to the affliction of the Law. It is most closely associated with the Law’s antagonist, the Gospel. There is, however, a less emphasized, but extremely important, connection in Luther between the Spirit and the Law. Rather than being the Law’s enemy and opposite only, in this different capacity the Spirit itself becomes the agent behind the Law. When the Law is not just a standard of behavior but also an “effective . . . force in the very reality of [a person’s] life,”79 its true identity qua “force” is the Holy Spirit. Bayer explains: If the Holy Spirit only calls [a person] “by means of the Gospel,” but the Gospel is only the Gospel in the distinction between Law and Gospel, then the distinction between Law and Gospel proves decisive for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, for pneumatology, as well. The first work of the Spirit, then, is to apply the Law and to carry out God’s judgment upon sin.80 Similarly, Ebeling: “if the law is used in the sense of the gospel—and to do this is the task of the Holy Spirit—then . . . the death it brings becomes the first step to life. . . . [This] is the true, ‘theological’ use of the Law.”81 Asendorf, too, recognizes the connection: A “viewpoint . . . that is often missing in treatments of the Law [in Luther studies] is . . . that it belongs in the context of the Third Article. To put it another way: It is only possible to speak properly about the Law from the perspective of the Holy Spirit.”82 Luther notes the connection between the Holy Spirit and the usus theologicus in a number of places. Often, he bases his view on the same verse that is so important for Blumhardt, John 16:8. “Before all other works and acts you hear the Word of God, through which the Spirit convinces the world of its sin.”83 As always, this function of the Law is primarily for the sake of the Gospel; it is a “killing” in order to “make alive”: “[The Law’s] function and

77 78 79 80 81 82

83

Ibid., 208. Ibid., 383–4. Ebeling, Luther, 136. Bayer, Theologie, 223. Emphasis added. Ebeling, Luther, 138. Asendorf, Predigten, 248. See also Müller, Erfahrung, 145–7, and Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 255–6. Luther, LW 40, 149. See also ibid., 82; Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. J. I. Packer, and O. R. Johnston (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1957), 67; and especially Smalcald Articles, III, 2:1–5 and 3:1–9 (pp. 311–13).

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use is not only to disclose the sin and wrath of God but also to drive us to Christ. None but the Holy Spirit is intent on this use of the Law.”84 The connection between pneumatology and judgment, while only occasionally explicit in Luther, is implicit in his theology of the Word, as the Bayer quotation indicates. The connection is also necessary because the nature of sin makes it much more difficult to distinguish Law and Gospel in practice than in theory: Therefore let everyone learn diligently how to distinguish the Law from the Gospel, not only in words but in feeling and experience. . . . For so far as the words are concerned, the distinction is easy. But when it comes to experience, you will find the Gospel a rare guest but the Law a constant guest in your conscience, which is habituated to the Law and the sense of sin.85 Ultimately, in fact, we cannot make the distinction at all: There is no man living on earth who knows how to distinguish rightly between the law and the gospel. We may think we understand it when we are listening to a sermon, but we’re far from it. Only the Holy Spirit knows this art.86 Sin blinds us to the difference between Law and Gospel. And even if we could rightly distinguish the two, we would then in effect have power over God’s Word, to call forth faith in a “hearer” mechanically, at will. For these reasons, the Spirit is necessary for both Law and Gospel to be preached properly. We have now arrived at the answer to the question posed at the end of the previous section. Yes, experience of the Law in its “theological” use for Luther is experience of the Spirit. The subject of the usus—the “user” of the Law—is none other than the Spirit of God. This means that, on the affective level, Luther’s concept of “encounter” with the Law in the proclamation of the Word is virtually identical to Blumhardtian “negative” experience. The major difference between the two is not the “experience” as such, but the fact that for Blumhardt the encounter with the Spirit does not necessarily need to be mediated by the Word.87 84 85 86

87

Luther, LW 26, 315. Ibid., 117. See also Asendorf, Predigten, 330. Martin Luther, Table Talk, trans. Theodore G. Tappert, vol. 54, Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 127. Emphasis added. The other difference between the two is that for Luther the encounter with the Law is intended to be a direct step toward the justification of the individual coram deo, while for Blumhardt the connection between “sterbet” experience and soteriology is only

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Luther and the “External Word” In his study Heiliger Geist und Rechtfertigung, Asendorf points out that it was “above all in the debate with the Schwärmer” that Luther “fully worked out his theology of the Spirit.”88 The heart of this “debate” was Luther’s insistence that God has ordained to send his Spirit into the inner person only through the instrument of the external Word of biblical preaching and the sacraments: In these matters, which concern the spoken, external Word, it must be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word which goes before. We say this to protect ourselves from the enthusiasts, that is, the “spirits,” who boast that they have the Spirit apart from and before contact with the Word.89 There are two specific features of Luther’s conception of the verbum externum that underline the contrast between his pneumatology and Christoph Blumhardt’s. The first is that for Luther it is of utmost importance that the Word be physically heard, meaning verbally, out loud (or felt, or tasted, in the cases of baptism and Communion), and in a communal rather than individual context. He really does have pulpit preaching, water baptism, and physical bread and wine in mind when he talks about the “external” Word. “God will not come to you in your private room and speak to you. He has, therefore, arranged that the external word should be preached and go before.”90 “Hearing” in any private or metaphorical sense is excluded. The second feature to emphasize is that, despite the great theological complexity and ambiguity of the term “Word,” not least in his own usage, for Luther the “Word” cannot finally be separated from the text of scripture. In the postbiblical period, the Word is never simply a message of forgiveness of sins and justification by faith, or a speech in which Law and Gospel appear to be properly distinguished, or an attempted presentation in some sense of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. It is “scripture,” “the physical or written Word, poured into letters and preached orally. . . . [T]he letter by itself does not impart life, yet it must be present, and it must be heard or received.”91 For Luther, more than just the text is required—namely, the Spirit—but

88 89

90 91

indirect, in that it contributes or prepares for, but does not necessarily directly trigger, the eschatological fulfillment that constitutes salvation in his view. Asendorf, Geist, 29. Smalcald Articles, III, 8:3–6. The classic articulation of this point, quoted in full in Chapter 1, is in Luther, LW 40, 146. Luther, WA 17/2, 459f. Quoted in Althaus, Theology, 37. Martin Luther, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 (1532), trans. Martin H. Bertram, vol. 28, Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1973), 76–7.

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the scriptural text remains irreducibly necessary for true preaching of the “Word.”92 The oral, communal, and scriptural character of the Word’s action demonstrates Luther’s remarkably literal and concrete understanding of “mediation.” For all the existential and theological complexities of the Word “encounter”—in particular the dynamic and personal, and yet elusive, distinction between Law and Gospel—“proclaiming it” is actually quite straightforward. The difficult work is all done by the Spirit! The difference between mediated experience in Lutheran thought and unmediated experience in Blumhardtian and charismatic theology is not just rhetorical. Luther’s Spirit works through very precisely limited means; Blumhardt’s Spirit speaks directly into the individual “heart,” or by any other means it wishes—from scripture to newspapers and Social Democratic Party members to Katharina’s demon.

