In Memoriam Dorothee Soelle

PACIFICA 17 (FEBRUARY 2004) 71

Dorothee Soelle: “In Memoriam”

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A n n - M a r ie H a r v e y

Abstract: Dorothee Soelle grew up under Hitler’s state terror and laterlived in a climate of remilitarisation and consumerism. Through anincreasing rejection of social coercion, violence and dehumanising socialstructures, her earlier systematic theology embraced a narrative, praxis-orientated methodology that sought to make present fragments of God’sgospel of love and justice in the midst of oppression and brokenness. Inthe light of her theological reflection on experiences in Vietnam, Europe,the U.S.A., and Latin America she attracted a wide international audience.For theologians in Australasia Soelle’s legacy continues to hold open thequestion , if oppression is the primary sin, of how theological endeavourcan advance interdependence and wholeness in life?

I DEDICATE THIS ESSAY TO THE MEMORY OF DOROTHEE SOELLE (1929-2003), who was one of the subjects of my doctoral thesis. In the summerof 1995, I met with Dorothee at her home in Hamburg. In her garden wediscussed, among other questions, the mystical life and hope. Afriendship sprang up between us that continued through intermittentcorrespondence. I also met her daughter, who is a doctor in Bolivia. Afew months ago I was saddened to hear of her recent death. I felt thatwith her passing a gap opened in the field of theology that awaits othervoices of “political conscience”. This brief reflection highlights aspectsof Soelle’s early conceptual, and later, contextual theology, which herreaders came to appreciate in the ever-changing, ever-new task ofinterpreting what it means to be Christian in the world today.

A few hours prior to her sudden death in Germany in April 2003,Soelle and her husband Fulbert Steffensky were engaged in teachingand leading a seminar entitled “God and Happiness”. Days later,church leaders attending Lutheran memorial services throughoutGermany publicly acknowledged that Soelle’s teaching is now asignificant part of the fabric of German Protestantism. In the periodfollowing Soelle’s death, Manfred Kock, the Head of the GermanLutheran Church, commented that her teaching is “no longer a marginalstance”, but rather “it is a significant part of our Church preserving itfrom pious exclusiveness”. And in the view of Conrad Raiser, SecretaryGeneral of the W.C.C., Soelle “was genuinely and deeply rooted in thespiritual tradition of the Christian Church and intensely engaged in thestruggle for justice”. In addition, Bishop Maria Jepsen of Hamburg

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claimed that Dorothee Soelle “was and remains the political conscienceof Protestantism”.1 This essay briefly touches on points of Soelle’scommitment to the fullness of life in a wounded world, socio-politicalforms of theology, and the mystico-prophetic life.

As a practical theologian and teacher Soelle developed a distinctapproach to the task of communicating God’s gospel. By the mid-1970s,she argued against forms of deductive theology that excluded thelanguage of narrative and daily life. Instead, she fashioned for herselfan inductive theology, which she claimed was emancipative because itrevealed the truth of the human situation and demanded theologicalreflection and renewed praxis. Throughout the late twentieth, centurySoelle remained in tune with historical and contextual forces at work inProtestant Germany and Europe, and later in Vietnam, U.S.A., and LatinAmerica. Her critical analysis was informed by European philosophy aswell as German, feminist, and liberation theologians concerned withChristian life in the First and Third World. The scope of her reflectionhas much to contribute to our regional discourse.

Teacher and Theologian

Dorothee Nipperday was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1929, as thefifth child of a professional family, who though nominally Lutheranwere more influenced by philosophy that critiqued religion, especiallyKant. World War II interrupted her high school education and revealedthe painful truth of what the “yellow star” of David and Auschwitz hadcome to mean for Germans, Jews and the West.2

In 1947, during her last year at high school, Soelle began an earlyphase of hermeneutical thought when she encountered Maria Veit, ateacher who challenged her youthful notions that Christians werebackward and obtuse. In her memoir she comments that Veit, a formerdoctoral student of Rudolph Bultmann, was an exacting and demandingteacher who gave the young Dorothee a taste for the intellectual rigourVeit herself had experienced with Bultmann. Veit introduced Soelle tothe gospels, the thought of Paul, Luther, Bultmann, and in extra-

1. See Bishop Maria Jepsen, Thanksgiving Service for the life of Dorothee Soelle, St

Catharine’s Church, Hamburg (5 May 2003). See reference to an earlier UniversityWorship Service prepared and presented by Soelle et al. for women, at St Catharine’sChurch, Hamburg, December 9, 1979, entitled “Adam and Eve: A Liturgical Fantasia” inDorothee Soelle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity (Philadelphia:Westminster, 1984) 118-31.

