Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung
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Barth’s “Socialist Speeches” are evidence of the fact that Barth “eagerly read the writings of Marxist theoreticians from Marx through Kautski to Lenin.”225 Meanwhile, a meeting with Blumhardt became a remarkable event for Barth at this time. Thurneysen introduced Barth to Blumhardt himself at Bad Boll. Of course before Berlin and Marburg, in his Tübingen period, Barth had already visited Bad Boll a couple times. Barth’s meeting with Blumhardt this time was different in its significance from his previous one. He stayed in Bad Boll from the tenth to the fifteenth of April 1916. In Blumhardt’s message, Barth noticed that “the hurrying and the waiting, the worldly and the divine, the present and the future met and were united, kept supplementing one another, seeking and finding one another.” “What is more fundamental is Blumhardt’s way of connecting knowledge of God with the Christian hope for the future. God is the radical renewal of the world, and at the same time becomes completely and utterly new.” “The new element, the New Testament element, which appeared again in Boll can be summed up in the one word: hope.”226
Through appropriating Blumhardt’s message, Barth tried to overcome a controversy between Kutter and Ragaz. Kutter put more emphasis on the prophetic knowledge of the living God. Ragaz was more concerned with active discipleship along the lines of the Franciscan ideal of poverty. In the face of the outbreak of the First World War, Kutter was moved with a summons to tranquil reappraisal. But Ragaz responded to the war with an appeal for pacifist action. Kutter never became a Social Democrat, while Ragaz became one in 1913. Barth feels himself more in line with Kutter’s radical tranquility without ruling out Ragaz’s energetic tackling of social problems.
Barth’s position moved toward the eschatological question of Christian hope in the Blumhardtian sense. Thereby Barth took God seriously in quite a different way than either Kutter or Ragaz. “The world is the world. But God is God”—this “but” remains because the world is to be transformed by this “but”: Something new is expected from God. As Thurneysen reports, the slogan “The world is the world. But God is God” was accepted and interpreted in Barth’s own way; Blumhardt’s message of the kingdom of God became an important leitmotif for Barth.227 This concern about God, which is associated with Barth’s understanding of radical socialism, functioned as a critical pole to self-destructive bourgeois society and empirical Social Democracy, which failed with the outbreak of the war. Drawing upon a concept of the kingdom of God, Barth’s socialism is characterized by the socially transcendent and critical utopia, in contrast to the existing social order. Barth’s emphasis on God as the absolute Novum, his skepticism of human self-righteousness, and his practical concern about religious socialism would be the point of departure for Barth in his dialectical theology in distinguishing between God and humans.
On January 1, 1916, Barth reported to Thurneysen on his work in Safenwil: “Imagine! I have the workers here enlisted again in a course on the ordinary practical questions (time of work, women’s work and the like), every Tuesday, making full sense of the dossier on these things that I at one time assembled.”228 Although, regarding “the formation of trade unions as one of his chief political concerns,” Barth had less interest in Marxist principles and ideology as a worldview than in practical social questions associated with the life of workers. “The aspect of a socialism which interested me most in Safenwil was the problem of the trade union movement. I studied it for years and also helped to form three flourishing trade unions in Safenwil (where there had been none before). They remained when I left. That was my modest involvement in the workers’ question and my very limited interest in socialism. For the most part it was only practical.”229
On January 17, 1916, “a letter from factory-owner Hochuli” arrived. The occasion for it was Barth’s sermon of January 16 and his address at the confirmation of youth two days earlier, in which the pastor had taken issue with a celebration hosted by Mr. Hochuli. Mr. Hochuli considered the expressions used in the sermon and in the address to be “slanderous and discrediting.” He demanded their retraction within three days. If the pastor refused to take back his remarks, he threatened to file suit. Barth reported to Thurneysen in a letter on January 10: “Our factory Owner Hochli hosted a drinking party for his 500 employees on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding, and all of them, including my confirmation youth were totally drunk, and conducted themselves shamefully. So are our people kept as fools, with whips and sugar bread, and are at his beck and call.”230 Unlike Thurneysen, Barth saw the political nature of the drinking party and its connection to the relationship between the ruling class and the people. Barth rejected the accusations of slander and defamation because he defended himself by saying that he did not characterize the textile work as hell and Mr. Hochuli as the Devil.231 The Hochuli affair tells us the realities of late capitalism. Barth’s politically motivated pastorate had its foundation in his experience of the brutality of social relationships within capitalism. Already in the sermons of 1913, Barth condemned child labor and pleaded with parents to endure economic plight rather than deliver their children too early into the world of the factory. However, those sermons were without success. In this situation he came to a radical, revolutionary conviction that reforming and moderating actions can be explained from the objective misery of this place.
On December 8, 1915, Barth wrote to Thurneysen: “Social Democratic Party and cartel of Worker’s Union Baden. Thursday December 6, 1915, evening 8 o’clock, in Schulhaussaal. Lecture on ‘Are religion and socialism in agreement?’ Presenter: Mr. Barth, pastor, Safenwil. Committee of education expects numerous visits.”232 In a religious socialist conference in Pratteln near Basel, Barth was impressed by Hans Bader’s lecture in which a distinction between Ragaz and Kutter was made. In his letter to Thurneysen (September 8, 1915) Barth outlined this distinction:
For Ragaz: it is of importance to consider “experience of social needs and problems.” The “Ethical demand” is necessary.
For Kutter: What is central is “experience of God.”
For Ragaz: there is an emphasis on “belief in development.”
For Kutter: the kingdom of God is understood as promise.
For Ragaz: there is an “optimistic evaluation of Social Democracy” and “opposition to the church.”
For Kutter: “the Social Democrats can never understand us.” “Religious responsibility” must be taken “in the church in continuity with the pietistic tradition.”
Ragaz calls for “Religious-Socialist Party with conferences and new ways,” and emphasizes sympathy with workers and other laymen. He is in expectation of martyrdom and in protest against war.
Kutter, however, calls for “circles of friends for spiritual deepening and for work.” With concentration primarily on the pastors his concern lies in “the building of dams for a much more distant future.”
Conclusion: the religious socialist thing is finished. Our task is to begin with taking God seriously.233
After this, Barth adds his own opinion of Ragaz’s effort, that is, to put principles into practice. In his approach to Ragaz and Kutter, Barth places himself closer to Kutter theologically, but without losing the practical concern of Ragaz. As Barth asks, “is it not better to strive toward the point where Kutter’s ‘No’ and Ragaz’ ‘Yes,’ Kutter’s radical tranquility and Ragaz’ energetic tackling about the problem ring together?”234
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