Luther’s Critique of “Enthusiasm” and Whether It Applies to Blumhardt Luther’s theological rejection of Schwärmerei in Against the Heavenly Prophets is more than just a blunt refusal to allow that the Spirit might at times work apart from the external Word. It is a far-seeing and penetrating theological analysis of a particular pneumatology. Luther believes there are five main problematic theological and pastoral consequences of what he understands to be Karlstadt’s “enthusiastic” pneumatology. The first is the classic concern, with which we are already so familiar: that the Schwärmer will make things up, whether consciously or unconsciously, and claim it is the Spirit. “If you ask who directs them to teach and act in this way, they point upward and reply, ‘Ah, God tells me so, and the Spirit says so.’ Indeed all idle dreams are nothing but God’s Word.”93 Ongoing sin in the Christian means for Luther that his or her internal feelings and experiences cannot be trusted. The second problematic consequence is that an unmediated understanding of the Spirit will devolve into legalism, at the expense of justification by faith. When Karlstadt supports iconoclasm, Luther sees it as evidence of the legalism inevitable to “enthusiastic” pneumatology. The prohibition of images is “a work of the law, which has taken place without the Spirit and faith.”94 He goes on: For although the matter of images is a minor, external thing, when one seeks to burden the conscience with sin through it, as through the law 92 93 94

See Bayer, Theologie, 70–3; Althaus, Theology, 35. Luther, LW 40, 148. Ibid., 89.

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of God, it becomes the most important of all. For it destroys faith, . . . blasphemes the gospel, and sets all that Christ has won for us at naught.95 Without the certainty of the Word to communicate what to do and what not to do, what matters to God and what is adiaphora, the result will be the invention of new laws to follow, at the expense of the grace of God. Behind this consequence, too, lies Luther’s radically low anthropology: Unless directed by God through the Word, human beings always create new laws in an endless attempt to wrest control of their lives from God and to justify themselves by works. The third problematic consequence Luther expects is closely related to the first: that the Schwärmer will invent a “Spirit” who will always bless them and never judge them. In other words, they will misunderstand and reject the “theological” use of the Law. They “do not understand [this function of the law] correctly, for this means a truly spiritual preaching of the law.” Quoting John 16:8, Luther claims that “you do not find [this article] in this one or any other of the false prophets.”96 They do not understand how the Spirit must first come in judgment, in order to save. Again, anthropology is the true issue here. For Luther, an unmediated understanding of the Spirit equates directly to erroneously high anthropology, and the price of the error is the Gospel. Schwärmerei is the theological culprit behind spiritual selfdeception, legalism, and antinomian rejection of the true judgment of God. This is what Luther means when he calls enthusiasm “the source, power, and might of all the heresies, even that of the papacy and Mohammed.”97 The fourth issue in Luther’s view is that “enthusiasm” undermines assurance of salvation. This critique comes to the fore particularly in his defense of real presence in the Lord’s Supper, which, as an argument about the “external” nature of the sacrament, is directly connected to the critique of “enthusiasm.”98 For Luther, what is at stake is the peaceful and assured conscience: Whereas Lutheran sacramentology “produces joyful, free, and assured consciences,” Karlstadt’s will result in “great concern and anxiety.”99 The subjectivity of internal experience apart from the external Word will produce troubling uncertainty about salvation because of its dependence on the ephemeral category of “feeling.”

95 96 97 98

99

Ibid., 90. Ibid., 82. Smalcald Articles, III, 8:9–10. It is no coincidence that the whole of the second half of Against the Heavenly Prophets is an attack on Karlstadt’s sacramentology. The external/internal arguments are the first part of a long defense of real presence. Luther, LW 40, 206; see also 214, 222–3.

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Luther’s final concern is that “enthusiastic” pneumatology will use its subjective “authority” to do away with the “civil” use of the Law as well, resulting in societal chaos: Where one permits the masses without authority to break images, one must also permit anyone to proceed to kill adulterers, murderers, the disobedient, etc . . . Dr. Karlstadt . . . has a rebellious, murderous, seditious spirit in him, which, if given an opportunity, would assert itself.100 Luther believes that Karlstadt’s pneumatology, starting small with the destruction of images, would ultimately lead him to “Müntzer’s agenda of killing the godless.”101 To Luther, theology of unmediated experience of the Spirit carries within it the seeds of violent rebellion and social disorder. Some of these critiques apply to Blumhardt, but not all. Most, however, do indeed apply more or less to Pentecostal theology. Blumhardt’s criterion for discernment of the Spirit—God- rather than “ego”-centeredness,102 which finds the most reliable manifestation of the Spirit in “negative” experience— provides a theologically sophisticated alternative, equally based in radically pessimistic anthropology, to Luther’s verbum externum criterion. A good case can be made that Luther’s first critique of “enthusiastic” pneumatology does not apply to Blumhardt, though, as we have seen, it does describe a potentiality within Pentecostal theology. The second critique, that “enthusiasm” necessarily devolves into legalism, does not apply to Christoph either, especially in his final and most quietistic period. Blumhardt actually argues the reverse: That unmediated experience of the Spirit is a crucial safeguard against legalism. In Blumhardt’s view of Christian history, it is a reliable principle that Whenever the Holy Spirit ceased to be poured out, the result was the creation of a new Law. . . . The Apostle Paul’s radicalism against all statutory law-giving has justified for all time the prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.103 Furthermore, Blumhardt’s life-long critique of “false piety” is precisely an attack on the kind of legalism that Luther is worried about. On the other 100 101

102

103

Luther, LW 40, 89. Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation 1521–1532, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 166. On this point Luther is probably being unfair to Karlstadt, as he and his followers, unlike Müntzer, explicitly rejected violence on biblical grounds. See ibid., 159. “Anyone who hopes in God’s cause in the pure sense, and who seeks not himself but the Savior, will never be a Schwärmer” (Blumhardt, Auswahl I, 327). Blumhardt, Gedanken, 182.