2. See Dorothee Soelle, Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian (Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 1999) 1-17. Originally published as Gegenwind: Erinnerungen,(Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1995).

HARVEY: DOROTHEE SOELLE 73

curricular classes presented a radical Christianity informed by thecritique of Heidegger, Sartre, Bonhoeffer, Marcuse and Freud.3

Throughout the following decade Soelle oscillated betweenscepticism and nihilism formed during a childhood lived in wartimeGermany, and on the other hand a fascination with religion. From 1949-1951, she studied philosophy and ancient languages at the Universitiesof Cologne and Freiburg. In her final year, she studied ProtestantTheology in Göttingen and for her Dissertation wrote a literary criticismentitled “Investigations into the structures of the night vigil ofBonaventure”.

Soelle’s change of direction from nihilism to a serious study ofreligion and Protestant theology occurred when German theologianswere engaged in demythologising history and the history of Jesus. Herteachers were Ernst Käsemann and Friedrich Gogarten. Käsemann’sinfluence is reflected in Soelle’s understanding of Paul’s idea that wecannot be neutral in the world when our whole selves are engaged inbelongingness and participation. It is also seen in her appropriation ofPaul’s thought, that physical nature is our condition in the world,wherein individuals are caught in contentious and conflictual forces.Käsemann’s study of the early Church and his corpus promotes a non-hierarchical understanding of “office” and the witness of mutualrelationships within the Christian community. These themes are alsopresent in Soelle’s thought.4

In 1954, Dorothee married Dietrich Soelle. During the next six yearswhile teaching religion and German in Cologne, she began a period offreelance writing for theological journals. Her theology portrayed aconceptual slant influenced by Bultmann (with whom she corres-ponded), Barth and the German critical theorists of the Frankfurt school,whose insights ignited her search for practical and political forms ofChristianity.

By the 1960s, Protestant theology in Germany existed largely in aclimate of traditional theism. At that time, Soelle published her firstmajor work, Christ the Representative: An Essay after the “Death of God”.5

3. Soelle, Against the Wind, 18-19. See M. Veit, “Woven leben wir Linken?”, Junge

Kirche, Zeitschrift Europäischer Christen, Jan. 1988.4. See Soelle’s reference to Käsemann’s studies on Paul in her Thinking about God: An

Introduction to Theology (London: SCM Press, 1990) 199 at nn. 7 and 8. Originally publishedas Gott Denken: Einführung in die Theologie (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1990). See Käsemann’s “OnPaul’s Anthropology”, in Perspectives on Paul (London: SCM Press, 1971); and Commentaryon Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).

5. Dorothee Soelle, Christ the Representative: An Essay in Theology after the “Death of God”(London: SCM Press, 1967). Originally published as Stellvertretung: Ein Kapitel Theologienach dem “Tode Gottes” from the series: Gütersloher Taschenausgaben, (Gütersloh: Mohn,1965). When Stellvertretung was translated into English, the inclusion of the metaphorRepresentative in its title was significant. The Christocentric emphasis reflected the shiftthat Soelle underwent due to the influence of D. Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison(London, SCM Press, 1953). With this publication Soelle emerged as one of the most


While her writing was informed by philosophers such as Hegel, herintention was to make theology conversational and accessible to thewider public by limiting the use of technical or academic language. Inthe midst of disbelief and rapid social change in the sixties, her thesiswas constructed around the proposition that only those who have learntwho Christ is, know and can say who they are. Questions thatunderpinned Christ the Representative6 characterised her struggle for acredible Christian identity after theism, and after the so-called “death ofGod”.7 During this period, a growing indifference among Germanstowards Christian belief caused her to ask, “What does Christ mean forhuman life?”

