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1. Term The term “liberal theology” is widely used in modern Protestantism and Judaism, but only marginally in 19th- and early 20th-century Roman Catholicism. It shares the imprecision of the concept of liberalism in politics and culture. Three aspects of its usage call for consideration: in modern Judaism and Christianity, as a doctrine of faith, and as a polemical concept. 1.1. In Modern Judaism and Christianity In modern Judaism and Christianity theologians are called liberal who view the Enlightenment and modern culture as legitimate expressions of the Jud…

Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923) was a Protestant theologian, philosopher of culture, and politician. His theological/philosophical works, although many-faceted, were characterized by one theme: given the historicist insight that all historical reality is relative, with the resulting loss of normative validity (Relativism), he sought to identify new, binding values in historically given cultural contexts. Troeltsch, born on February 17, 1865, in (Augsburg-) Haunstetten, was the eldest son of the medical doctor Ernst Troeltsch. His family belonged to t…

[German Version] (Jun 22, 1770, Radis – Jan 12, 1842, Leipzig), Protestant philosopher and successor to I. Kant at Königsberg University. Strongly influenced by Kant's philosophy as a student of theology and philosophy in Wittenberg, Jena, and Göttingen, Krug became philosophy lecturer in Wittenberg and associate of the philosophical faculty in 1794; then associate professor in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1801, full professor in Königsberg in 1805, and in Leipzig in 1809. He argued in favor of a so-c…

[German Version] (Feb 25, 1939, Vienna – Nov 18, 1998, Vienna) was brought up in a middle-class family. After studying Protestant theology, primarily with H.W. Wolff and Wolfhart Pannenberg, and philosophy, especially with T.W. Adorno and Wolfgang Cramer, he quickly became active in the biblicistic, socially conservative Heliand scouting association. In 1969 he received his Dr.theol. at Munich with a thesis entitled Der Gedanke der Persönlichkeit Gottes bei Fichte und Hegel. His habilitation followed in the winter semester of 1971/1972 with a critical interpretati…

[German Version] ( Jan 27, 1808, Ludwigsburg –Feb 8, 1874, Ludwigsburg), Protestant theologian and writer. The son of a struggling merchant, Strauß attended the Latin school in Ludwigsburg and in 1821 entered the minor seminary in Blaubeuren. There he met F.C. Baur, whose teaching left a deep impression on him. With his friends C. Märklin, F.T. Vischer, and Wilhelm Zimmerman (later a prominent liberal historian of the German Peasants’ War), he began his theological studies in 1825 at the Tübingen …

[German Version] (Jan 30, 1810, Friedewald, Hessia – Jun 2, 1872, Bonn). Although as a student of theology Hundeshagen was expelled from the university in Giessen in 1828 for participating in certain fraternity activities, he was still able to attain his Habilitation there in 1831, after which he became a professor of theology specializing in exegesis and church history. In 1834 he received an appointment in Bern (becoming a full professor in 1845), then in 1847 in Heidelberg, and in 1867 in Bonn, also serving as the editor of the ThSt…

[German Version] (Feb 17, 1865, Haunstetten near Augsburg – Feb 1, 1923, Berlin-Charlottenburg) is considered one of the leading theological diagnosticians of crises in the German classical modernity of the period around 1900. The author of a wide-ranging oeuvre, he pushed back the boundaries of systematic theology and transformed it into a cultural science (Cultural studies) of Christianity that was to demonstrate the compatibility of Christian faith with the modern standards of scientific ration…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Church History – III. Systematic Theology I. Philosophy The concept of historicism came into currency in the 19th century and soon assumed critical and even polemical significance. Indeed, also G.W.F. Hegel's concept of reason freely actualized in history could be called historicism (J. Braniss, Die wissenschaftliche Aufgabe der ¶ Gegenwart als leitende Idee im akademischen Studium [The scientific task of the present as a leading idea in academic studies], 1848); but the understanding of historicism as a mode of tho…

