A Larger Hope 2

by Robin A Parry

  Conclusion

  Schleiermacher, as Murray Rae explains, “refused to give doctrinal status to his universalist claims. [His] refusal was based on the insufficiency of the evidence of Scripture, or in the contents of consciousness. It is clear, however, that Schleiermacher favored a universalist view.”324

  Friedrich Schleiermacher was a goliath in the history of modern theology, casting a shadow up to the present day, yet it is interesting to note that his universalist theology of election had very little impact on his contemporaries or on subsequent generations. It was more or less passed over in silence from day one and is only now beginning to attract more attention.325

  However, universalist hope did not vanish from the German lands. It is found among some philosophers,326 some of the more liberal theologians,327 and was maintained among some of the Pietists who had not relocated to America. Prominent among these were the Württemburg Pietists, who had been deeply influenced by Albrecht Bengel, his student Friedrich Oetinger, and Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, all of whom were universalists, as we have already seen. Christian Collins Winn describes the distinctive constellation of emphases of Württemberg Pietism as follows:

  The key motifs of this form of Pietism were centered on the question of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God in history. They include: 1) the belief that the kingdom of God was already related to history in a very intimate fashion, so that God was active in the world not only as the reviver of souls, but also as the transformer of the world; 2) that when the kingdom came in its fullness, it would consist in the universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which, for some, implied a universal restoration of all things or “apokatastasis”; 3) because God was so intimately at work in history, many within this tradition sought to overcome the perceived dualism of classical Pietism between the soul and body, thus making space for healing and the miraculous; 4) God’s work in the world and history also constituted a call to missions, which included a definite concern for the political and social issues of the day; and 5) a nascent critique of some of the motifs of classical Pietism, especially the subjectivist orientation of the practice of piety (i.e., the concern over one’s own salvation).328

  The most significant Christian theologian and minister to arise from the midst of Württemburg Pietism, as far as our focus is concerned, was Johann Christoph Blumhardt. Blumhardt grew up among them and was deeply affected by the tradition, even as he innovated within it. We shall consider his life and thought before returning to Britain.

  Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–80)

  Life

  Johann Blumhardt was born the son of a poor laborer in Stuttgart at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, a time of conflict, trouble, and famine for the city.329 “I know what I’m talking about when I talk of misery and poverty,” he later wrote.330

  His father was a follower of the theology of Bengel, with its millenarian focus, and even believed that Christ would return to inaugurate the millennium in 1836. The family tended to view the great trials shaking their world through the lens of this theology, interpreting them as the tribulations preceding the millennium.

  Such predicting of dates for Christ’s return was something that Johann would later come to strongly repudiate for its extreme naivety. Nevertheless, he always retained Bengel’s stress on the importance of eschatology as a means for better understanding the significance of events in this age. Blumhardt read his world through the glasses of eschatology and the strong expectation that Christ was coming soon.

  Johann was also influenced by a “commune” in Württemberg of separatist Pietists known as the Kornthaler movement.331 Their emphasis was on the impact that the kingdom of God makes in this world. That teaching was forever formative for him, even though he never accepted their desire for distancing themselves from the state church.

  After studying theology at Tübingen (1824–29), Johann moved to serve as a pastor for a year and then as a teacher at the Basel Mission House (1830–37). In 1837 he became a Lutheran pastor in Iptingen, and then in 1838 he took on the parish pastor’s mantel in Möttlingen. It was his ministry in Möttlingen that changed everything.

  The congregation in Möttlingen was spiritually apathetic, and he seemed unable to break through to them. Then, in 1841, a twenty-six-year-old woman known at Gottliebin Dittus came to him to speak of her spiritual troubles. Various paranormal activities had been going on around her and her house. After some investigation, Blumhardt came to believe that demonic forces were at work. The breakthrough came when she was in an unconscious state and convulsing and he was praying over her. He was seized with indignation at what the devil was doing to the woman and grabbed her hands, encouraging her to pray, “Lord Jesus, help me!” She ceased convulsing and awoke, repeating the words of the prayer. This was the start of a protracted ministry of deliverance for Gottlieben over the next eighteen months, fighting with the weapons of Scripture, prayer, and fasting. Things got worse before they got better, but he refused to give up. His focus was ever on Jesus’ triumph and its implications for her deliverance. Then, at the end of December 1843, the demon’s power was broken—it roared from the possessed girl and left, shouting “Jesus is Victor! Jesus is Victor!” Gottliebin was free.

  This event was transformative for the community, who were awakened from their spiritual lethargy as a revival broke out, but also for Johann Blumhardt, who spent many years rethinking his theology in the light of what had happened. He came to see healing as integral to the ministry of the coming kingdom of God, alongside forgiveness, a sign of its already-in-breaking power. His theology came to emphasize inaugurated eschatology, without ever losing sight of the fuller reality to come, and was holistic, teaching salvation for the whole person, body and soul.