In the late sixties Soelle undertook a period of teaching philosophyand German Studies; she also presented a series of radio talks laterpublished as The Truth is Concrete. 8 With the publication of her secondbook Beyond Mere Obedience, intended for readers who had grown up inNazi Germany, she exposed the oppressive aspects of obedience.9 Herargument followed the initiatives of the Frankfurt School and its critique

creative theologians in Germany. Problems with the English translation were caused byvariations in the spelling of her name. Secondly, the subtitle “death of God” led tocontroversy, especially when non-European reviewers interpreted the book from theAmerican understanding of the “death of God” movement. Soelle’s argument was not thatGod was dead, but that theism, the belief that God intervenes supernaturally in the world,was dead. During her early period the “death of God” label was hard to shake off,particularly in Britain and the United States.

6. Recognition of Soelle’s attempt to communicate the mystery of Jesus Christ throughthe category of Representative gradually gained recognition. J. A. T. Robinson’s commentsintroduced her to international scholars. See The Human Face of God (London: SCM Press,1972.). He stated that “if Jesus is to be the Christ he must point beyond himself, ‘be theclue to the nature of man and God’”, and “be the representative figure standing for allmankind and for God” (p. 67). Robinson announced that “(t)he significance of this last,very pregnant category, has been brilliantly worked out by Soelle, which has a rarefreshness in this field”, and he added “it is a category which has the advantage of being asnearly grounded in history as we are likely to find” (p. 191). Soelle’s idea of the term“representative” follows Bonhoeffer: see Christ the Representative (p. 93 n. 2.). Bonhoefferlater broadened his use of the words “representative”, “represent” and “representation”with “deputy”, to translate “Stellvertretung”. See D. Bonhoeffer, Ethics (London: Collins,1955) 224-7.

7. In Christ the Representative Soelle acknowledges commentaries offered during theperiod of the so-called “death of God”: G. W. F. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke vol. 1 (1974) 344. InChapter 20, “The Death of God and the Provisionality of Christ”, she refers to two phrases“God is dead”, and “The death of God”, that grew out of the Enlightenment’s critique ofreligion. Both terms relate to Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous parable, Die fröhlicheWissenschaft (“The Joyful Wisdom”). Soelle commented that for atheists the “death ofGod” was an obvious fact. Nietzsche’s response to the “death of God” was to ask: “Howam I to live as an atheist?” During this period Soelle followed Kierkegaard, who in the so-called absence of God asked: “How can I become a Christian?”?.

8. See Dorothee Soelle, The Truth is Concrete (London: Burns & Oates, 1969). Originallypublished as Die Wahrheit ist Konkret (Freiburg i. Breisgau: Walter, 1967).

9. See Dorothee Soelle, Preface to Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethicfor the Future (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), pp. xi-xxi. Reprinted and titled CreativeDisobedience (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1995). Originally published in German as Phantasie undGehorsam: Überlegungen zu einer künftigen christlichen Ethik (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1968).


of the authoritarian personality. This text was the beginning of a life-long critique of ideology, especially of authoritarian forms of religion.On the other hand, it also signalled Soelle’s sustained engagement with“the Jewish prophets, the historical Jesus, early Buddhists, and themystics of most religions” who she believed sought religious expressionthat is not repressive, that “(s)prings from the inner spirit. There is onecreative power in God as well as in people”.10

What concerned Soelle about German life was a blind obediencewhereby people surrendered their reason and conscience presupposingthat a duality exists, one in which there is an authoritative speaker and asubservient listener. Her investigations attempted firstly to identifythose factors in the historical context which enabled obedience to God tobecome obedience to a ruthless national ruler; secondly, to show howJesus’ revelation of righteousness had been distorted so that theoppression of others could be justified; and, thirdly, to lament the factthat although women are Christians, the patriarchal interpretation ofgender caused the subjugation of women into powerless obedience tomen.

In an attempt to bring christology and social history together througha radical criticism of the concept of Christian obedience, Soelle arguedthat at any given moment we do not know exactly who God is and whatGod wills.11 In looking beyond duty as the basis for relationship withGod, she affirmed the belief that the mystery of Christ is found in one’sengagement with the praxis of faith in social history.

