In part one of The Life of Karl Barth series, I discussed Karl Barth's early life from his birth in 1886 until he left the University of Marburg and his pastoral work in Geneva in 1911. In part two, I will discuss the next ten years in Barth's life when he was a country pastor in Safenwil, Switzerland (1911-1921). In this decade, Barth developed his democratic socialism, forged new lifelong friendships, abandoned the liberalism of his former teachers, and wrote two editions of his world famous commentaries on The Epistle to the Romans (Der Romerbrief) in the midst of World War I.   

The Red Pastor of Safenwil

In 1909, "after finishing his studies [at the university in Marburg], Barth deepened his immersion in the Marburg theological scene by working there for a year as an assistant editor for the journal Christliche Welt, edited by a leading liberal, Martin Rade." [1] Afterwards Karl Barth spent two years as an assistant pastor in Geneva before he arrived in Safenwil, Switzerland in July 1911. Barth said "like my father before me, I came to the Aargau as a pastor, to Safenwil, an agricultural and industrial community" [2], and so he became the sole pastor in a small town experiencing economic downturn. At this time, Barth was recently engaged to Nelly Hoffman (in May 1911), he had completed four years of study at the universities in Berne, Berlin, Tübingen and Marburg, and had experience as an assistant pastor in Geneva. (Karl Barth's predilection for socialism has caused many American Evangelicals to be uncomfortable with Barth's anti-capitalism perhaps it is health and helpful to remember that Barth's situation of life in a rural town in Switzerland on the precipice of World War I is not equivocal to America today.) 

Safenwil was Barth's first opportunity to practice what he had studied in the universities—especially from Wilhelm Herrmann at Marburg who was his most influential teacher—and what he had learned in practice from his pastoral work in Geneva. Barth's preaching in Safenwil was highly influenced by Herrmann, and he became an outspoken advocate for democratic socialism, and worked with the Social Democratic Party. Barth was donned "The Red Pastor of Safenwill" for his outspoken advocacy of democratic socialism in his sermons and politic work. An excellent example of Barth's democratic socialism is his 1911 sermon "Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice" included in George Hunsinger's Karl Barth and Radical Politics (2nd ed.) and this book includes a fascinating exchange of open letters between Barth and a local capitalist critic named W. Hüssy, which I highly recommend. (For more on Karl Barth's democratic socialism and his influence, such as Helmut Gollwitzer, I also recommend W. Travis McMaken's Our God Loves Justice.) 

Eduard Thurneysen: A Revolutionary Friendship

Barth's personal life had significant changes in his pre-World War I period in Safenwill. Nelly Hoffman and Karl Barth were married on March 27th, 1913. Barth's friendship with Eduard Thurneysen (1888—1974)—pronounced 'thur-NYE-sen'—was forged at this time as well. Thurneysen was a pastor at a nearby church in Leutwil, Switzerland (about a half hour drive from Safenwil), and he became Barth's most important theological conversation partner during his years at Safenwil. Eduard Thurneysen wrote "Karl Barth did not have an easy time with his congregation, nor did his congregation have an easy time with him. It has already been mentioned that his political point of view lead to battles. That his sermons demanded of the congregation a considerable effort of understanding certainly needs no special mention. He himself found it painful that he was unable to be 'the pastor who pleases people.' . . . Yet it can be said that he was able to gather about him a faithful 'little flock' of folk who even now cannot forget their pastor of those days." [3] Barth's Safenwil sermons are available in The Word of God and The Word of Man and Come, Holy Spirit! (co-authored by Thurneysen and Barth). 

Thurneysen published their Safenwil-Leutwil correspondence letters as a gift for Barth's 70th birthday: Revolutionary Theology in the Making: Barth-Thurneysen Correspondence (1914-1925). In it, Eduard Thurneysen wrote "from 1913 until 1920 I myself was a pastor in the Aargau in the congregation of Leutwil. Our towns were separated by mountain ranges and valleys. We were continually traveling back and forth in order to meet one another, but that was not enough for us. We had the most urgent need to talk with each other in real brotherhood about everything that happened in 'church, world, and kingdom of God,' as we were accustomed to say. And because at that time there were as yet no telephones in our pastor houses—which was certainly not wholly a misfortune—there came into being a lively correspondence which was carried on almost every week." [4] Karl Barth expanded this book in a second edition two years later for Thurneysen's 70th birthday as a gift in return, in which Barth said about Thurneysen that "he was the one who first put me on the trail of Blumhardt and [Hermann] Kutter and then also of Dostoevsky, without whose discovery I would not have been able to write either the first or second draft of the commentary on Romans." [5] 

Barth's break from Liberalism

In Safenwil, Karl Barth abandoned the theological liberalism of his former teachers. Barth's labors in democratic socialism had already lead him in a different direction than Adolf von Harnack, Wilhelm Herrmann, and many others that he previously admired and studied. In 1914, Barth was shocked to read a public statement of support of Kaiser Wilhelm II's war policy by 93 intellectuals because it included signatures of his former teachers. Barth was dismayed that his former teachers would sign such a document, and it was this moment that was Barth decided he could not follow his former teachers any longer. Barth's most famous (and frequently quoted) statement about this moment when he officially departed from liberalism is the following quotation from The Humanity of God: 

"One day in early August 1914 stands out in my personal memory as a black day. Ninety-three German intellectuals impressed public opinion by their proclamation in support of the war policy of Wilhelm II and his counselors. Among these intellectuals I discovered to my horror almost all of my theological teachers whom I had greatly venerated. In despair over what this indicated about the signs of the time I suddenly realized that I could not any longer follow either their ethics and dogmatics or their understanding of the Bible and of history. For me at least, 19th-century theology no longer held any future." [6]

In this disillusionment with his former teachers and of World War I, Karl Barth and his friend Eduard Thurneysen determined to forge a new path, and this drove them back into the bible, to study it again, because they could no longer share the faith of his former teachers from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Adolf von Harnack. Their vigorous discussions and return to the bible is what lead Karl Barth to write his famous commentary on The Epistle to the Romans. 