[German Version] (Nov 16, 1837, St. Petersburg – Jun 26, 1905, Basel), son of a German Protestant merchant and a Roman Catholic mother from a French family, after his initial schooling Overbeck studied in St. Petersburg, Paris, and Dresden; beginning in 1856, he studied Protestant theology at Leipzig, Göttingen, and Berlin, receiving his habilitation at Jena in 1864. In 1870 he accepted a call to Basel as associate professor of New Testament and early church history. The multilingual intellectual …

[German Version] The term patriotism first appeared in the 16th century, as a borrowing from Neo-Latin (derived from patria) and French ( patriotisme); in the classic discussions of political virtues, it stands for the close moral bond uniting the citizens with their homeland, to which they owe devotion, selflessness, loyalty, and love. The popularity of the term in the 18th century, especially in the moral weeklies, was closely connected with the invocation of public spirit, civic virtue, and national morality: beyo…

[German Version] (May 17, 1844, Hameln – Jan 7, 1918, Göttingen), the son of a conservative Lutheran pastor, studied Protestant theology at Göttingen, where he was strongly influenced by H. Ewald, who taught him Syriac and Arabic as well as biblical exegesis. In 1870 he received his Göttingen licentiate and habilitation in Old Testament; in 1872 he was appointed full professor at Greifswald. On the grounds that the “ecclesiastical and academic viewpoints” are fundamentally different and a professo…

[German Version] In the wake of the initiatives set in motion by the Boston Unitarian Charles William Wendte, the international organization of religious liberals was founded on May 25, 1900 as the International Council of Unitarian and other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers on the occasion of the celebrations accompanying the 75th anniversary of the American Unitarian Association and the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. From 1910 to 1937, the Council or, from 1932, the “Internatio…

[German Version] I. General – II. Church History – III. Systematics – IV. Practical Theology – V. Missiology I. General The expression liberal theology became prevalent in the “Saddle Period” (Reinhart Koselleck) of Neo-Protestantism between 1780 and 1820; it denotes a type of “modern theology” that combines strong demands for individual freedom through criticism of religious tradition, differentiation of subjective faith from ecclesiastically defined confessions of faith, an individualistic understanding of reli…

[German Version] I. The exposition of Christian theological knowledge in lexicons, encyclopedias, and similar reference works has not yet been the subject of scholarly study by academic theology. Nevertheless, by focussing on this literary genre, which has been central to the theologies of all denominations since 1770, profound transformations of the academic e…

[German Version] (Oct 20, 1802, Fröndenberg near Unna – May 28, 1869, Berlin), Protestant theologian and church politician. After intensive private tutoring from his father, a Reformed pastor, Hengstenberg studied oriental and classical philology in Bonn. Thanks to his mildly rationalist upbringing, he became enthusiastic about fraternities. He experienced an awakening in 1823/1824 in the neo-Pietist circles of the Basel Mission. Hengstenberg obtained his Habilitation in oriental studies in Berlin in 1824, but because of his close contacts with leading propo…

[German Version] I. Sociology and Social History First attested in the writings of R. Pannwitz ( Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur, 1917), the concept of postmodernism spans a wide spectrum of heterogeneous meanings, the extremes of which are marked, on the one hand, by the notion of a new age that is meant to follow upon the end of modernity, and on the other hand by conceptions of a reflexive radicalization of modern experiences of plurality. The rapid adoption of the concept since the 1970s began in North Amer…

[German Version] 1. Reinhold (Apr 5, 1859, Pööravere, Livonia – Oct 23, 1935, Ahrenshoop). After receiving his master’s degree, habilitation, and paid lectureship at Dorpat (Tartu), Seeberg was considered the great hope of theological conservatives. In 1889 he was appointed to a full profes-¶ sorship of theology, New Testament history, and patristics at Erlangen. After the death of F.H.R. Frank in 1894, he also lectured in systematic theology. As a late aftereffect of the Apostolicum controversy, Seeberg, who had written a massive Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (2 vols., 1895/18…