FULLNESS OF LIFE IN A WOUNDED WORLD

Wherever people were bombarded with images of a wounded world,Soelle asked: “Where do we find God’s abundant and extravagant fullness oflife?” Her reflections found that God’s gospel is identified in thetension between suffering and liberating salvation, so that little by littlewithin a wounded world, God’s saving word makes present a sense ofabundance and healing (Isa 58:8). For Soelle, people of comfortablemeans should not hold themselves in reserve, but share “bread with thehungry” and “conversation with the depressed”, and be “fully aware ofsociety’s injustice, oppression, and destructiveness of life”. To those

10. Beyond Mere Obedience, p. xii. Sources that inform Soelle’s argument include R.

Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vol. 1 (New York: Schribner, 1951), and Jesus andthe World (New York: Schribner, 1958); F. K. Schumann, Die Religion in Geschichte undGegenwart, 3rd edn. (Tübingen: Mohr, 1955); F. Gogarten, Jesus Christus Wende der Welt:Grundfragen zur Christologie (Tübingen: Mohr, 1966); E. Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion(New Haven: Yale, 1950); and R. Höss, Kommandant in Auschwitz: AutobiographischeAufzeichnungen (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1963).

11. Soelle, Beyond Mere Obedience, 10.


who live this way she believed that, “Your abundance will grow withyour extravagance”.12

Soelle identified that “something of God” in human consciousnessand imagination which express in creative initiatives aspects of God’slonging for human fulfilment. She argued that by employing“imagination” people capture a new understanding of God’s promisesand commitment to creation.13 Her search for fullness of life in awounded world was influenced by those afraid to change their patternof thinking, especially those who prefer a form of Christian orthodoxythat holds God and the good news of Jesus at a distance, in anunchanging relationship that rejects reform.

For Soelle, ossified Catholic and Protestant traditions inhibit con-science so that under the tyranny of established norms the sensitivity ofconscience wilts. In her view, Christians are called to a radicaltheological critique of “theological meanings, sociological realities, andpolitical consequences”.14 It was no longer possible to describe thehuman relationship to God with formal concepts limited to theperformance of duties. If men and women are to speak seriously aboutGod, then their discourse must be set in the historical and interpretativeframework of daily living, where who God is is not known beforehand.For this theologian, the process of making decisions on the way todiscovering God’s will also protects autonomy. Such expressions ofreligion establish human freedom and allow for evolutionary change, sothat a person restored to freedom willingly accepts responsibility for theworld and seeks to transform it. What the gospel describes as theliberating proclamation of Jesus, she termed humanitarian religion.

By the mid-sixties Soelle’s personal life changed due to divorce andthe new situation of being responsible for three children. This difficultand painful experience prepared her for engagement with Americanfeminist thought, and later the German Frauenbefreiung movement thatbegan in the 1970s. Subsequently, she married Fulbert Steffensky, aformer Benedictine priest. At the time of her second marriage sheretained the name Soelle, as both nationally and internationally she hadalready established a committed readership with Christ the Representativeand Beyond Mere Obedience.

12. See Dorothee Soelle, The Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality (Minneapolis:

Fortress,1990) 20.13. Soelle, Beyond Mere Obedience, 64. The idea of imagination is used along with

“phantasy of faith”. For Soelle, “(p)hantasy is the ‘gewusst wie’, the ‘know how’ of love.It never retires before it has achieved some new insights... It is ceaselessly at workimproving the welfare of others.”

