Adolf Schlatter: En Leben fur Theologie und Kirche

Adolf Schlatter: En Leben fir Theologie und Kirche. By Werner Neuer. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1996, xviii + 939 pp., DM 68.

This massive study comes hard on the heels of a much shorter English-language biography of Schlatter (1852-1938) by the same author (Baker, 1996). Readers of the short biography lament its brevity: Neuer's fetching prose and insightful commentary whet more than satisfy the appetite, and readers want to know more about Schlatter, his thought and his times than a small paperback permits.

No one who tackles this first and only critical biography of Schlatter will complain of brevity. Neuer has spent the better part of two decades researching Schlatter, interviewing some who knew him in their younger days. At one point he spent three years doing nothing but archival reading, gaining a feel for the treasures contained in dozens of unpublished lectures and manuscripts and over 8,000 letters. He also wrote and published a doctoral dissertation on the connection between theology and ethics in Schlatter's thought.

All that work has now paid off. With clear organization and thoroughness Neuer effectively and exhaustively treats each major phase of Schlatter's life. Chapters are devoted to the following time periods: (1) childhood and youth (1852-70); (2) university training (1871-75); (3) five years of pastoral service (1875-80); (4) university post in Bern (1880-88); (5) professor of New Testament in Greifswald (with Hermann Cremer; 1888-93); (6) professor of systematic theology in Berlin (alongside Adolf von Harnack; 1893-98); (7) high point and completion of life's work in Tubingen (1898-1938). Chapter 7 is, in turn, broken down into five periods.

There is no need to recount particulars of Schlatter's life and thought here, since these are available both in the shorter English-language biography and in at least two sizable articles on Schlatter in recent handbooks on Biblical interpreters, one edited by Walter Elwell (Baker) and the other by Donald McKim (InterVarsity). What should be underscored are the following. First, Neuer's German is lucid and relatively free from the crabbed convolutions of normal German academese. This makes reading a joy rather than toil (as does the book's price, reasonable given its size).

Second, this is Neuer's third book on Schlatter, in addition to numerous articles. He is clearly in relaxed command of the vast subject matter he treats. So while his tome is dissertation-like in scope and depth, it is literary in style and creativity. Combined with his accessible prose, he has produced a study that is esthetically and not merely informationally gratifying. The handsomely bound hardback format and fourteen pages of photos add to the pleasing effect.

Third, all of Schlatter's major works, and many minor ones, are summarized in smaller type within the text, a convention common in scholarly German-language works. Casual readers know that this means they can skip the small print, if they wish, and move immediately to normal-sized type and the broader story line. But for readers wondering what is contained in Schlatter's monographs on faith, or the history of philosophy, or ethics, or dogmatics, or metaphysics, or NT theology, etc. (he published some fifty works of over 100 pages), Neuer provides the service of a succinct review of each book's contents and significance. What we have, then, is not merely a biography but a running annotated bibliography of virtually all sizable primary sources. It goes without saying that Neuer includes a comprehensive listing of secondary sources, with many of which he interacts in footnotes as the book unfolds.

Fourth, we are not forced to rely solely on Neuer's assessment of Schlatter's major works. On pp. 841-848 he lists published reviews of them. So, for example, regarding Schlatter's celebrated monograph on faith in the NT, we are given nine reviews to consult, authored by the likes of Bultmann, Holtzmann, Kittel and Stuhlmacher. Neuer's generous forthrightness regarding important resources signals an attitude of inviting the reader to join him in research and reflection. Readers who would rather be given help in their own thinking than exhortations to hew to someone else's viewpoint will welcome Neuer's collegial approach.

Fifth, three crucial subsections (pp. 725-780, about 7% of the book's total text) go far toward setting the record straight regarding Schlatter and National Socialism. In certain circles one occasionally hears warnings against the allegedly sinister implications of Schlatter's high view of creation (Schopfungstheologie), which is said to have made his followers susceptible to Hitler's machinations. This overlooks the fact that the first Protestant minister martyred under the Nazis was Paul Schneider, who converted from liberal to Biblical faith as the result of intensive study of Schlatter's volume on dogmatics. It is also to ignore a further point Neuer establishes: Schlatter's unambiguous, consistent and outspoken objections to the Hitler movement and their lackeys, the German Christians, extending as far back as the late 1920s. Neuer does not argue that Schlatter saw everything with perfect clarity. In those troubled years, who did? But the suggestion that Barth and Barmen got it all right and that Schlatter was a de facto Nazi sympathizer by comparison is now seen to be quite untenable (and it was never a suggestion with much substance to begin with).