Several years later Thurneysen wrote to Barth: "What kind of earthquake region is this into which we have stumbled quite unconsciously in the very moment that we decided we had to read the New Testament a little differently and more exactly than our teachers who were men worthy of honor, or the moment when we could no longer be deaf to Blumhardt and could no longer share the faith of Schleiermacher (do you remember the evening rendezvous in Leutwil when we first said that aloud?)" [7]

Barth's break with liberalism had begun in Safenwil, but it would be many years until Barth would develop his revolutionary theology exhibited in the Church Dogmatics (13 volumes). After Barth left Safenwil, he engaged in debate with his former teachers, and the most famous event was Barth's 15 answers to Adolf von Harnack's 15 open questions in 1923.  

The Epistles to the Romans (Der Romerbrief)

The first edition of Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans (Der Romerbrief) was published in 1919—when World War I had ended—was a monument of his break with liberalism. "Romans I" (as it is commonly called, and sadly is still not available in english translation today) was positively received and resulted in Barth being offered a teaching position as the Honorary Professor of Reformed Theology at the University of Göttingen, which is significant because Barth did not possess an advanced theological decree. 

Jürgen Moltmann described Romans I as a "false start" similar to Barth's later Christian Dogmatics, because it was the second edition of Barth's Der Romerbrief in 1921 (known as "Romans II") that caused Barth to be famous worldwide. The second edition of Barth's The Epistle to the Romans was such a thorough revision, written in an eleven month period, that it was essentially a different book entirely, and Romans I is hardly recognizable within Romans II. In Eberhard Busch's Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts he writes, "As a new edition of Romans had become due, Barth resolved to rewrite his interpretation from scratch. He felt oppressed by the 'need to subject the book to a revision in which hardly one stone of the original edifice is left on another.' . . . 'our eldest, who was then a girl of six, told anyone who was prepared to listen that 'Daddy is writing another Romans, much better'. What the angels may have said on this occasion is another question." [8] 

The difference between Romans I and Romans II is expressed well by Hans Urs Von Balthasar in his famous book The Theology of Karl Barth when he wrote: "What a startling book it is! [The first edition of Romans] Barth's opening chords reverberate throughout. It chants of a radical, philosophical mysticism, of a radical historical outlook on the world, and of a powerful universalism deeply tinged with liberalism and socialism. The Foreword to the second edition of Romans claims that the whole edifice has been razed from the ground up, so that not one stone has been left standing on another. Perhaps Barth should have been more careful and selective in his revisions; could such overpowering themes be done away with so easily?"  [9] 

Romans II was published after Barth left Safenwil and had arrived at the University of Göttingen. Romans II is significant because it is Barth's first publication on his path towards the Church Dogmatics. However, Romans II does not represent Barth's most mature theological work, and in the preface to the sixth edition of The Epistle to the Romans, this Red Pastor said that it would require another thorough revision to align it with his most important later theology. 

Departing to Göttingen 

In this next post, I will discuss Karl Barth's departure from Safenwil to become the Honorary Pastor of Reformed Theology, and the path that led him to his magnum opus, the Church Dogmatics.

To be continued...

 

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The Life of Karl Barth series:

1. The Life of Karl Barth: Early Life from Basel to Geneva 1886-1913 (Part 1)
2. The Life of Karl Barth: The Red Pastor of Safenwil 1909-1921 (Part 2)
3. The Life of Karl Barth: The Romans road to the Church Dogmatics 1921-1930 (Part 3)
4. The Life of Karl Barth: Protesting in Nazi Germany 1930-1935 (Part 4)
5. The Life of Karl Barth: Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Basel during World War II 1935-1946 (Part 5)
6. The Life of Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics Vol III: The Doctrine of Creation 1945-1951 (Part 6)
7. The Life of Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics Vol IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation 1953-1967 (Part 7)
8. The Life of Karl Barth: Trip to America in 1962 (Part 8)
9. Coming soon . . .

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Sources:

1. John Webster, Karl Barth (Outstanding Theological Thinkers), Continuum, New York, 2004, p. 4

2. Busch, Eberhard. Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts. W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1994. Print. 60.

3. Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen. Revolutionary Theology in the Making: Barth-Thurneysen Correspondence, 1914-1925. Epworth Press, 1964, p. 22

4. Ibid. 11

5. Ibid. 72.

6. Karl Barth, The Humanity of God. Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999, p. 14

7. George Hunsinger, Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Second Edition), Eugene: Cascade Books. 2007. p. 155

8. Busch. Ibid. 117. 

9. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans. Edward T. Oakes, Communio Books, Ignatius Press, 1992. Print. 52.

 

Related: Adolf Von Harnack, Democratic Socialism, Eberhard Busch, Eduard Thurneysen, Friedrich Schleiermacher, George Hunsinger, John Webster, Karl Barth, Liberalism, life of karl barth, Safenwil, Socialism, Wilhelm Herrmann, Wilhelm II