14. Soelle, Beyond Mere Obedience, 9.


POLITICAL THEOLOGY

By the early seventies Soelle was engaged in a critique of Bultmann’sthought in her text Political Theology: A Discussion with RudolphBultmann.15 Bultmann’s aim of interpreting the Bible for a scientific ageinterested Soelle, who was herself seeking connections between“thinking and believing, criticism and piety, reason and Christianity”.Her approach was situated within the historical criticism of theEnlightenment and from within Bultmann’s existential philosophy andhis dialectical theology. She argued that Bultmann’s historical-criticalmethod leads to political theology not to kerygmatic neo-orthodoxy,because it listened to questions from the present situation and analysedthem for answers.16 In her view, although Bultmann argued that Jesusoffers humanity the possibilities of freedom and true security in God’skingdom, his existentialist interpretation ignored the corporate andsocial character of human destiny outlined in the New Testament.Soelle was convinced that twentieth-century theology should lookfurther than denominational differences and be attentive to the social,political and economic concerns of all humanity.17 During this period,she moved from Bultmann’s theology towards forms of critical theologythat examine the existing socio-political order via what she termed the“politicisation of Christian conscience”. It was not just the meaning ofGod that held her interest, but rather what the social and politicalconsequences would be of speaking of God, or remaining silent, in aparticular situation.

With the publication of Political Theology Soelle became one of the fewtheologians who struggled with the provocative task of critical theologyin a creative way.18 By linking the problem of revelation to ideologycriticism as a tool of self-criticism within theology, this theologianoffered a means of detaching the gospel from ideologies. In charting herjourney from traditional theism via the “death of God” to the “God ofthe oppressed”, Soelle drew on Marx, Hegel, the social criticism of theFrankfurt School, and the social sciences. She was at one with ErnstBloch’s belief in an eschatological vision of the future.19 Bloch’sphilosophy inspired much of the “theology of hope” movement inEurope in the 1960s. He viewed the future as decisive, and gave prime

15. Dorothee Soelle, Political Theology: Discussion with Rudolf Bultmann (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1974). Originally published in German as Politische Theologie: Auseinandersetzungmit Rudolf Bultmann (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1971). Later, she described this effort as a tentativefirst step towards the new paradigm of liberation theology which at that time in Europewas called political theology.

16. Soelle, Political Theology, p. xiii.17. Soelle, Political Theology, p. xiv.18. Soelle, Political Theology, pp. vii-xx. See J. Shelley’s introduction.19. See Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). Originally published

as Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 2 vols (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1969).


place to praxis over reflection and theory, believing that it wouldnarrow the gap between justice and injustice, freedom and oppression.In Soelle’s quest for an authentic life for all, the central question was theconnection between theology and change in social conditions wherecriticism of negative ideology remains a necessary corrective in theo-logical expression. Her intention was to free the substance of the gospelfrom the masks of illusion and systematic distortion.20 Apart fromMoltmann and Pannenberg, Soelle found little support amongProtestant theologians in her quest for a new dialogue partner, i.e., menand women who suffer.21 Her cause was affirmed by the Catholictheologian J.-B. Metz, who revived the term “political theology” and re-introduced it into Germany. He contended that the fundamentalhermeneutic problem of systematic theology is “the relation betweentheory and praxis, between understanding faith and social praxis”.22

Soelle looked beyond theoretical analysis of texts towards theinductive process of group reflections that emerged with the “PoliticalEvensong” in Cologne, which were fuelled by the belief that the gospelis an instruction for contemplation and action. These practical reflec-tions were centred on scripture and psalmody. Decades later Soelle stillviewed the theological task as a detailed examination of the way thegood news raises the consciousness of believers. It encourages a criticalanalysis of the political, social, and economic structures that leave thehungry to starve, while the rich get richer and the poor lose what theyhave. Through the Evensong gatherings Soelle advanced the Christiancall to proclaim the gospel in faith communities and in the widerecumene. For this theologian, being sent as God’s witness in the latetwentieth century required an active political response: “What can wedo?”23

20. Soelle, Political Theology, 63. Nearly thirty years later Soelle commented that “I

would no longer define my theological position as ‘political theology’.” Time has revealedthat the term was “coined” by Carl Schmitt, the Nazi philosopher who justified conditionsexisting at that time. Schmitt uncritically linked political theology to Nazi leadership. Thisinsidious move gave credibility to a distorted use of religious symbols. In hindsight, Soellebelieves political theology lacked clarity even though Metz informed by Rahner, Moltmannfollowing Bloch, and Soelle in conversation with Bultmann, individually and collectivelyattempted to give new meaning to the term (Against the Wind, 98).

