Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung
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The church retreat movement was carried out among Prussian social democrats on October 28, 1913. In all, 1,328 social democrats removed themselves from the Prussian Landes church. For Barth, the church as the state church was without a doubt a disadvantage compared with the watchman office of the old prophets. In his sermon of August 31, he even praised August Bebel, the chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) who had died in Passugs, Switzerland, on August 13, 1913. According to Barth, if we regard a man like Bebel from a Christian standpoint, we must say that he gripped important points about what Jesus wanted much better, and followed Jesus more passionately, than most so-called Christians. Although Bebel made errors, Barth did not hesitate to declare that through him “a voice of God, an announcement of the coming Kingdom of God” could be heard.126
Barth continued articulating his conviction about Bebel on September 14, knowing that many in the congregation were saddened at his death. In Barth’s view, Bebel was a man who had declared God’s Word to his time. The life of Bebel was beautiful, great, and even godly because it was dedicated completely to truth and human rights. “I am delighted about it, because he [Bebel] is for me a sign that God is living in humankind, and that a strong resistance is against the power of egoism. I think just definitely that the loving God needs also such people and speaks to us through them.”127
Several people were offended by Barth’s sermon of September 14. There was even some talk of having him removed from his position. Nevertheless, on the edge of social catastrophe Barth still had hope about a gathering of the Socialist International in Basel’s Münster Cathedral in November 1912 and of a peace conference between the German and French parliaments in Bern in the summer of 1913.128 On November 24 and 25, 1912, the International Socialist Congress took place, and there was a demonstration against the impending war that would become World War I. In Basel’s Münster Cathedral, the International Socialist congress declared war against war in an internationally unanimous decision. In the summer of 1913, forty-one members of German Reichstag had a meeting with 164 French delegates as well as with twenty-one French senators in a conference in Bern in order to advise a communication between Germany and France.
During this time, Barth came in contact with Leonhard Ragaz (1868–1945) who, as one of the most prominent and influential figures among Swiss religious socialists, brought forward his view of the kingdom of God from 1902 onwards during his time as the pastor of Basel cathedral. Starting in 1908, he held a theological chair in Zurich but resigned from it in 1921. As Barth pointed out, “although ‘Religious Socialism’ was also prompted by the younger Christoph Blumhardt’s message of hope, by virtue of its critical and polemical presentation it was already a characteristically Swiss movement.”129 Barth also participated in this movement, read Neue Wege, and conversed with prominent representatives of the movement. However, he was hesitant about identifying himself fully with religious socialism. Interested as he was, he kept his distance from it. In Barth’s letter to his mother on November 20, 1913, he was preoccupied with a study of social questions. He had to teach a course to a group of workers and youth who came to him every other week Sunday afternoon for one and a half hours. Moreover, his wife, Nelly, who was not ashamed to support his work, stated her feelings about the mood of the day: “I am fundamentally fed up with bourgeois society.”130 In connection with his work in the Safenwil Workers’ Association during the winter of 1913–1914, Barth produced an extensive dossier on the “Workers Question.”131
In this “Workers Question,” we see Barth’s connection with SPS and the workers’ union in Safenwil and his effort to provide a more solid theoretical basis for his socialist praxis. Barth lamented, “How stupid that I missed an opportunity to take Wagner’s national economy in Berlin.”132 At any rate, in his “Workers Question,” Barth made use of writings such as Die Arbeiterfrage: Eine Einführung by Heinrich Herkner (1863–1932), who was professor of the national economy at the Königlichen Technischen Hochschule, Berlin.133
Here Barth showed his interest in the history of two important industry plants, namely, the firm C. F. Bally in Schönenward and that of the Sulzer Brothers in Winterthur, both of which are still today considered great Swiss enterprises. Through collecting data, Barth became concerned about the life circumstances and conditions of his parishioners and comrades. Barth’s “Workers Question” was used already in winter 1913–1914 in Safenwil or in Aargau before his entrance to the party in 1915. We shall deal with Barth’s dossier later in more detail. In 1914 Barth spoke on “The Gospel and Socialism” and “The New Factory Act.” In a sermon in June 1914 about the Berne Exhibition (published in Neue Wege), Barth declared that “the evil of capitalism was the consequence of a world without God.” The Christian hope of a new world is to be brought into being by the living God. At the same time, Barth was critical of Friedrich Naumann. (Naumann was an important representative of social democracy in the German Protestant context. Early on, Barth was impressed by Naumann’s social activity. However, as Naumann became associated with the war policy of the German empire, Barth grew dismayed.) In Barth’s view, Naumann had made a political compromise and so no longer looked for something better beyond war and capitalism. For Barth, however, the sentence “God is” amounted to a revolution. Socialism was, therefore, a very important and necessary application of the gospel.
Karl Barth and Die Hilfe
Before the outbreak of the First World War, Barth reviewed the previous year’s publications of Die Hilfe, whose editor was Naumann. Naumann was influential and reputable within the German Protestant church. He also began, as a liberal, to be involved in the Inner Mission movement in Hamburg. In his earlier thought he held a view similar to the religious socialist movement. Naumann founded Die Hilfe in 1890. However, around 1895–1896 he turned from religious socialism and became a defender of the national state and patriotism. In his statement in Die Hilfe he wrote, “Of what use to us is the best social policy when the Cossacks are coming? Whoever wishes to concern himself with domestic issues must first secure people, Fatherland, and borders; he must be concerned with national power. Here is the weakest point in the Social Democracy. We need a socialism which is capable of ruling . . . Such a socialism must be German-national.”134 Thus Naumann became a strong defender of the German military buildup between 1905 and 1914.
With an invitation from Rade, Barth wrote a review of Die Hilfe which was published in Die Christliche Welt. Barth recognized the great service Die Hilfe had provided over the years with respect to practical social progress, unemployment insurance, trade unions, land, and housing reform. However, Barth noticed that Naumann was no longer capable of bringing to the fore the relevance of Christianity for political life.
According to Barth, politics that raises the necessary concessions and compromises to the dignity of generally valid ultimate ideas is different from politics that make concessions and compromises for the sake of immediate goals. What Barth argued for was a politic of hope, full of revolutionary longing for a better way that would come in the midst of the world of relativity. “It is one thing to become accustomed to the world of relativities, finally becoming completely satisfied and . . . at home in them, as those who have no hope. It is another thing altogether, in the midst of this world of relativities, to be incessantly disquieted and full of longing, fundamentally revolutionary vis-à-vis that which exists, longing after the better which will come, after the absolute goal of a human community of life beyond all temporal necessities.”135
In Die Hilfe, Naumann failed to seek this truth of longing against all that exists. In contrast to Die Hilfe, the SPS took