Our God Loves Justice: An Introduction... book by W Travis McMaken
Buy a cheap copy of Our God Loves Justice: An Introduction... book by W Travis McMaken. Helmut Gollwitzer was a direct heir of the theological legacy of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Yet, Gollwitzer s work is perhaps least appreciated and...
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Reviewed by Paul S. Chung (Dr. Habil), Chief-in-Editor
It is my pelasure to introduce Prof. W, Travis McMaken's study of Helmut Gollwitzer.
Jurgen Moltmann distinguishes political theology from liberation theology by way of different political background; the former is imprinted with the reality of the poverty-stricken people of Latin America, born out of the North-South conflict, while the latter is grounded in the cold war of divided Europe within the East-West conflict. Political theology stands in prophetic inheritance of theology, religious socialism, and the Confessing Church against the Third Reich.
During the era of Allende in Chile, the movement of the Christians for Socialism held its conference in 1972 in Santiago de Chile. Liberation theology can be understood as the first form of the postcolonial theologies in challenging the century-long colonial exploitation and economic dependence on Europe and North America. Its motto is obviously seen in the preferential option for the poor, in which an economic theory of dependence plays a major role as a critical analysis of the unequal relations between the metropolis and the periphery.
In the prophetic type of public theology, however, Moltmann characterizes Helmut Gollwitzer as the most important one, who deploys the significance between Christian Gospel and emancipation in commitment to society and the world. He was one of the best pupils of Karl Barth by standing in the tradition of the Confessing Church during the Third Reich. In solidarity with the student group in the 1960s, Gollwitzer was confronted with the reality of the capitalist downfall of humanity and crimes against it, standing for the revolution of life.
What is central in Gollwitzer is the Gospel about the Kingdom of God, which is imbued with the promise as the anticipation of the hope of the reality of God, as explained in the gospel narrative. Every traditional theme of theology is to be reemployed and contextualized in the horizon of world transformation, because “God the wholly Other demands the society to be completely different.”
On the other hand, Prof. W, Travis McMaken seeks to read Helmut Gollwitzer, one of the best Barth scholars in Germany, in an American context. As one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, there has been little attention to his theological contribution. Grounded in the Lutheran tradition, especially in the grace of justification and economic justice, he regards Karl Barth as his most important teacher, who also wanted Gollwitzer as his successor at the University of Basel, yet with no avail. Involved actively in the Confessing Church against National Socialism and its collaborator “German Christians,” Gollwitzer becomes an important exponent of Jewish-Christian renewal fighting against antisemitism, together with his student and friend F.W. Marquardt.
Gollwitzer’s theology is first of all rooted in the biblical witness of God YHWH as totaliter aliter who is revealed in Jesus Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit. This God cannot be objectified nor ontologized in a philosophical sense; given this, along with Barth’s doctrine of God, Gollwitzer stands under the influence of Martin Buber and Kornelis Miskotte. God comes to us as “Thou Objectivity” in the event of grace and confession of faith, such that it contradicts Jüngel’s well-known attempt at interpreting Barth’s Trinity in terms of an ontology of God in a Hegelian-Heideggerian fashion.
For Gollwitzer “God IS” is in coming as renewing and transforming the society and world in a completely different manner, rather than ontologically “becoming.” His position finds an echo in Barth’s sharp critique of Heidegger in the teaching of das Nichtige in Church Dogmatics III/3. The contextual character of Gollwitzer’s solidarity theology comes from God totaliter aliter, who becomes the ground for his political theology in a direction and orientation toward democratic socialism and the Kingdom of God.
His famous argument reads: “the wholly other God wants a wholly other society,” which corresponds to more democracy and more social justice in permanent manner. This direction and line takes the form of reflection on God’s identity who is revealed in Jesus Christ as “the partisan of the poor” (Barth). Thus the doctrine of God is the axis of Gollwitzer’s solidarity theology, and also underlying his prophetic involvement in public issues in terms of status confessionis against the false teaching of the church.
Karl Barth once characterized his theological line and orientation in response to Eberhard Bethge’s Bonhoeffer book: “ethics―co-humanity―servant church―discipleship―[democratic] socialism―peace movement―and, hand in hand with all that, politics.”
Gollwitzer stands in his lifelong commitment to this prophetic orientation in his public theology, Christian-Marxist dialogue, Jewish-Christian renewal, and recognition of people of other faiths and cultures. He is one of the most distinguished examples for public theology and those involved in renewing public spheres for a better society in accordance with the prophetically inspired socialism coming from the Kingdom of God.