21. Soelle, Political Theology, 75. For Soelle only Catholic discussion wrestled seriouslywith political theology, not only its critics (Hans Maier, Karl Lehmann) but also itsproponents (J.-B. Metz, F. Böckle, W. Oelmüller, K. Rahner), all of whom published essaysin H. Peukert (ed.), Diskussion zur “politischen Theologie”: mit einer Bibliographie zum Thema(Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1969).

22. See J.-B. Metz, Theology of the World (New York: Herder & Herder,1969) 112.23. Soelle, Political Theology, p. viii.


SOELLE’S EVENSONG THEOLOGY24

Between 1968 and 1972, Soelle led the innovative prayer and socialjustice movement known as “Political Evensong”.25 It developed froma friendship-based association of Lutheran and Catholic participants,theologians, and foreigners, who met monthly to engage in dialecticaltheology. The whole process centred on experience, faith, and a praxis-informing critique intent on ethics and socio-political praxis. Informedby Hegelians of the Reformation tradition, Soelle and the Evensonggroup critiqued the Church and society by combining Judeo-Christianmystical strands with prophetic action. These initiatives were a form ofpractical theology that gave primacy to love and justice as the criteria forspecific forms of praxis; it was a process that remained open toconstructive argumentation and consensus decision-making.

The worship services offered a new structure for bringing faith andpraxis together. Soelle and the organising group set the agenda of theservices, which focused on particular themes or problems of immediatepolitical or social concern. First, the group considered information froma detailed description and analysis of current political events in bothGermany and beyond. For example, the burning questions of the daywere the American involvement in Vietnam, the Russian invasion ofCzechoslovakia and economic discrimination in West Germany.Secondly, the group experienced meditation. Political situations wereconfronted with the biblical texts in Scripture reading, a brief address,and meditative prayer.26 Thirdly, the group engaged in a communitydiscussion that called for some form of corrective action. “What can wedo?”

For Soelle, the three components of information, meditation anddiscussion established a format for a mixed community of people whowere drawn together by the ecumenical aims and political objectives ofthe Evensong gatherings. To a certain extent attempts by Soelle and the

24. In 1968, during the Katholikentag in Essen, Soelle’s prayer group was asked to hold a

liturgy at 11 p.m. From then on the group assumed the name “Political Evensong”.25. D. Soelle and F. Steffensky (eds.), Politische Nachtgebet in Köln, vols I & II (Stuttgart

and Mainz: Kreuz and Grünewald, 1971). The two volumes of worship services that grewout of the “Political Evensong” meetings contained a brief introduction to the group, astatement of objectives, a large collection of worship services and some examples of publicresponses to the services. Neither volume has been translated into English. Both volumesand the original German edition of Political Theology were published in 1971.

26. The activities of “Political Evensong” reflect something of the Jeunesse OuvrièreChrétienne, begun by Joseph Cardijn (1882-1967) in Belgium, which became established inother countries, including New Zealand and Australia (Young Christian Workers). CatholicAction was a form of lay apostolate established and controlled by the hierarchy, yet theJOC attempted to reform the social conditions of young workers by enabling them to “see,judge and act”, i.e., to transform their work situation according to the mind of Christ in thelight of the gospels. Clergy participated in “Political Evensong”, but the organisation,reflection and activities were ecumenically based and non-clerical.


group to open the gospel to ordinary people attracted intense suspicionfrom the official Churches and elicited more denunciation than praisefrom the West German public. In 1969, Cardinal Frings refusedpermission for the Political Evensong to be held in the Catholic Churchin Cologne. Frings’ actions pointed to a gap that was emerging betweenthe rhetoric of renewal encouraged by the Second Vatican Council, andgrowing ecclesial constraints to limit the implementation of theCouncil’s spirit. Despite these difficulties the group’s influence spreadso that similar groups sprang up in at least twelve cities in Germany,France and Switzerland.27

The publicity given to the Evensong gatherings by the media inCologne attracted increasing numbers of people to the monthlymeetings. It was the novelty of a service conducted by lay people thatdrew the press and television to the gatherings.28 After the initialgreeting by the local clergy, any distinction between clergy and laitydissolved into a mutual quest for truth. A shared leadership allowedlarge numbers of participants to express their theological and politicalpositions on the basis of the information and worship. For Soelle, groupdiscussion enabled participants to analyse social and cultural situationsand to point out possible activities that would bring about change. Thegreatest risk surrounding the worship service was that the wholeendeavour would become a charitable agency, simply dispensingfinancial handouts. At that time, such experiences accelerated a shift inconsciousness towards a new understanding that the truth of the gospelbelongs to all the people of God.

