Ernst Lange Briefe 1942-1974.
Raiser, Konrad
Ernst Lange Briefe 1942-1974, ed. Martin Broking-Bortfeldt
([dagger]), Christian Gossinger and Markus Ramm, with a preface by
Wolfgang Huber (2011) Wichern Verlag, Berlin, 512 pp.
For the Ecumencial Review to publish a review of a collection of
letters in German may be surprising and require some explanation. The
author of these letters, Ernst Lange (born in 1927), is hardly known any
more in the ecumenical community outside Germany. For two years, from
January 1968 to March 1970, he was Director of the former Division of
Ecumenical Action and Associate General Secretary of the WCC. His
otherwise impressive bibliography includes, apart from a few articles,
only one book in English published in 1979 under the rifle, "And
Yet It Moves. Dream and Reality of the Ecumenical Movement."
(Belfast/Ottawa/ Geneva, 1979). It is the abridged English edition of
his penetrating interpretation of the meeting of the Faith and Order
Commission at Louvain in 1971, published in German under the title
"Die 6kumenische Utopie, oder Was bewegt die okumenische Bewegung.
Am Beispiel Lowen 1971: Menscheneinheit-Kircheneinheit"
(Stuttgart/Berlin 1972).
In Germany, however, Ernst Lange is considered by many as the most
influential ecumenist of the 20th century, after Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He
was a youth delegate at the 2nd assembly of the WCC at Evanston (1954)
and participated in the European Ecumenical Youth Assembly at Lausanne
(1960). Inspired by the East Harlem Protestant Parish in New York and
anticipating many of the conclusions of the ecumenical study process on
"The missionary structure of the congregation", in which he
participated himself, he initiated a creative project of church reform
on the local level in Berlin in the early 1960s. As a gifted preacher
and creative writer he wrestled with the challenge of communicating the
message of the gospel in a secularized world. As a consequence of his
short-time work as a professor of practical theology he developed
together with some colleagues an innovative theory and praxis of
preaching. His life-long concern, however, was the need for church
renewal, liberating the church from its institutional captivity by
equipping Christian people through processes of education and
conscientization for responsible living in a world of radical change.
When he joined the staff of the WCC in 1968 he interpreted this
move as a "coming home", since for him the WCC was the symbol
and avant-garde of the ecumenical renewal of the church. During his
short time of service in Geneva he left significant traces: he
contributed decisively to shaping the report of section VI of the
Uppsala assembly in 1968 on "Towards New Styles of Living"; he
implemented the decision of the assembly to establish an "Office of
Education" and invited Paolo Freire to join its team; he was at the
origin of the focus on "ecumenical learning" and initiated the
important study process on "Living with change". For health
reasons he was obliged to resign from his position in Geneva. Back in
Germany he further developed his conception of Christian adult
education; he engaged in research about the implication of the conflicts
regarding the programme to combat racism, and before his untimely death
in July 1974 he was in charge of a planning unit in the head office of
the Evangelical Church in Germany.
This very carefully edited collection of letters completes the
presentation of his written legacy: the "edition Ernst Lange"
includes 5 volumes and has already been supplemented by a further volume
with sermons and meditations. The present collection of letters from
1942-1974 is organized in five chapters, each of which opens with an
introductory and interpretative overview. The first chapter (pp. 19-49)
includes letters from his time as a pupil in a boarding school and
subsequently as student of theology. They show how the orphaned son of a
Jewish mother and a father, who had been a professor of psychiatry,
tried to find a place of belonging under the conditions of racial
discrimination, the impact of war and postwar reconstruction. The second
chapter (pp. 51-125) covers the period of his early involvement in
rebuilding church youth work in Germany and in training youth work
leaders. During this period he formed and became the continuing source
of inspiration for a network of like-minded friends and colleagues,
among them Johannes Rau, who later became the Federal President.