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hand, there is no question that Luther would view Pentecostalism, with its Armenian soteriology and its emphasis on sanctification-transformation,104 as legalistic. That Blumhardt does have a concept of the “theological” use of the Law, if not in so many words, and understands the Spirit’s role to convict and to judge, should be clear at this point. Pentecostals, as we have seen, would not deny this role, but their overall theological structure seems to work against it. Luther’s first three critiques, then, cannot be said to describe Blumhardt very accurately. This should come as no surprise, because all three are predicated upon Luther’s belief that “enthusiastic” pneumatology necessarily results in an overly high anthropology, and Blumhardt is an exception to this rule. In relation to Pentecostal theology, however, Luther’s critiques again prove quite prescient. Luther’s fourth concern, over assurance, is much closer to the mark with Blumhardt. Usually, “enthusiastic” pneumatology grounds assurance first in the self-authenticating character of experience of the Spirit, and second in “the holy lives of witnesses.” Neither of these criteria stands up very well to the Feuerbachian critique. In relation to Blumhardtian pneumatology, the question becomes whether a criterion of “negative” experience can provide an alternative ground of assurance—a question to be touched on in the next chapter. Finally, Luther’s anxiety about social disorder is difficult to sustain on a civil level in this day and age. Neither Blumhardt nor Pentecostals can be accused of a tendency toward political rebellion or the pneumatological justification of civil violence. If, however, one limits Luther’s critique to the ecclesial level, it fares better. Blumhardt’s pneumatology clearly resulted in the rejection of church order, at least on the institutional level, and it was only his universalistic quietism that prevented this rejection from becoming sectarian or chaotic. The tendency is even clearer in the Pentecostal movement, which has always been characterized by a trend toward ecclesial fragmentation, though this very fragmentation has helped to fuel its astonishing expansion.105

Luther and Blumhardt: Summary of the Argument My purpose in this section has been twofold: to show that Luther, like Blumhardt, believed that encounter with God, especially the encounter with God’s judgment, is usually a pneumatological and highly affective affair, and to demonstrate that the heart of Luther’s critique of “enthusiasm” is the conviction that its anthropology is too high. Luther’s theology safeguards 104 105

See Land, Passion, 29–30. See Cox, Fire, 77–8.

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encounter with God from the problem of self-deception in two ways: by making the “theological” use of the Law the unavoidable first stage in salvific experience of the Word, and by limiting the “internal” action of the Word to the prior “external” instruments of biblical preaching and the sacraments. Interestingly, both safeguards demonstrate the same basic connection between pneumatology and anthropology that we have seen in Blumhardt. My proposal here is that, properly conceived, Luther’s first “safeguard” (the unavoidable encounter with God’s judgment) renders the second (external mediation of the Spirit) unnecessary. Christoph Blumhardt’s theology and witness testify to the validity of this proposal. We see this most dramatically in his prophetic discernments about the plight of the industrial class and the 1914 “war spirit,” but also in his trenchant critique of self-deceived pietistic legalism. To take the argument one step further, Luther’s second “safeguard” can actually undermine the first. The requirement of external mediation has a strong tendency to render the encounter with the Law “abstract,” and, therefore, avoidable. Taken to its logical conclusion, Lutheran “Word-event” theology becomes a closed system in which the particularities of the hearer’s life become irrelevant to the proclamation. The great Luther interpreter Gerhard Forde, with whom I agree on so many points, unfortunately follows Luther into this trap. In his view: The preaching of the law is not dependent upon anxious consciences or ready-made guilt feelings. The preaching of the law is the use of the text to cut in upon and slay old beings. The preaching of the gospel, likewise, not only comforts the conscience-stricken but also raises the dead to new life. . . . The unconditional promise is not a Word searching merely for those few who somehow “feel the need” for it. It is a Word that goes on the attack to create its hearers out of the nothing of our sin.106 The advantage of this position, which follows directly from the Reformer, is that it helps avoid the tired and superficial critique of Luther that his theology is only really relevant to “introspective” anxiety-ridden Westerners, and that his interpretation of scripture can, therefore, be reduced to—and dismissed as—psychological eccentricity.107 The price of Forde’s view, however, is that the “hearer” ends up being addressed not as a particular individual but as an abstraction. The Word “creates its hearers” rather than actually addressing the men and women in the pew! It is so keen not to be dependent on “anxious consciences or ready-made guilt feelings” that 106 107

Forde, Proclamation, 155. See, for example, Krister Stendhal, Paul among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 12–13, 79, 81–2, etc.

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it becomes indifferent to feelings of any kind. The “Word,” in this abstract form, becomes just another address to the ratio, and fails to encounter the hearer’s affective and embodied particularities. If Luther is correct that the Law is always encountered affectively and not just as an idea or an event coram deo, then insofar as “Word-event” preaching becomes indifferent to “feelings,” the Law is not actually being preached. I will expand on this critique in the next chapter, when I sketch out a possible alternative conceptualization of preaching. For now, it is enough to note (1) that Blumhardt’s pneumatology succeeds in questioning the necessity of Luther’s second “safeguard” against sinful co-option and manipulation of divine–human encounter, and (2) that it may well succeed better than Luther’s “Word-event” understanding of proclamation in allowing for God, in both his holiness and his grace, to meet people in their full particularities. We turn now to the constructive proposal.

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8 beyond the impasse: “negative” experience of the holy spirit in the christian life

What we notice when we observe the lives of true apostles and prophets is the pain of childbirth—a struggle for something that does not yet exist, but for the sake of which they are willing to give up everything they have. Although they may find a kind of peace with God in this struggle, the reliable mark of the Holy Spirit at work is not so much divine peace as birth-pangs, the anxiety and unsettled feeling that accompanies profound change. Were the pangs to cease and only peace remain, it would soon turn out to be a false peace, like a woman whose birth-pangs cease and her child is stillborn. –Christoph Blumhardt1

This quotation captures the heart of the pneumatology Christoph Blumhardt began to develop, starting in 1888, as his skepticism about claims to charismatic spiritual experience increased. The fruit of Blumhardt’s long internal struggle between anthropological pessimism and belief in the importance of unmediated “experience” of God was an informal criterion or principle for discernment of the Spirit in what we have called negative experience. Blumhardt, like Martin Luther, was very wary about the proclivity he saw in human beings toward egoistic self-deception. Unlike Luther, however, he was not willing to reject all claims to unmediated experience outright. Luther tried to solve the self-deception problem by limiting encounter with God to the instrumentality of the Word, in preaching and the sacraments. For Blumhardt, there were two major problems with this move. Positively, he and his father had witnessed the powerful, lasting, and life-changing effects of 1

Blumhardt, Gedanken, 179.

