Occupy Wall Street Is Doing the Church’s Work: Helmut Gollwitzer and Economic Justice1 By W. Travis McMaken
Abstract: Helmut Gollwitzer’s legacy as a politically concerned pastor and theologian is instructive for those today who want to take seriously both what Christian faith means for socio-economic justice and what that concern for socioeconomic justice likewise means for the theological task. I treat three aspects of Gollwitzer’s work in order to highlight his significance for the contemporary situation: (1) his interesting application of the traditional idea of suum cuique, especially vis-à-vis Bonhoeffer; (2) the connection he draws between the Christian gospel and the necessity of combating economic-political privilege; and (3) his conclusions concerning Christian faith and theology’s failings in the face of atheist criticism of religion and what this means for continuing to do theology in the contemporary situation. One eye is kept on the Occupy Wall Street movement throughout the discussion in order to highlight how Gollwitzer’s thought illuminates matters in our own day.
What does a former Soviet prisoner-of-war pastor have to do with Occupy Wall Street (hereafter referred to as #OWS)? More than we might think. His name was Helmut Gollwitzer. Gollwitzer was a noted German churchman and theologian. Academically speaking, Gollwitzer gained significant attention as a result of his debate with Herbert Braun on the nature of theological language.2 But Gollwitzer also received broader cultural attention thanks to the popular book he wrote reflecting on the five years he spent as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union after World War 2.3 These accomplishments propelled Gollwitzer toward selection as the successor to the chair of his teacher—Karl Barth—at the University of Basel. He very nearly received the appointment, and the story of his near-appointment to that post reveals the good and bad in Gollwitzer’s notoriety.
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A version of this essay was presented at the national meeting of the American Academy of Religion on th November 17 , 2012. 2 A recent account of this debate, along with Eberhard Jüngel’s subsequent criticism of Gollwitzer’s position, can be found in Bruce L. McCormack, "God Is His Decision: The Jüngel-Gollwitzer "Debate" Revisited," in Theology as Conversation: The Significance of Dialogue in Historical and Contemporary Theology, A Festschrift for Daniel L. Migliore, ed. Bruce L. McCormack and Kimlyn J. Bender (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009). 3 Paul Oestreicher compares the attention that Gollwitzer received as a result of this publication with that received by J. A. T. Robinson a decade later in Britain after the publication of Honest to God. Paul Oestreicher, "Helmut Gollwitzer in the European Storms," in The Demands of Freedom: Papers by a Christian in West Germany, ed. Helmut Gollwitzer (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1965), 7. 1