[German Version] (May 25, 1821, Hamburg – Feb 2, 1899, Alsterdorf, Hamburg). Sengelmann, brought up in an atmosphere of evangelistic Pietism, was a student and friend of F.A.G. Tholuck. As pastor in Moorfleet since 1846, in 1850 he opened a Christian Arbeitsschule (“activity school”) in his parsonage to help young people who had received no education because school attendance was not compulsory, ¶ preparing them for a vocation through instruction and practical training. The great demand led to the expansion of the school to Sankt Nikolai in Hamburg in 1853.…

[German Version] I. Politics and Culture On Nov 9, 1918 the foundation of a parliamentary and democratic form of government was laid for the first German republic. On Jan 19, 1919, still in the radicalizing phase of the revolution, the National Assembly was elected to draw up a constitution. It included the “Weimar Coalition,” in which Majority Social Democracy, the German Democratic Party and the Center Party formed a majority. On Aug 11, 1919 the Weimar Constitution came into force. It had been larg…

[German Version] (Jul 11, 1899, Schreibendorf, Silesia [Pisary, Poland] – May 2, 1960, Bonn), systematic theologian and politically involved churchman. After studying theology at Breslau and Halle, he was appointed superintendent of studies at the Lutherheim in Königsberg. He received his doctorate in 1924 and gained his Habilitation in 1927. In 1934 he became instructor in New Testament at the Herder Institute in Riga. Deprived of his venia legendi for membership in the Confessing Church, he served from 1935 to 1937 as director of illegal seminaries in Bloestau…

[German Version] (Aug 12, 1808, Flensburg – Feb 3, 1884, Copenhagen), Danish theologian and churchman. Influenced by the works of N.F.S. Grundtvig as ¶ a young student, he later turned to German Idealism. During a study tour in 1834, he made contact with such figures as P.K. Marheineke, F.W.J. Schelling, F.X. v. Baader, and N. Lenau. After receiving his doctorate in 1836, in 1840 he was appointed professor of systematic theology int Copenhagen. The politically divisive clergyman was appointed court chaplain in 1845 and…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Early Judaism – IV. Church History – V. Philosophy – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. Dogmatics – VIII. Ethics – IX. Sociology, Politics, and Law I. Old Testament 1. The concept of political freedom, which originated in the Greek polis (City cult), first appeared in Hellenistic Jewish historiography. The Stoics' concept of freedom, which contrasts inner freedom and outward constraint, has no counterpart in the OT. The OT is rooted in an internal mythological cultur…

[German Version] (Jun 19, 1884, Gießen – May 22, 1950, Berlin), daughter of A. v. Harnack; journalist and campaigner for women’s rights. After teacher training and earning her Dr.phil. (1912), from 1914 to 1918 she tested a career in social planning concretely in the civil service. After joining the German Democratic Party in 1919, she earned a reputation as a high-profile, culturally sensitive internationally-minded organizer of the bourgeois women’s movement; from 1931 to 1933 she chaired the Fe…

[German Version] The term cultural studies (Ger. Kulturwissenschaft) appeared as early as the late 18th century. It gained programmatic content, however, only around 1900 in the controversies concerning the independence of the humanities in relation to the natural sciences and concerning the normative integration of modern capitalist mass societies shaped by multiple crises. Since the “linguistic turn” and the “culturalist turn” in the 1980s, it has served the trans-d…

[German Version] I. General – II. Judaism I. General Exile (Lat. exilium or exul) refers to the state-organized and politically, religiously, or ethnically motivated expulsion of people from their homeland or their forced resettlement in a land that they often would not have freely chosen as a place of refuge. The politically powerful have forced people into exile in all periods of history. The t…

[German Version] 1. Franz Martin Leopold (Aug 1, 1860, Gütergotz near Potsdam – Mar 17, 1937, Leipzig-Schleußig). After serving as a pastor in Westerland, Eisenach, and Preetz, Rendtorff directed the Preetz Predigerseminar from 1896 onward. He became a Privatdozent in practical theology in Kiel in 1902, honorary professor in 1906, and full professor for practical theology and New Testament in Leipzig in 1910, where he also became director of the Predigerkolleg in 1912 and rector of the university in 1924. He postulated a Liturgisches Erbrecht (1913, repr. 1969 [Liturgical law o…