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unmediated divine encounter in the Möttlingen exorcism and its aftermath. They had also witnessed on many occasions the power of God to relieve suffering through miraculous healing and deliverance. Negatively, Blumhardt was acutely aware of the pastoral problems with views of preaching and scripture like Luther’s: Often, the “proclamation of the Word” is experienced as nothing more than empty words about a “dead” text. Theologically “correct” biblical preaching simply does not necessarily have the kind objective, sacramental effectiveness Luther ascribed to it.2 As a result, the Lutheran conception of the “Word” proved unable in Blumhardt’s context to prevent a gradual devolution of the Christian gospel into a hypocritical “false piety” of church attendance, Bible reading, and confessional self-righteousness, or else sheer religious apathy. For Christoph Blumhardt, the Wittenberg answer to sin and self-deception was not an option. The pneumatological principle that ends up in its place bears great material similarity, however, to Luther’s own theologia crucis, as expressed in the Heidelberg Disputation. Taking our cue from Blumhardt, the task of this chapter is to sketch a constructive pneumatological account of the role of “negative” experience as a principle for discernment of encounter with the Holy Spirit, both “mediated” and “unmediated.” What does it mean to identify “negative” experience as a “principle” for pneumatological discernment? Such an identification entails three interrelated propositions: First, contra Luther, experience of the Spirit is not necessarily limited to the instrumentality of the Word. That is to say, “unmediated” pneumatological experience along the lines described in Pietist and charismatic traditions is a genuine feature of the Christian life and should not be viewed as too prone to self-deception to be theologically significant. The witness of Christoph Blumhardt in his critiques of Pietist legalism, Christian failures in response to societal problems in an industrialized world, and German and European war enthusiasm in 1914, help to support this claim. Second, “negative” experience can be a sign of the presence or activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of an individual or community. This theme is explicit in the Gospel of John, and implicit in Reformation interpretations

2

Slenczka points out that Luther’s understanding of scripture does not require it to “work” every time it is read or preached, as if it were a mechanical instrument. If he so chooses, God is free at a given time to “close the ‘gate’ of scripture” and “thus close off both himself and the scriptures” (Slenczka, “Schrift,” 64). Nevertheless, in the Lutheran view, the fact that the “gate” is not always opened does not mean that there are alternative “gates” through which God sometimes works. Furthermore, Luther’s defense of the efficacy of the sacraments in the name of “assurance” depends on the belief that, as far as the preaching of the Word in the sacraments is concerned, the “gate” is essentially always open. It may be that there is a mild contradiction here between Luther’s understanding of the Word in the text and the Word in the sacraments.

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of Paul on the visceral and affective effect of the Law in individual lives and consciences. Third, and most importantly, this sign may be a more reliable indicator of such presence or activity of the Spirit than are the varieties of more “positive,” beneficial, and attractive experience most commonly attributed to the Spirit in Pietist and charismatic traditions, that is, revelatory experience, miraculous experience, and feelings experience. Because “negative” experiences go against natural human inclinations to have control over one’s life, to avoid suffering, to experience affirmation rather than judgment, and to relate to a god congenial to one’s own individual wishes and expectations, they are comparatively less prone to self-deceived attribution of the Spirit’s presence than are experiences that tend to match and confirm such inclinations. The “principle,” then, is to look for the Spirit in day-to-day human experience, rather than exclusively in Word and sacrament, but to expect it most reliably in obstacles, difficulties, and the thwarting of the ego, rather than foremost in experiences of intimacy with God or convictions of clear divine guidance. Such an approach makes room on the one hand for those with classical Reformation sympathies to preserve concerns about sin and self-deception without having to be skeptical of all “unmediated” and charismatic experience outright, and on the other for those on the more charismatic and experience-oriented end to introduce a stronger critical principle into pneumatologies that can otherwise be dangerously prone to uncritical affirmation of the world and naïvète about human nature. We should note at this point the preference here for the softer term “principle” rather than a more rigid term like “criterion.” “Criterion” implies something hard and certain and exceptionless, and we must be wary of presuming too much certainty when it comes to the Spirit, which “blows where it wishes” (John 3:8). Blumhardt’s own use of a concept of “negative” experience to aid in pneumatological discernment is somewhat flexible, more a sort of theological instinct than a hard and fast rule. My aim is more to introduce this “birth-pangs” category back into the pneumatological discussion than it is to dismiss the alternatives, and the term “principle” is more appropriate for this purpose. It could be argued that identifying “negative” experience as the most reliable principle for discerning the Spirit is overly dark and pessimistic, a theology of Good Friday that has not adequately taken Easter into account. Indeed, there are many accounts of the Spirit’s presence—at Pentecost in Acts 2, for example—which seem to have far more to do with themes like community, sanctification, blessing, empowerment, and vocation than with “negativity.” There are two replies to make here. The first is that the same argument can be made against Luther’s own theologia crucis, as articulated in the Heidelberg Disputation. There is a major historical-theological precedent, particularly within Protestant theology, for interpreting the radicality 186

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of the cross in just such a way. That is to say, insofar as I am prioritizing the “negative” I am not innovating, at least not in this respect. The second reply is that I am also not proposing that “negative” experience be viewed as the only sign of the Spirit’s presence; rather it is the most reliable sign. The “positive” is not excluded, it is just deemphasized. There is a time and a place in Christian theology for a predominant emphasis on the “negative,” such as we find in Blumhardt and in Luther, in order to compensate for a common overweighting of the “positive” in pneumatology and in Christian life. What follows should be interpreted in part along these lines. With these caveats in mind, I proceed now to a short discussion of the basic shape of the “principle,” followed by some observations about what it is not. Next, I will explore further some of its theological advantages. The final section will point out possible pastoral and homiletical implications of “negative” experience of the Spirit, and as well as look at the questions it raises for our understanding of scripture.

The Shape of “Negative” Experience When I refer to “negative” experience, I have in mind primarily the features we saw in Blumhardt’s conception of it in Chapter 4, and Luther’s analogous descriptions of encounter with the Law in Chapter 7. For Blumhardt it can be the painful disruption of comfortable spiritual patterns and behaviors, or being “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) by the revelation of sin. Sometimes, it is simply bodily suffering, as when the sick are not healed. The two poles of “negative” experience are suffering and judgment. For Blumhardt, the latter is the dominant form, usually in some frustration of the ego. The two poles are connected because such judgment usually results in a form of suffering, as the Fleisch finds it painful and difficult for its desires and efforts to be resisted. “Sterben” is a judgment first and foremost, but it also hurts. There is a danger in overdefining “negative” experience. Grounded in the freedom of the Spirit, it can never be so defined and determined as to be anticipatable and, therefore, avoidable. Drawing on both Blumhardt and Luther, the most reliable description is that it usually entails the thwarting of the will—a divine riposte to the illusion of human autonomy. The Spirit is present when we reach the limits of our self-determination. Importantly, however, “negative” experience is not restricted to the “introspective” or psychological plane, anymore than Christ’s sufferings on the cross are reducible to existential anxiety. It is “godly sorrow” (2 Corinthians 7:10) and the “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7), the crushing of bones (Psalm 51:8) and the breaking of the spirit (Psalm 51:17), and it is God’s “roundabout way of the wilderness” (Exodus 13:18, 21–22; see Luke 4:1). “Negative” experience can be any experience of judgment or suffering that reveals the human need for God. 187

