Karl Barth and Mysticism
The Case of the Blumhardt Pastors
About the author: Jansen Racco Botelho de Melo is Professor of Human Rights, History of Theology, and Systematic Theology at UNIGRANRIO (Brazil). During his Post-Doctorate in Theology at PUC-Rio, he researched the work of Karl Barth in relation to politics and the integrality of the gospel. He is also a specialist in political science and history. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with his wife.
Before dedicating himself exclusively to teaching, Karl Barth had an exciting and fruitful ten-year pastoral experience leading a congregation in the city of Safenwill, Switzerland. Barth took over the small parish of working-class people in 1911, shortly after completing his academic training, where he could delve deeper into the methodology of theological liberalism.
Upon taking on pastoral work in Safenwill, Barth observed that the liberal methodology was far removed from his need to communicate the Christian faith to simple people who just wanted to hear the Word of God in a sermon.
In search of guidelines for the exercise of his ministry, Karl Barth and his friend, Eduard Thurnyessen, decided to visit a community in the small German town of Bad Boll. The town rose to prominence in the 19th century after mystical manifestations occurred there.
The Bad Boll community inherited the work begun by Johann Blumhardt, who— between 1842 and 1844—carried out a grueling exorcism of a young woman named Gottliebin Dittus, who suffered from demonic possession. After the young woman was cured, the community became known for the cry that echoed throughout the region: “Jesus is Victor!” This cry and confession stayed with Barth until the end of his life.1
Blumhardt's pastoral work gained notoriety and caught the attention of many people who needed pastoral help in their crises and anxieties. Even though such mysticism occurred during the height of Protestant liberalism and the West’s enchantment with scientism, this local mystical movement gained popularity.
Years passed, and the person who took over the leadership of this community was Johann's son, Christopher Blumhardt. He was a revivalist preacher with a solid intellectual background and never wanted his ministry to be known only for supernatural manifestations. Christopher believed that pastoral work should relate theological and biblical content to people's real lives and always consider the individual in his or her entirety, not just in terms of so-called “spiritual issues.”2 Another important factor in Christopher’s life was his political and social engagement, whereby he understood that faith could not be separated from the struggle for workers’s rights and concrete living conditions. Christopher was also a congressman, affiliated with the Social Democratic party in Switzerland, and was one of the articulators of the so-called Religious Socialism.
In 1915, Barth and Thurnyessen spent a few days in the community of Bad Boll.3 Barth commented respectfully on Pastor Blumhardt's work and absorbed positive influences from that experience, such as the direct relationship between Christian preaching and the concreteness of life—how Blumhardt’s preaching related the Kingdom of God to Christian hope and political-social engagement as an expression of a lucid and supportive faith towards those who suffer the most in society.
Barth's relationship with pietism dates back to his youth, largely due to his father's influence, who insisted that theologians have elements of this theological current in their education to integrate with their thinking. Barth never neglected mysticism and the practice of piety in his life. He understood that the spirituality proposed by Jesus was integrative and led Christians to commit to a transformational life that impacts social and political realities.
If, on the one hand, some parts of pietism and other mystical movements ended up moving away from intellectuality in terms of an integral understanding of life, then on the other hand, Barth, with the example of Blumhardt, understood that intellectuality and mysticism are not mutually exclusive. Christian preaching must dialogue with the daily life of each individual and with people who have received the invitation of God's grace by bringing this faith together in their daily lives.4
When Barth returned to Scripture as a source of inspiration for his Sunday sermons, he realized that such content made sense to the people who would listen to him every week. But preaching alone was not enough. To understand the importance of the Christian message to the fullness of people's lives, Barth also began to help them in the struggle for more dignified working and living conditions. Barth understood that Christian mysticism must be lived with our feet on the ground and that religious environments often become rigid spaces that distort human beings from their relationship with God.
For the Swiss theologian, we are invited into hope and a life of meaning through the God who becomes human. Theology must be spiritual, and spirituality must be theological. When these things are not integrally bound together, theology moves away from the fresh and moving air of the Spirit and allows itself to be restricted to rigid and closed environments.5
A valuable lesson that theologians can receive from Barth and the Blumhardts, each with their respective characteristics and contexts, is that Christian preaching should not be at the service of religion per se but always at the service of life in all its complexities. In the specific case of Barth, this value goes beyond the preaching at a Sunday service. It extends to theological practice as a whole, never losing sight of the horizon of the incarnation—the event of the Word becoming human, which becomes the invitation to the theologian to reflect on concrete human life.
The visit to Pastor Christopher Blumhardt had an immense impact on Karl Barth’s ministry and future teaching, and his reflection on mysticism still indicates that theology and spirituality go hand in hand.
Even today, reflecting on concrete lived existence and referencing Jesus of Nazareth's testimony and teachings is an urgent task for theology. Every theologian needs to embrace this calling so that reflection continues to make sense in our time.
Manoel Bernardino Santana Filho, Karl Barth e sua influência na Teologia Latino-americana, 2nd ed. (ASTE, 2015), 92.
Manoel Bernardino Santana Filho, Karl Barth e sua influência na Teologia Latino-americana, 2nd ed. (ASTE, 2015), 93.
Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth and the Pietists (InterVarsity Press, 1978), 19
Jansen Racco Botelho de Melo, Por uma Teologia Integral: O Problema do Pentecostalismo brasileiro e as contribuições de Karl Barth (Tese de Doutorado, PUC-Rio, 2018), 283–284.
Karl Barth, Introdução à Teologia Evangélica, 5th ed. (Sinodal, 2007), 39.
This is a good reminder of the powerful witness of the Blumhardts and their influence upon Barth. Echoes of the Blumhardts were present in the work of the Christ-centered radical politics of such figures in the 20th century as Will Campbell, William Stringlellow, John Howard Yoder (yeah, I know...), Moltmann, Bonhoeffer, and my own teacher Paul Lehmann.
But to my ear, the word "spirituality" does not belong in this discussion. Widespread use of this now-ubiquitous, trendy term did not appear in Barthian circles (or indeed anywhere else in Protestant theology) until recent decades. It too quickly becomes a non-specific, blurry wprd applicable to generic "religious" notions of all kinds and should not be used uncritically in discussions of Barth and those influenced by him.
Similarly, "mysticism" is suspect in a theology of radical grace, tending toward a transfer of agency from God's inbreaking to an emphasis on human preparation, readiness, or effort.