The third chapter (pp. 127-185) groups letters referring to his
active political involvement as a young member of the Social-Democratic
Party, married at the age of 20 to the daughter of a former
social-democratic politician who as a Jew was taken to the concentration
camp at Buchenwald and died there in 1940. Twice he tried to mobilize
public political campaigns: in 1957/8 against the plans to equip the new
German army with nuclear weapons, and in 1972 in support of the
re-election of the Brandt/Scheel social-liberal government. In both
instances he had to deal with criticism from friends and from official
church circles.
The letters of the fourth chapter (pp. 187-344) cover essentially
the period from 1958-1967, i.e., his work in the experimental parish at
Berlin-Spandau and his brief involvement in teaching practical theology.
They are of particular interest because they show his dialogical style
of theological reflection responding to contemporary challenges. In
distinction from the prevailing neo-orthodox theological and
ecclesiastical positions, he sought to sharpen and defend his vision of
a church renewed from below, i.e., inserting itself into the everyday
life of the people. This includes (on pp. 262 ff.) a brief and
perceptive commentary on the ecumenical study regarding "the
missionary structure of the congregation".
Of particular ecumenical interest is the final, fifth chapter (pp.
345-492) which groups letters written mainly during the period from 1968
until his death in 1974. His correspondence during these years reflects
his all too brief involvement in the leadership responsibilities of the
WCC and his activities during the last years of his life in promoting
ecumenical learning through new forms of adult education. The letters
are a testimony of the struggle with his illness, i.e., recurring
attacks of a debilitating depression, a struggle which he finally lost.
But at the same time they show his extraordinary creativity and
farsightedness in analysing the challenges facing the churches and the
ecumenical movement in a rapidly changing and globalizing world.
It was during this period that he wrote his book on the "dream
and reality of the ecumenical movement" mentioned here earlier, a
book that served as a source of inspiration for a whole generation of
younger ecumenists in Germany. His main contribution as director of the
division of ecumenical action of the WCC was meant to be a comprehensive
study process on "Conscientious Living in a World of Change"
for which he provided a very stimulating initial working paper. This
paper was later published in German under the title "Leben im
Wandel. Uberlegungen zu einer zeitgenmassen Moral"
(Gelnhausen/Berlin, 1971), with the original English version printed as
an appendix. His plan to develop these ideas into a book remained
unfinished. In a letter written to his colleague Lukas Vischer after
having resigned from his position in the WCC, he presents an outline of
this project under the title ,,The conscience of mankind? Or: Guardians
of Morality? Moral Change and the Churches" (pp. 414-417). His
reflections on the corresponding need for the churches to initiate
processes of education and learning in order to bring about the required
change of consciousness were stimulated by his encounter with Paolo
Freire, the Brazilian educator, whom he had invited to join the staff of
the new office of education in the WCC and whose "Pedagogy of the
Oppressed" (1970) he introduced into German discussion by providing
a penetrating preface to the German edition (1971). A letter to Paolo
Freire (13.05.1971) manifests Lange's deep appreciation of the
innovative impulses received from Freire (p. 446ff). The chapter
concludes with a letter to D. Erwin Wilkens, Vice-President of the
head-office of EKD, presenting to him the report on a meeting between
the Council of EKD and the leadership of the WCC in June 1974, a
document which presents a very careful and fair analysis of the
difficulties of communication between the WCC and its German member
churches resulting from the conflicts regarding the Programme to Combat
Racism (p. 491f).
Added to the volume are three appendices: (1) an index of names of
persons mentioned in the correspondence; (2) a chronological list of all
the letters included; and (3) a brief table of biographical dates. The
editors are to be congratulated for an excellent presentation of a
wide-ranging correspondence which provides the reader with valuable
perspectives on significant developments in the life of the churches,
especially in Germany, and of the ecumenical movement during the third
quarter of the 20th century.
Konrad Raiser, Berlin
DOI: 10.1111/i.1758-6623.2012.00166.x
