This session considers new directions in recent scholarship on Schleiermacher’s thought that move beyond lingering one-sided caricatures of his work to recover the ongoing significance of his writings for the modern study of religion, theology, and philosophy. The three papers of this session take up the critical reception of Schleiermacher’s christology and social ethics, and consider the contested legacy of Schleiermacher’s work in the theological writings of Ernst Troeltsch and Karl Barth.
This paper proposes Paul DeHart’s Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology as a launching point for a renewed Schleiermacherian Christology in the twenty-first century. DeHart’s theology offers a key correction of Schleiermacher’s thought, which I analyze through consideration of the incisive and underappreciated critique leveled against Schleiermacher by his Roman Catholic contemporary Johann Adam Möhler. On Möhler,’s account, Schleiermacher’s desire in the Glaubenslehre to avoid theological speculation leaves Schleiermacher with no principled reason to pass beyond postulating an activity of God in relation to the world-system to an activity of God in se. DeHart’s broadly Thomist correction of Schleiermacher preserves the distinctive features of Schleiermacher’s Christology, bringing together a modern historical and scientific consciousness with a consistent Chalcedonianism. DeHart’s theology shows how a contemporary Schleiermacherian Christology offers perhaps unparalleled resources for integrating historical theology, contextual theologies, and key interlocutors in Biblical studies and the critical study of religion.
In this paper, I will argue that Ernst Troeltsch’s Glaubenslehre represents a major development within the Schleiermachian tradition. To do so, I will first demonstrate how Troeltsch acts both as a bridge into the dialectical turn away from the lingering remnants of Ritschlianism, as well as its own alternative route that attempts to take up the Schleiermachian tradition in a new direction. Second, I will establish how Troeltsch’s constructive theological project is framed by his critical appropriation of Schleiermacher. Third, I will turn to Schleiermacher’s concept of the Spirit in order to show how it functions as the crucial hinge for Troeltsch’s understanding of his project as both a continuation and extension of Schleiermacher’s Gluabenslehre. Lastly, I will conclude with some suggestions about the constructive promise that a Troeltschian reading of Schleiermacher might bring to contemporary attempts at pursuing the project of Glaubenslehre today.
This paper considers an underexamined aspect of Karl Barth's interpretation of Friedrich Schleiermacher: Barth's positive reception of his social ethics. In his 1923/24 lectures, Barth goes so far as to suggest that Schleiermacher surpassed the social ethics of early socialist figures such as St. Simon and Charles Fourier. In particular, Barth highlights Schleiermacher’s critique of economic inequality and his call to reduce the workday. He argues emphatically that this social aspect of Schleiermacher’s thought “should never be forgotten” (Barth 1982, 39). These remarks challenge what Gary Dorrien has called the "founding narrative" of modern theology. From this, a potential point of convergence between Barth and Schleiermacher emerges around their respective politics, one that might open doors for a reassessment of their legacies.