[German Version] The origins of the concept of transfert de sacralité are obscure. The earliest known occurrence is in the works of the historian Mona Ozouf, who since 1976 has studied the symbolic worlds, rituals, and “implicit theologies” (Assmann) in the festivals celebrated by the French Revolution. Syncretistic combination of pagan, Christian, and Masonic symbols and ceremonies, she believes, created a post-Christian politico-religious cult in which the revolutionary nation staged and constituted its…

[German Version] (Sep 1, 1839, Stetten im Remstal – Jul 18, 1908, Groß Lichterfelde near Berlin). As the last ¶ representative of F.C. Baur’s Tübingen school, Pfleiderer developed models of the history of primitive Christianity which stressed Jesus’ Jewish identity, and declared Paul the decisive founder of the Christian religion, thanks to his critique of the “orientalisms” in Jesus’ preaching, and his determined “Hellenization.” Using the historical methods of the comparative study of religion, Pfleiderer set out…

[German Version] I The origins and the formation of the composite term “history of ideas” have hardly been investigated. Early attestations point to the late 18th century. In the centers of the Enlightenment, scholars wrote “history of ideas,” employing teleological interpretation models, in order to legitimize the emergence of the new middle-class consciousness as a progress in the awareness of freedom. The literary history of classic reflection disciplines such as philosophy and theology became c…

[German Version] (Dec 2, 1777, Soest – Aug 18, 1837, Nuremberg), theologian. As a student in Halle an der Saale and Jena, Lehmus was enthused by Rationalism, I. Kant's criticism, and J.G. Fichte's idealism. A deacon from 1807 in Dinkelsbühl and Ansbach, he initially espoused, with F. Schelling and G. Hegel, a speculative theology in order to prove the internal rationality of the symbols of faith. After his appointment in 1814 as associate professor of theology and preacher at the university church…

[German Version] (Jul 30, 1888, Lobberich – Oct 19, 1961, Boston), a classical philologist, studied philosophy and ancient philology beginning in 1907 in Marburg and Berlin, became an instructor in Berlin in 1914, and was professor in Basel (1914), Kiel (1915), and Berlin (1921). He was dismissed from the Prussian civil service in 1936 at his own request for political and family reasons and emigrated to the United States, where he was professor in Chicago (1937) and Harvard (from 1939). After defi…

[German Version] (Jul 6, 1888, Berlin – Feb 23, 1973, Norwich, VT), jurisprudent, cultural philosopher, and sociologist. Rosenstock-Huessy, from a Jewish banking family, was a highly creative religious intellectual. He combined studies in diverse fields of cultural studies with a search for meaning, moral education, and center-left social reform. In 1905, at the age of 17, he converted to Protestantism. After studying law, history, and philosophy in Zürich, Berlin, and Heidelberg, he received his …

[German Version] (Jun 22, 1900, Berlin – Aug 7, 1992, Hamburg) grew up in the “nationalistic German tradition of the Protestant parsonage” ( Wege, 18); in 1913 he joined the Wandervogel (Jugendbewegung) and in 1919 the Wingolf. In 1921 he was a co-founder of the Jungnationaler Bund. Beginning in 1919, he studied theology in Berlin and Heidelberg. In 1924 ¶ he received his doctorate under Willy Lüttge with a dissertation on A.E. Biedermann; in 1929 he received his habilitation under M. Dibelius with a thesis on the eschatology of the kingdom of God in the…

[German Version] (Jul 25, 1773, Wiesbaden – Sep 26, 1858, Wiesbaden). During his studies at Erlangen, Heydenreich became strongly critical of theological rationalism and the Kantian critical method. His Romantic supranaturalism was influenced by F.D.E. Schleiermacher and the revival movement. After a series of pastorates, in 1818 he received a call to the Protestant seminary in Herborn. An advocate of a united Lutheran/Reformed church, he rejected historical-critical exegesis in three volumes of studies entitled Ueber die Unzulässigkeit der mythischen Auffassung des H…

