Monday, June 19, 2023

It is the 19th of June 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Happy Monday and all that- if you’ve not noticed, I suppose you come to this show for my hot takes on my beloved Los Angeles Angels- we are doing well, and thus my mood is considerably better, the dog gets his belly rubbed, and I tell my family I love them more.

So- I’ve had a few emails back and forth with a listener called Nate- Nate has never told me where he is from, so I will assign him the location of Truth or Consequences New Mexico- I read that this is home of the Hatch Chile Queen Pageant- also the home of the WCW’s Cactus Jack aka Mick Foley.

Nate asked why I hadn’t done a show on Friedrich Schleiermacher or John Calvin. This has stuck in my brain since he wrote it- it’s true. 1400+ shows, and there are some characters I shy away from. Now, as a programming note: I will have a few weekend editions coming up where I spend time with a big name- someone who I perhaps have overlooked because of familiarity. John Calvin- well, I once wrote an article for the 1517 site and had a cantankerous seminary prof in the Calvinist tradition write me a rather mean email because I didn’t share his views (I stand by my views and my doctoral supervisor Bruce Gordon whose book has formed my view of Calvin). But what about Schleiermacher? Well, I’m afraid perhaps that if I don’t say mean enough things about this guy who is reviled that I’ll be painted as too nice to the “bad guys.”

Some note Schleiermacher as the father of Protestant Liberalism. He was also in the crosshairs of Karl Barth and Neo-Orthodoxy. So, different groups have reasons for not liking this German romantic preacher and theology professor. As I did some research l looking at journals and the like, I found something interesting- Barth, who used Friederich as a punching bag, would later- despite remaining critical of him, urge charity towards a man who lived his life in service to the church.

So, briefly, who was he? Friedrich Schleiermacher was born in 1768 in Breslau, Germany- his father was a Calvinist who had a radical conversion experience amongst the Moravians- the group with ties to Pietism and an emphasis on the affective aspect of theology. Friedrich would grow up at a Moravian school before heading off to the University of Halle. There he rebelled by reading the likes of Kant and then Goethe- this put him in the world of the German Enlightenment and Romanticism. And we need to see his theology as a product of this. At first, he was enamored with Kant, who was in awe of the size of the world- its infinitude but then reduced everything to laws and causality. This rather “flattened” view of the world- everything explainable.

Friedrich would study theology and then work as a private tutor. He ended up leaving that job because he was too fond of the French Revolution while his employer was not. He served as a pastor for a time and then made his way to Berlin, where he was involved in a salon- a high-brow group of intellectuals of which he was the lone Christian. His most famous work, On Religion: to Its Cultured Despisers, was written for this group of people- in it, he argues that the sense of the infinite is the key to freedom and the universe- and this is the nature of religion. He famously argues that religion is a sense and taste for the infinite. Now- if that doesn’t make great sense to you- it’s probably because you’re not a 19th-century German romantic. But for him and them, it was the way to get to the doctrine of God as love, Christ as redeemer, and the Holy Spirit. Schleiermacher wrote more than “On Religion” he wrote dogmatics, The Christian Faith, translated Plato, wrote on Ethics, and a vast array of topics from the University he would help found in Berlin- today Humboldt University. I would commend Stephen D. Morrison’s “Schleiermacher in Plain English” he helpfully reads him in his context and not just in light of the Protestant Liberalism he indeed helped to shape but is not guilty of all of its sins. He died in 1834- historian Leopold von Ranke said that between 20 and 30 thousand people came into the streets of Berlin for his funeral procession.

Thanks, Nate, for the question and for challenging me a little- you can send me your questions at danv@1517.org

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- from the book of Joshua (a first on this show?) It is God’s word to Joshua.

7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 19th of June 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man more Dude Love than Cactus Jack and also a bleeder- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who wonders about the Hatch Chile Queen- what kind of strange contest is this? I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.