  Johann’s healing ministry became controversial with the church authorities, and he was ordered to stop laying on hands for healing and absolution from sin. However, he felt that this holistic ministry was essential, so with the help of a benefactor he purchased Bad Boll, a large house and spa about seventy miles from Möttlingen, where he could continue his ministry. People came from far and wide to stay at Bad Boll, which could accommodate up to 150 guests, and to receive Blumhardt’s spiritual guidance and healing prayer. The expectation among those at the house was for God’s kingdom to come and impact the situations of those who sought it. Johann ministered here from 1852 until his death in 1880.332

  Theology

  Johann divided history into three periods:333 that of the Father (the period from Moses to Christ), that of the Son (the period of Christ and the age of the church), and that of the Spirit (a coming period in which the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh, and the church would be restored and would work preparing the world so that it was ready to receive Christ at his return). This age of the Spirit would climax with the fullness of the coming of the kingdom. It was, for Blumhardt, a “time of universal conversion”:334

  Great changes take place as soon as God sends forth his Spirit: great things start to come to life again among those who believe in a childlike way. “This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ another will be called by the name of Jacob, yet another will write on the hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and adopt the name of Israel” . . . All the generations of people will be renewed with God’s divine nature. We will be astonished by how quickly the Spirit of God can work among us all. People from all over the earth will gather from all sides, saying, “I also want to belong to the Lord! . . .” Nobody will want to stay behind and be excluded from the blessings that flow to the people of God. Then the servants of God will receive the authority to say, “Yes, you belong to the Lord, you will also belong to God’s Israel; it is also given to you. Just come!” Oh, what a wonderful time that will be when everyone, even those who are now involved in foolishness and perversity, are filled with only one thought. “How can we enter the realm of grace with the blessings of God and be called by the name of Israel and Jacob!”335

 
Because this feast has not yet been proclaimed everywhere, and not everyone can participate in it, we still wait for the prophecy [Isa 25:6–9] to be fulfilled. But a great awakening is promised to all nations, and will be experienced wherever the gospel is preached. There is a special power of God that belongs to the gospel—the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that the gospel will come to rich fruition; it will renew every heart—everyone and everywhere—and the world will be refreshed and happy, because through this humankind will have received a new life from God.336

  Living in the space between the inauguration of the kingdom and its coming fullness, we do not always see healing and deliverance, but Blumhardt believed that Christians should seek it, reach for it, pray to the Lord to pour out his Spirit to bring more. “Blumhardt’s hope revolves around two poles, a hope for the in-breaking kingdom of God and for the universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”337 In this time, we must battle the work of the devil, proclaiming the victory that Jesus won on the cross, but the day is coming when God will “be all in all,” throughout the cosmos.

  Blumhardt came to believe that the signs of the kingdom breaking into the present in the lives of particular people—in healing, deliverance, reconciliation, and forgiveness—were signs of the full salvation that was coming in the future to all people. They were thus signs of the future of the whole world, not merely the church; they had cosmic signification. As such, Blumhardt blurred the hard-and-fast distinction between believers (the elect) and unbelievers (the non-elect). The believers were simply those who were experiencing now the saving grace that would eventually come to all. So, while Johann believed in the salvation of the individual soul, his focus was much wider, on the coming kingdom and its restorative work across the whole cosmos.

  We see his universalism come out as “the confession of hope.”338

  [H]ere at the cross the possibility opened up that some time it will happen, that all knees must bow in heaven, as well as on earth and under the earth, and all tongues confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is so great that we cannot express it, and hardly dare to conceive it. But Good Friday proclaims a general pardon over the entire world, and this general pardon will yet be revealed, for Jesus did not hang in vain on the cross.339

  The hope of the New Testament refers to the expectation of the end of all things when all will again be brought into harmony, when all pain ceases, all mysteries are revealed, and the fullness of God’s mercy in Christ Jesus will unfold over all creation, and this shall be revealed to the children of God when the groans of all creation are quieted. And when it says here “hope of salvation,” it is not meant in the sense that we hope for salvation after death; the Holy Scripture means by this salvation the final deliverance of all groaning creation from its torments and need, its misery and distress.340

  Jesus, our deliverer and Savior—who burns with longing to deliver everyone from the evil under which we still groan. Christ has already appointed a day in which he will accomplish this.341

  By sending Jesus Christ His Son, our Lord, to us, He became not the Father or God of judgment but the Father and God of mercies, the God of all comfort. Nothing but mercy pours down from above, nothing but comfort awaits us! And gleaming brightly before us is mercy and comfort for poor, sinful, suffering mankind.342