[German Version] (Oct 16, 1813, Bischofswalde, Silesia – Oct 26, 1887, Döbling near Vienna), the most influential representative of German Catholicism. He came from a farming family with strict church convictions. While studying theology and philosophy in Breslau from 1836 to 1839, Ronge belonged to a student fraternity and was an enthusiastic supporter of the cultural ideals of the Enlightenment and German Idealism, and also of the early liberals’ demands for emancipation. From 1841 he was chapla…

[German Version] (Apr 21, 1864, Erfurt – Jun 14, 1920, Munich) I. Life and Work From his childhood, Karl Emil Maximilian Weber was deeply influenced by the cultural ideals of the educated German Protestant bourgeoisie. His father Max Weber Sr. (1836–1897), a lawyer, represented the National Liberal Party as a deputy in the Landtag and Reichstag. His mother Helene Weber née Fallenstein, who was descended from a family of Huguenots, was a deeply religious and morally sensitive woman with a strong commitment to charitable social work. His sister Henriette w…

[German Version] (Feb 27, 1823, Tréguier, Brittany– Oct 2, 1892, Paris). Ernest Renan, French historian of religion and scholar of ancient New Eastern studies, began by studying Roman Catholic theology, philosophy, and philology at the ecclesiastical Grand Séminaire of St. Sulpice in Paris. Full of enthusiasm, he absorbed the works of German Idealist philosophy and of F.C. Baur’s Tübingen School, especially D.F. Strauß’s Leben Jesu. His youthful desire for freedom and knowledge caused him to leave the seminary in 1845, shortly before his ordination as subdea…

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics I. Dogmatics Since the 18th century, terms such as fatherland, love for the fatherland and patriotism have played a central role in the proclamation of all Christian churches and in the discourse of academic theologians, and have also influenced debates on Jewish self-understanding at least since M. Mendelssohn. In view of the striking methodical reticence of scholarship in church history and the history of theology, there is a deficit of historical terminolog…

[German Version] (Aug 13, Königsberg [Kaliningrad] – Jul 11, 1884, Königsberg). After studying philosophy and Protestant theology, Rupp went on to the seminary in Wittenberg. From 1832 to 1845 he taught at the Altstädisches Gymnasium in Königsberg, and from 1832 to 1851 he was a lecturer in the Königsberg faculty of theology. In 1842 he was appointed Divisionspfarrer and was ordained on Apr 22. Five days later he was also chosen as pastor of the Reformed congregation. Rupp, a religious rationalist and political liberal, criticized the renewed confessi…

[German Version] (Mar 20, 1765, Kassel – Nov 22, 1836, Heidelberg). From a poor background, Daub began his studies of philology, philosophy, history, and theology in Marburg in 1786. He passed the theological exam in Marburg in 1789, became Stipendiatenmajor (tutor for scholarship students), and Privatdozent in 1790. In 1794, he became professor of philosophy in the Hohe Landesschule Hanau. On Nov 13, 1795, he was appointed second professor – of dogmatics a…

[German Version] (Dec 15, 1858, Berlin – Feb 3, 1926, Merano), Protestant clergyman, after 1896 head of the humanitarian Armenian relief organization. Lepsius was the son of the famous Egyptologist Carl Richard Lepsius. His mother Elisabeth, a neo-Pietist supporter of J.H. Wichern's Inland Mission, played a decisive role in his religious development. He studied philosophy (doctorate in 1880) and theology with A. Cremer, as advised by F. Fabri. He served as curate and teacher with the German Protes…

[German Version] (Nov 21, 1860, Geislingen, Württemberg – Feb 24, 1945, Stuttgart), pastor in Stuttgart, president of the Evangelische Arbeitervereine of Württemberg, from 1913 Landtag deputy and from 1919 a delegate to the Landeskirchenversammlung (meeting of regional churches) drafting a constitution for the regional church. In the 1920s, Lamparter became active in the Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus. In 1928 a collection of his essays was published under the title Evangelische Kirche und Judentum. He demanded legal and social equality for Jews, emphasized the…