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“Negative” experience is also oriented, ultimately, toward the positive: toward salvation, blessing, life, the Kingdom, and being “rescued from all [our] troubles” (Psalm 34:17). “Dying” is not for its own sake, but in order that “Jesus may live.” The Law only kills in order to make alive, and judgment clears the ground for forgiveness and redemption. To put it another way, the lower the anthropology, the higher the christology. However, the orientation of the “negative” toward the positive is best understood in terms of paradox and unresolved dialectical tension. For both Luther and Blumhardt, the Law is not the Gospel in disguise, and “sterben” language strongly resists easy synthesis or resolution into resurrection and life. In relation to the “positive,” Blumhardtian “negative” experience operates very similarly to Luther’s distinction between Law and Gospel. Positive and negative are “close together, because they are joined together in one man or in one soul,” but at the same time are as far apart as “heaven and earth, the beginning of the world and its end.”3 Both theologians expect their hearers, in their irrepressible egoism, to seek out any chink in the “negative” armor that might allow them to avoid direct encounter with the Spirit of Truth. As a result, both rightly formulate the divine negation in the strongest possible terms, even though the negation is not the final “Word.”

The Limits of the Principle If “negative” experience is a useful principle for discerning the unmediated presence of the Spirit, then it is so within certain limited parameters. To begin with, to affirm unmediated experience is not the same as rejecting or being against mediated experience. The communally spoken, biblically grounded Word remains hugely important, particularly in the communication of the Gospel. “Unmediated” experience is primarily the province of the Law, in judgment, suffering, and negation, rather than grace. I follow Blumhardt both in giving a privileged place to the Bible as locus of pneumatological encounter, and in rejecting the categorical binding of the Spirit’s action to the written Word or the sacraments. Neither is the “negative” experience principle an absolute rejection of “positive” unmediated experience. As has been noted, it does not rule out the possibility that miraculous healings, direct divine guidance, and sudden affective encounters with divine love and joy can be genuine experiences of the Spirit. At the same time, it remains wary of such claims to positive experience, especially when it is not directly preceded by the “negative.” We must simply allow this tension, of allowing the possibility and yet remaining 3

Luther, LW 26, 301.

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wary, to stand. As Blumhardt puts it, although sometimes there is indeed “peace with God,” “the reliable mark of the Holy Spirit at work is not so much peace as birth-pangs.” Importantly, although “negative” experience is to a certain degree a reliable sign of the Spirit’s presence, it does not follow that a person’s interpretation of that experience is equally reliable. Often, especially “in the moment,” a person is completely unaware of, or else simply wrong about, why a particular experience is so unsettling or difficult. Similarly, even a small degree of anthropological pessimism should make us skeptical of overly easy claims to understand “the real reason” God is doing some painful thing. When understanding is given, it is usually only in retrospect, if at all. As Luther perceives, if we could “see through” the negative into the “invisible things of God,” then it would not really be “negative” at all.4 It would be a sham negativity, the Gospel masquerading as the Law rather than powerfully distinct from it. Forde puts it well: “If we can see through the cross to what is supposed to be behind it, we don’t have to look at it!”5 Finally, to affirm this principle is not the same as claiming that God alone is the true cause and agent behind suffering and evil in the world. There is no necessity for hard-nosed double predestination here. Theologically, we can postulate a difference between God being present in “negativity” as its cause and God taking up a prior negativity for his own purposes and being present in it so completely as to make it as if he were the cause. Experientially and pastorally, however, the two would tend to look and feel the same in the moment. Our “principle,” therefore, makes no prior claim about the precise causality involved in the divine relation to our “negative” experience. Blumhardt was able to call the First World War a great and unequivocal evil, the consequence of human sin and the principalities and powers, and at the same time to say, “It is the Lord!” His biblical paradigm for this paradox was the man “blind from birth” in John 9—“neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (verse 3)—as well as Jesus’ strange decision to wait two days before coming to Lazarus, “so that the Son of Man might be glorified” through his death (John 11:4–6).6 I follow Blumhardt, then, in avoiding overdetermination of the causality of “negative” experience, addressing the issue instead on a case-by-case basis. At the very least, God often takes up the negative in such a way as to make it his own, “that God’s works might be revealed” in it.

4 5 6

Luther, “Heidelberg,” 278, theses 19 and 22. Forde, Cross, 76. Emphasis original. See Note 136 in Chapter 5.

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Advantages Theological proposals mean little if they do not address a clear theological need, or answer a “live” question for the church. They must have advantages over the alternatives. The primary advantage of unmediated “negative” experience as a principle for pneumatological discernment is one we have already seen: that it moves beyond the impasse between classical Protestant (especially Lutheran) and contemporary charismatic doctrines of the Spirit. It formally retains what in my view are the primary advantages of each: the diagnostic and self-critical power of Lutheran anthropological pessimism and theology of the cross, and Pentecostal theology’s affective, particularistic emphasis and its nonobjectification of the Word. Furthermore, the prophetic witness of Christoph Blumhardt in light of the problems of his day points to a clear weakness in Luther’s theological diagnosis of Schwärmerei: Unmediated experience of the Spirit does not necessarily lead to naïve anthropology and the self-deceived projection of one’s own “dreams” onto God. A further advantage is that it helps restore an often overlooked biblical pneumatological voice to our picture of the Holy Spirit, namely, the Johannine subtheme of the Spirit of truth. The Gospel and Epistles of John, more than any other biblical texts, emphasize the Spirit’s role not just in blessing and comfort but also in judgment, as the “Spirit of truth.” The central “negative” experience text, important to both Blumhardt and Luther, is John 16:8—“and when the Advocate comes, he will convict the world of7 sin and righteousness and judgment.” As was seen in Chapter 6, “truth” for the Johannine author is connected both with knowledge of sin (1 John 1:8) and with freedom from the slavery of sin (John 8:32–6). The Spirit, in turn, is often the “Spirit of truth”—a formulation that appears many times in the Johannine writings but nowhere else—and can be associated with sin and judgment (John 16:8–11), as well as with life (John 6:63). There is no life or freedom apart from the truth, and one of the most important truths is that human beings are sinners. The Spirit comes first in truth and judgment, but in order that there may be life and freedom, and that Christ may be glorified (John 16:14). Furthermore, the time of the Spirit is also the time of Christ’s 7

The NRSV translates elegzein as “prove . . . wrong about,” but lists “convict . . . of” as an alternate translation. Bauer and Danker’s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed.) lists both possibilities, but prefers “convict” or “convince” in this case. Luther’s strafen, with which Blumhardt was most familiar, is also a valid alternative, according to Bauer-Danker. I prefer “convict,” which retains the stronger sense of active difference between Spirit and world we find in John 14:17, “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him,” which itself is connected with the theme in John of the world’s rejection and crucifixion of Christ (John 1:10–11).