  [T]his judgment by the disciples [Matt 19:27–30] is no judgment toward damnation; rather it is a preparation for submission and for acceptance of salvation. . . . Even in the Old Testament the word “judging” (richten) is sometimes used in the sense of “setting right,” as for instance when it says “Zion must be judged by right and justice.” . . . The “judgment” shall be the means to bring as many as possible back into the fold. Finally, all knees shall be bent and all tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In order to make this possible there will have to be a lot of judgment-work done.343

  Blumhardt was unsympathetic to those who believed that “Wrath and nothing but wrath is approaching” for unbelievers; that all those beyond the church “he will let go to hell, not caring to do anything extraordinary out of love for them.” Judgment is restorative. Winn sums up as follows:

  He simply affirms the reality of judgment, while at the same time emphasizing that hell was not originally created for humanity, but rather for the devil, that it does not have an eternal character, and that “even in judgment he [God] cannot deny his mercy.” Though it would be wrong to say that Blumhardt held to a systematic doctrine of the apokatastasis ton panton, it is clear that his hope for creation was sympathetic with it. It is also clear that he believed that, “the Lord Jesus is nevertheless the compassionate and gracious One, even if the whole world is not so clearly aware of it and able to experience it. At last, however, His countenance will shine upon all men.”344

  According to Dieter Iser, “Blumhardt has great sympathy for the idea of apokatastasis, the restoration of all things, but refrains from any more specific doctrine of restoration due to the absence of a univocal drift in the biblical materials. . . . God has the final word; a universal demonstration of grace cannot be a statement of doctrine, but an object of hope.”345

  Not many people today have heard of Johann Blumhardt, or of his son Christoph (1842–1919), who followed in his father’s footsteps, but their influence continues to be felt, albeit indirectly.346 Their Jesus-centered kingdom theology, with its cosmic hopeful telos, was to be an important influence on two highly significant twentieth-century theologians, both of whom play a significant role in the subsequent story of universalism—Karl Barth347 and Jürgen Moltmann.348 In recent years, however, there has been a small but growing interest among theologians in recovering the Blumhardts for the contemporary church. So perhaps their voice will be heard once again.

  For now, we need to return to Britain and turn the clock back a little as we continue our story. Friedrich Schleiermacher reflected the influence of contemporary Romantic sensibilities in his Christian theology. One of the pioneers in Britain of theology under the influence of the Romantic Movement was the well-connected Scottish lay theologian Thomas Erskine. It is his story we will consider in the next chapter.

  302. On Schleiermacher, see his autobiography, Life of Schleiermacher.

  303. The essay On the Doctrine of Election was written as a response to the work of a leading Lutheran theologian, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider (1776–1848), who had offered a sharp critique of the Reformed doctrine of election. The Christian Faith was his textbook on Christian doctrine that arose from his lectures at the University of Berlin.

  304. For a careful study of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of election in its historical context, see especially Hagan, Eternal Blessedness for All?

  305. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 12.

  306. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 54.

  307. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 525.

  308. Annette Hagan explains his thinking: “Original sin, too, is then an integral part of the all-encompassing divine act of creation. . . . Adam fell precisely because of the ordination of humankind to both sinfulness and redemption. He, and in his wake the human race, had to sin so that they could be redeemed” (Eternal Blessedness for All? 112).

  309. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 534.

  310. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 539, 542.

  311. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 56.

  312. Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 77. Universalism, in addition, surmounts any conflict between divine love and justice (78).

  313. Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 55.

  314. Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 65. As all humans are created with the potential for God-consciousness, all fall into this category. Note, however, that they are gradually, not simultaneously, quickened.

  315. Schleiermacher, On the Doc
trine of Election, 73.

  316. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 548; Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 75–76.

  317. Hagan, Eternal Blessedness for All? 112, quoting Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 76.

  318. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 549.

  319. Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 77–78.

  320. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 560.

  321. Nicol and Jorgenson’s “Introduction” to Schleiermacher, On the Doctrine of Election, 19.

  322. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 543. The argument is expanded in the appendix to §163.

  323. It was anticipated by Origen (Hom. Lev. 7.2.10) and Hosea Ballou, and a version of this argument has been most recently and influentially defended by philosopher Thomas Talbott.

  324. Rae, “Salvation-in-Community,” 195.

  325. Alexander Schweizer (1808–88), one of Schleiermacher’s students, was almost the only theologian to develop the universalist theology of his teacher. Another was Augustus Tholuck (1799–1877), also a student of Schleiermacher. The reviews of Schleiermacher’s essay on election almost universally ignored the issue, and with two exceptions, those that did mention it condemned it. The exceptions were the reviews of Wilhelm de Wette (1780–1849), the important Lutheran pioneer of the historical criticism of the Old Testament, and Ernst Wilhelm Christian Sartorius (1797–1859). Both in their own ways affirmed Schleiermacher’s proposal of universal salvation. (On the reception of the essay, see Hagan, Eternal Blessedness for All? 119–37.)