[German Version] (Jul 11, 1888, Plettenburg – Apr 7, 1985, Plettenburg), Roman Catholic jurisprudent and political theorist. Firmly rooted in the traditional Catholic milieu, Schmitt must be considered one of the most brilliant German intellectuals of the 20th century. Despite his partisan advocacy of the “German revolution” of the National Socialists – in part emotional and positional, in part opportunistic, Schmitt, a radical anti-Semite, exercised a strong influence even after his dismissal in …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies People and nationhood are functional political terms that serve to define a collective entity and to incorporate it into a specific context (see III below). Only since the 18th century has it been possible to speak of a German nation as the active subject of its own history. The rupture of the church at the Reformation and the subsequent wars of religion in the 16th and 17th century long prevented the development of an inclusive political or religious identity. It …

[German Version] (Sep 1, 1761, Leonberg – Aug 10, 1851, Heidelberg). After the early death of Paulus’s mother, his father was the major influence on his religious education. In 1771 the father was dismissed from his position as deacon by the Stuttgart Consistory on account of his mystical separatism. While still a seminary student in Tübingen, from 1781 Paulus developed basic elements of a critical rational exegesis, rejecting the supranaturalism (Rationalism) of his teacher G.C. Storr. He was hig…

[German Version] (Nov 29, 1891, Lichte, Thuringia – Feb 13, 1982, Princeton, USA). Piper’s mother, descended from French Huguenots, provided contacts with France that helped to shape his life. A forerunner of the youth movement, he expressed that generation’s typical criticism of capitalism and individualism. He was severely traumatized by voluntary service at the front, and in 1920, having gained his doctorate in Göttingen, he became a socialist advocate of pacifism and ecumenism ¶ (Ecumene). He rejected the identification of faith and politics made by Religious Soci…

[German Version] (Oct 18, 1834, Unna – Oct 4, 1903, Greifswald), Protestant theologian. A graduate of the Gütersloh Protestant Gymnasium, from simple origins and shaped by the revival movement (Revival/Revival movements), he studied in Halle from 1853 with F.A.G. Tholuck and Julius Müller and in Tübingen from 1856 with J.T. Beck. Here he established a close friendship with M. Kähler. After a brief stay at the Wittenberg Seminary for Preachers, Cremer received the Lic.Theol. on the basis of his Die eschatologische Rede Jesu Christi Matthäi 24.25 (“The Eschatological Discou…

[German Version] (Aug 1, 1773, Langensalza – Dec 30, 1831, Leipzig). Tittmann’s father, Karl Christian Tittmann, later became chief consistorial councilor in Dresden. Tittmann studied philosophy and Protestant theology at Wittenberg and Leipzig, where in 1796 he was appointed associate professor, initially in the faculty of philosophy, then (1800) in the faculty of theology; in 1805 he was appointed full professor of theology. He was appointed to a number of church offices (a capitulary of Meißen …

[German Version] (Jan 13, 1837, Karlsruhe – Aug 2, 1909, Heidelberg), a Protestant church historian. The son of a prominent pastor from Baden, Hausrath studied Protestant theology and history from 1856 onward in liberal Jena, where K.A. v. Hase became his teacher and close friend. Following study visits to Göttingen, Berlin, and Heidelberg, Hausrath earned his Lic.theol. in Berlin with a study entitled Der Ketzermeister Konrad von Marburg (1861). After completing his curacy, he gained his Habilitation in Heidelberg in 1862 and was employed as an assessor in the…

[German Version] (Jan 5, 1846, Aurich – Sep 15, 1926, Jena), a fashionable philosopher of cultural Protestantism, studied classical philology and philosophy at Göttingen with R.H. Lotze and Gustav Teichmüller (1832–1888) from 1863 to 1867. While writing his dissertation on Aristotle's language, he corresponded with F.A. Trendelenburg. From 1871 to 1874 he …