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absence, when there is weeping and mourning and pain—birth pangs—but it is a pain that is “to [our] advantage” because it will turn to joy (John 15:26–16:22). The biblical role of the Spirit as judge and conveyor of painful truth—in Luther’s terms, as the agent of the Law—is not often remembered in contemporary pneumatology, outside of Luther studies.8 Interestingly, Paul, too, associates the Spirit with birth pangs: We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:22–3). The “labor pains” are correlated with having “first fruits of the Spirit,” and are the result of the creation being “subjected to futility” by God; but this was done “in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:20–1). “Negative” experience, we could say, is a being subjected to futility, in hope of freedom. An advantage of our principle is that it helps restore this crucial biblical feature of the Spirit’s activity to the contemporary pneumatological picture.

Implications for Preaching, Pastoral Care, and Scripture Luther’s theology of the external mediation of the Spirit is to a significant degree a theology of preaching. A rejection of his narrow pneumatology in favor of the possibility of a principle of “negative” experience should, therefore, have certain homiletical implications. In Luther’s view, the task of the proclaimer of the Word from the pulpit is to “divide the Word of truth rightly”9—in other words, first to preach the bad news of the Law, and then to pronounce the good news of the Gospel. In our schema, however, the “Law” is being preached by the Spirit as “negative” experience long before the hearer enters the pew. The Spirit is the only one who truly preaches the Law correctly, and it does so daily in human lives, not just through the preached text of scripture. If the preacher can assume that the Spirit has already been “preaching the Law” to the congregation all week, then it is no longer his or her task to do so in the same 8

9

A happy recent exception can be found in Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 83. Luther, LW 26, 302. See also 2 Timothy 2:15.

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way. Instead, the task is to connect with and to create space and grammar for interpreting the “negative” experience that has already taken place and is taking place, by the Spirit. In this way, space is “cleared” for the Gospel to be heard. This can look similar to what Lutherans have traditionally understood by the minister “preaching the Law,” but is actually quite different. When the preacher believes it is his or her role to be the agent of the “word like fire,” “like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces” (Jer. 23:29), the role can at times become an excuse for venting private aggression on the congregation. Instead of producing “godly sorrow” that “brings repentance,” it can often produce anger and defensiveness. The preacher becomes the center of attention rather than the Word. God alone can preach the “theological” use of the Law correctly, to bring about life and freedom. We usually just make a mess of it. If the preacher’s role instead is to create a graceful space for and connection to the Law already being preached by the Spirit—in “negative” experience—to be seen and heard and accepted, the motivation is not anger but compassion. Similarly, this understanding of proclamation might help avoid a certain kind of usurpation of preaching by theological ideology. Because the first part of the “sermon” has already taken place outside of the church, to preach an idea or a theology that does not connect with it is to miss the work of the Spirit in that person. The hearers’ particularity must be taken into account, because it is in their particular lives and particular experiences that the “Word” is already “at work.” Love and compassion are not abstract—they meet a person as they are in their own context and experiences. Lutheran proclamation, like many other types, runs the risk of turning preaching into ideology, at the expense of the particularity of love. In our “negative” experience conception, on the other hand, the active work of the Spirit outside of and prior to the sermon context asks that that particular divine work be looked for and taken into account by the preacher. The starting point for this compassion in the preacher is their own personal particularity—“a history of grace in relation to their own personal sins and sorrows.” It is their own “negative” experience that “qualifies them to speak to sufferers.”10 As the author of Hebrews puts it, “[the priest] is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people” (Hebrews 5:2–3). More complex are the implications for pastoral care. The first point is straightforward enough: The principle means that when a person hears of the suffering and thwarting experienced by others, they can trust that the 10

See Paul F. M. Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 233–4.

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Spirit of God is in some vital sense present in the situation. Such trust can be the first stirrings of hope in the midst of a plight, and an impetus toward prayer. But what more is one to do about the plight? Is there not a dangerous quietism here in relation to evil and suffering in the world? On the one hand, we might look to certain of the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–11) and find a paradoxical view of blessing—poverty of spirit and mourning are called blessed not in the future, but in the present. But it is also “blessed” to be a peacemaker, and to be merciful, and there is more to these identities than a purely passive recognition of God’s action sub contrario. On the question of quietism, our principle would seem to leave us with more questions than answers. A good place to begin a discussion of ethical activity versus passivity in light of the presence of God in “negative” experience would be in the area of christology. Christ healed, but also at times abstained from healing. He expressed an active compassion for suffering, and transformed lives around him for the better, but also made clear that “bread alone” is not enough (Luke 4:1–4). Above all, he “actively” intervened in the plight of the world in the Incarnation, but the culmination of his ministry was the passivity and forsakenness of the Crucifixion. An important place for further theological work, beyond the scope of this study, would be in the christological grounding of active love in light of the apparent and real passivity of the cruciform principle of “negative” experience. For now, there is perhaps just one pastoral-ethical implication to mention: that a pneumatological model grounded in “negative” experience views the preaching of the Law to others in its “theological” or negative sense, both from the pulpit and in individual pastoral contexts, as a dangerous activity. Much as people often like to preach it, that sermon would seem to be best left to its proper “preacher,” the Spirit. Along with a christologically grounded ethics, a second major theme that would need to be worked out in light of our principle is what it means for theologies of scripture. If the Bible is not the sole and absolute mediator of the Spirit, how else might we conceive of its privileged status in relation to other texts? What would a “high” view of the Bible look like that is nevertheless not as pneumatologically narrow as Luther’s view? One factor that would need to be taken into account in light of what has been said would be the role of “experience.” If the Spirit is “preaching” to individuals and communities not just in the sermon (or sacrament) context, then this “preaching” must bear some relevance to how the Bible is read. How can “experience” be brought into our hermeneutics without it turning the text into a projection screen for whatever we want to find? This self-deception problem has been taken into account to a significant degree through our prioritizing of “negative” experience over other types. But more would need to be said positively, and more specifically, about the relationship of that “experience” to the interpretation of scripture. Here, too, is a potentially fruitful topic for further research. 193

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Conclusion The theology toward which we have been pointed in this reading of the prophetic preaching of Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt could be called a charismatic theology of the cross. This theology is charismatic because it expects, and indeed has little hope, apart from God’s acting in the world and in human lives in an “experienceable” way, not just rationally, but affectively and bodily. It is also charismatic because it does not exclude the possibility of “positive” experience of the Spirit in the Pentecostal sense, though it remains somewhat wary of claims to such experience. It is a theology of the cross because, as a result of a low anthropology; it expects God to act primarily in the form of “negative” experience. And it does not replace triumphalist “certainty” with cognitive or “word-event” “certainty,” both of which tend to be abstracted from affective “experience.” In their place, this theology’s trust is in the certainty that suffering and the frustration of human self-determination are reliable features of Christian existence. Much more, however, it is the certainty of hope in the Spirit of the living God. It is in the dynamic interaction, in the Spirit, of this realism and this hope that we pray we might be able to say, with T. S. Eliot11: And in the end That is the completion which at the beginning Would have seemed the ruin.

11

T.S. Eliot, “The Family Reunion,” in The Complete Poems and Plays of T.S. Eliot (London: Guild Publishing, 1969), 333.

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index

affections 2, 9, 25, 160, 169 agency problem of in Blumhardt 32, 36–7, 39, 62, 76–82, 103–4, 130, 132, 132–3, 155 Althaus, Paul 175n. 82, 177n. 90, 178n. 92 Anderson, Allan 1n. 1, 5, 6n. 9, 24, 69n. 31, 105n. 81, 158n. 2, 163 anthropology and ontology 32–3, 42–6, 57, 79, 162–3 optimistic 3n. 4, 23, 84, 106 in Blumhardt 26n. 67, 122–5, 126, 132–3, 136, 153–4, 166 in pentecostal theology 8, 165, 168 pessimistic 3n. 4, 54, 186, 189 in Blumhardt 17, 21, 23, 28–30, 32–3, 39–40, 43–5, 56–7, 59–60, 62, 76, 79, 81–2, 107, 112–13, 119, 122–3, 127, 131, 134, 143, 153–4, 157, 164–6, 168, 180, 184 and Fleisch 31–3, 35, 41–6, 48–9, 52–4, 57, 60, 63, 71, 73–4, 79, 82, 84, 98–100, 103, 107–8, 119, 123, 127, 140, 151, 153–4, 156, 163, 187 in Luther 2–3, 8, 10, 44, 166, 177, 180, 190 see also self-deception Asendorf, Ulrich 174n. 74, 175, 176n. 85, 177 Azusa Street 5, 23, 158, 164 Barth, Karl 10–13, 36, 43, 60–1, 110–11, 129, 134–5, 139n. 127 Bengel, Johann Albrecht 18–19, 89n. 19

Berger, Joachim 11n. 18, 135n. 112 bible and Blumhardt 38, 49, 54–7, 59, 70–1, 95–6, 103, 106–7, 134, 147, 185, 188 see also sola scriptura; word of God Blumhardt, Johann Christoph 10–17, 19, 21–2, 27–8, 33, 37, 40, 53, 63, 65, 74n. 74, 77–9, 89, 95, 104n. 80, 135n. 11, 158, 162, 164–5, 184 theological relationship to the younger Blumhardt 10, 13, 21–3, 26, 31–2, 35, 38–9, 44, 47–8, 53, 57, 61–70, 72–81, 83, 96–7, 103, 105, 107–8, 110, 114, 118, 120, 134, 143–6, 152–4, 166 Boardman, William 114n. 6, 158–9 body see physicality Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 75–6, 110 Brecht, Martin 17, 18n. 43, 18n. 44, 19n. 52, 89n. 19, 180n. 101 Busch, Eberhard 11, 135n. 112 charismatic movement and theology see pentecostalism christology 62, 64, 88, 110, 125, 149–50, 154, 157, 188, 193 church 16–17, 21–2, 69–71, 85, 96, 107, 110, 116, 140n. 133, 153, 190 Blumhardt’s critique of 22, 33, 35, 44, 48–53, 57, 59, 66, 72, 102, 123, 130–1, 147, 166, 181 and little flock 47–9 Collins Winn, Christian T. 11n. 18, 11n. 19, 11n. 20, 26n. 67, 27,

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INDEX negative 22, 25, 30, 58, 81n. 81, 91–2, 98, 99–104, 105, 107, 109–10, 124, 135n. 112, 141, 149, 150–2, 154–6, 159, 163, 167, 168, 170, 174, 176, 180–1, 184–94 resulting in sanctification and empowerment 22, 24–5, 30, 91–2, 98–9, 103, 105, 148, 159–68, 186 revelatory 4, 20, 90–2, 93–6, 97–8, 105, 107–8, 121–2, 134, 148–9, 154, 160–1, 186 unmediated 1–3, 5–6, 8, 19–21, 22, 25–6, 30, 38, 54, 56–7, 88–99, 101, 104–10, 113, 119, 121, 125, 133–4, 141, 143, 155–6, 159–61, 162–3, 165, 169–71, 176, 178–80, 182, 184–6, 188, 190–1, 193 see also enthusiasm; pentecostalism; self-deception; spirit baptism

61, 64, 72n. 45, 77–8, 81, 125n. 58, 129n. 82, 135, 154 Cox, Harvey 69n. 31, 181n. 105 Dayton, Donald W. 18n. 41, 114n. 6, 158n. 2, 164n. 29 death and the kingdom 42, 50–1, 63–4, 83–4, 118–19, 157, 162 as sacrament 49, 50–1, 79, 81, 118–19, 157n. 44 see also soteriology Dittus, Gottliebin see exorcism dualism in Blumhardt’s theology 84, 102–3, 131 Ebeling, Gerhard 172, 173n. 63, 175 enthusiasm (Schwärmerei) 1–2, 5–7, 20, 24–5, 59, 82, 85, 87, 88–9, 91, 104–7, 110, 137, 140n. 133, 141–2, 144, 147, 155–6, 168–71, 174, 177–81, 190 eschatology Blumhardt’s 21, 28–30, 33, 46, 61–84, 85–6, 95, 104–5, 113, 117, 119, 121, 123, 126, 130–1, 133, 139, 143, 153–4, 156–7, 162n. 22, 164–6 and outpouring of the spirit 6, 14, 17–18, 21–2, 38, 68–70, 105n. 83, 114, 144–5, 148, 164, 180 overrealized 82, 104–5, 114n. 6, 123, 159, 164 and soteriology 19, 80–1, 98, 157 underrealized 21–2, 62, 64n. 8, 82–4, 104–5, 123, 139, 157, 162, 165–6 see also millenialism exorcism 8, 12–17, 22, 53n. 112, 65, 73, 91, 97, 118–19, 164, 185 experience feelings 25, 89–90, 91, 98–9, 101, 107, 149, 160–1, 178, 182–3, 186, 188 miraculous 20, 89, 91, 96–8, 99, 102, 105, 107, 118–19, 149, 160–1, 185–6, 188

Faupel, D. William 69n. 31, 105 Feuerbach, Ludwig 3, 54, 110, 170, 181 First World War 10–11, 30, 112–13, 123, 129, 136, 137–42, 154–5, 189 Forde, Gerhard 37n. 20, 58n. 138, 157n. 45, 172, 182, 189 Francke, August 89 Gedanken aus dem Reiche Gottes 26n. 67, 28, 30, 35n. 15, 61, 65, 66–8, 69, 73, 95–7, 113, 118, 133, 144, 154 Groth, Friedhelm 18n. 45, 19n. 47, 22n. 61 Hammer, Karl 137n. 121, 137n. 122, 138n. 126, 141n. 140 healing 1, 3, 10, 12, 15–17, 20n. 55, 22, 24–6, 59, 65–6, 89–91, 96–7, 99, 102–3, 105, 108n. 95, 110, 113, 114n. 6, 118–19, 147, 149, 158–9, 160, 162, 164–5, 185, 187–8, 193

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INDEX Mattmüller, Markus 111n. 1, 134n. 108, 134n. 110, 136n. 114 McCormack, Bruce L. 134n. 110, 135n. 112, 136n. 115 Meier, Klaus-Jürgen 26–8, 32n. 4, 43–4, 50n. 89, 67n. 17, 104n. 78, 111n. 2, 112, 114–18, 121n. 39, 122n. 45, 123, 126n. 60, 128, 130–1, 133–4, 136, 138, 153n. 38, 156n. 42 Melanchthon, Philipp 158, 169 millenialism 11, 18–19, 24, 105, 160, 164, 166 Moltmann, Jürgen 11, 132n. 90

see also experience human nature see anthropology Ising, Dieter 14n. 29, 15n. 30, 15n. 32, 27n. 68, 31n. 2, 68–70, 97n. 49, 164 justification by faith 1–3, 6, 8, 54, 59, 75, 81, 158, 177–8 see also soteriology Karlstadt, Andreas Bodenstein von 2, 6, 20, 24, 57, 178–80 kingdom of God see eschatology Kutter, Hermann 10, 111, 134–6 Land, Steven J. 3–10, 159–62, 164, 166n. 38, 167–9, 173n. 68, 181 law 30, 79, 100, 171–2, 174–6, 178–82, 192–3 and gospel 5, 172–8, 188–9, 191 and holy spirit 174–6, 180, 191 and negative experience 30, 185–6, 187–8, 191 Lehmann, Hartmut 18n. 42, 19–20, 89, 92n. 30, 115, 138n. 123 Lejeune, Robert 26n. 67, 27, 32, 68n. 26, 116 Lessing, Gotthold 108n. 95, 109–10, 166 Lim, Hee-Kuk 26–7, 41, 44–6, 56n. 132, 75, 86n. 5, 88n. 10, 95, 104, 123n. 49, 125n. 58, 138, 145n. 6, 153n. 37, 154–6 Loewenich, Walther von 58 Luther, Martin 2–3, 5–7, 9–10, 20, 21n. 56, 23–4, 30, 37n. 20, 44, 57–9, 91, 104, 106, 141–3, 150n. 22, 153, 157, 158–9, 163, 166, 169–70, 170–83, 184–91, 193 Macchia, Frank D. 16, 17n. 38, 18n. 43, 18n. 45, 19, 24–6, 33, 64n. 8, 91n. 26, 91n. 27, 112, 125n. 58, 138, 153n. 37, 154–5, 159–63, 167–8 Marx, Karl 3, 126n. 60

negative experience see experience; law Oetinger, Friedrich 18 pentecostalism 1–10, 13, 17–18, 21, 23, 110, 190, 194 and Blumhardt 2, 10, 23–5, 59, 70n. 32, 92–3, 98–9, 113–14, 143, 155, 158–70, 180–1 theological distinctives of 1–6, 9–10, 23–5, 159–60, 163–4, 167 see also Azusa Street physicality Blumhardt’s affirmation of 30, 50, 109, 113, 117–21, 125, 133 pietism 14, 17–18, 30, 32–3, 38–40, 42, 68, 79–81, 87, 88–93, 98, 112, 115, 117, 119, 137, 169, 173, 185–6 see also Württemberg pietism Pressel, Wilhelm 137n. 121, 137n. 122, 138, 140n. 133, 141n. 140, 155 Ragaz, Leonhard 10, 111, 129, 133–6, 138n. 125, 147n. 13 Religious Socialism 10, 111, 113, 129, 134–6 sacraments 2, 5, 50, 66, 92, 106, 147, 157, 177, 179, 182, 184–6, 188, 193 see also death

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INDEX sanctification Blumhardt’s view of 22–3, 38–9, 80–1, 99, 103–5, 162–7 pietist and pentecostal views of 3n. 4, 19, 78–9, 82, 89–92, 98–9, 159–62, 164–7, 170, 181 Sauter, Gerhard 16n. 37, 19n. 48, 21n. 57, 26–7, 32, 34, 37n. 19, 43, 58, 62–3, 86n. 5, 97n. 50, 104, 108–10, 120, 122n. 44, 124, 125n. 58, 126n. 63, 128, 134n. 110, 135n. 112, 138n. 125, 141n. 144, 153, 155 Schwärmerei see enthusiasm self-deception 2–3, 6–8, 10, 20, 94, 110, 170, 182, 184–6, 190, 193 sin see anthropology Slenczka, Notger 172n. 58, 174, 185n. 2 Social Democratic Party 26, 30, 53, 64n. 8, 78n. 71, 81, 109, 111–17, 121–3, 125–8, 130–2, 134–7, 156, 166, 178 socialism 11, 111, 114–17, 121, 123, 125n. 58, 126–8, 130, 132, 143 see also Religious Socialism; Social Democratic Party sola scriptura 1–3, 6–7, 54, 57, 142, 169, 173 see also Bible, word of God soteriology 78–9, 98–9, 119–20, 173, 181 and antinomianism 51, 119, 148n. 17, 158, 161 and Blumhardt 19, 33, 51, 62, 80–1, 98, 156, 176n. 87 protestant 30, 79, 156–7, 161 see also justification by faith

universalism 19, 56, 81n. 81, 98, 120, 122, 151, 181 see also death; eschatology spirit baptism 3, 6, 8, 24n. 66, 30, 91, 98, 159–61, 168 Sprewitz, Anna von 114, 129n. 80 Stober, Martin 17n. 38, 26–8, 38, 104n. 78, 138, 156n. 42 theology of the cross (theologia crucis) 2, 25, 29–30, 57–9, 81, 85–6, 99, 110, 143, 153, 185–6, 190, 194 Thiselton, Anthony C. 82–4, 104n. 80 Thurneysen, Eduard 10, 111, 129, 135 Tillich, Paul 11 universalism see soteriology Wilhelm, Richard 113, 115–16, 124–5, 128 word of god external (verbum externum) 2–3, 5–6, 8, 20, 92, 171, 177–80, 182, 191 see also bible World War I see First World War Württemberg pietism 1n. 2, 13–14, 16–21, 23, 26, 50, 89, 138n. 123, 165 see also pietism Zahl, Paul F. M. 192n. 10 Zinzendorf, Nikolaus 89 Zündel, Friedrich 14n. 26, 14n. 29, 15n. 31, 16, 22, 23n. 64, 135n. 111, 157n. 44

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