Insights from the Evensong activities convinced Soelle that GermanProtestantism needed to step beyond its confessional limitations, andalong with the churches of the ecumene purify itself. Within differentEuropean communities she initiated interactive processes thatpopularised scriptural reflection and renewed theoretical and practicallife that in part fulfilled the demand for an ecclesia semper purificanda.29

27. Soelle, Political Theology, p. vii.28. In 1968, both the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung carried

accounts of the October meeting. The following year the Kölnische Rundshau (January 1969)in its review argued in favour of the worship of the Evensong: “Ein Gottesdienst mit Handund Fuss; die Andacht war eine Rückkehr zu lutherischer Derbheit.” In April 1969, DieStern commented that the Evensong meetings were important because, like the originalChristian communities, they were the result of the cooperation and participation of thelaity. Other publications noted that the service scarcely spoke directly of God. See Againstthe Wind, 38-39; and also the original German text, Gegenwind, 72-74.

29. See Soelle’s quest for “(a)n institution that passes on language, sacred texts, imagesand signs, rituals and sacraments. In my view, it is a postmodern mistake to think thatwithout traditions we are freer. What is new in our situation is that traditions can nolonger be forced upon anyone. The fact that authoritarian religion is dying before our eyesdoes not say anything about other, quite different forms and possibilities of religion andChurch. Perhaps the Church is not so much the crumbling edifice we see but more a tentfor the wandering people of God” (Against the Wind, 91).


In Soelle’s assessment the laity ought to be recognised as legitimateseekers of truth and freedom. Such a status links the Christian com-munity to the modern concept of the autonomous right of people todetermine how to promote a living faith in democratic states. However,the hierarchy were not prepared for a pro-active laity, nor were theywell versed in democratic processes.

The Evensong gatherings eventually led to confrontation withLutheran and Catholic authorities because the radical initiative ofdialogue among the laity shifted from abstract theology towards theconcrete reality of people’s lives and the renewal of theory and praxis.30

In the midst of the struggle surrounding the political prayer movementSoelle acknowledged Bonhoeffer’s insight that active discipleship comesat a cost. Bonhoeffer’s life and work expressed solidarity with theGerman people in their struggle against Hitler. He offered a model ofChristian discipleship and community, which brought together con-templation and a way of life expressed in solidarity with thedisadvantaged. Such obedience to God created a radically new form ofexistence. It expressed a faith that participated in the life of Jesus, “theman for others”. Soelle echoed Bonhoeffer’s thought that whenChristian faith lacked this kind of integrity and solidarity it was “cheapgrace”.

Following the demise of the “Political Evensong”, Soelle publishedSuffering.31 Two years later the translated edition brought her inter-national recognition. Questions examined in this text arose frominvestigations first mooted with the Evensong group, from the anti-warstance taken by German students in 1972, but most significantly fromher experiences as a non-Government delegate in war-torn Vietnam.Such encounters led her to search for what Kant called “the good life”,and to investigate situations where people cried “no” to disorderedhuman existence and human suffering. In this respect her thoughtreflected Theodor Adorno’s negative dialectics.32

Within a few years, political theology was supplanted by forms oftheology that argued for collaboration with God’s work of liberation.Yet, in Soelle’s hermeneutical development, political theology remaineda fundamental factor. Nevertheless, her thought was increasinglyinfluenced by the liberation theology of Miranda, Moltmann, and Metz.

30. In 1971, Soelle responded to the new theology in Protestantism that grew out of theinsights of Bultmann and Bonhoeffer with her own challenge to privatised bourgeoisliberalism in Political Theology and Politische Nachtgebet in Köln. (Three decades later, andbeyond the dawn of a new millennium, one must ask how well such a challenge has beenaddressed in this region of the world.)

31. Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). Originally published asLeiden (an Ergänzungsband in the series Themen der Theologie) (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1973).

32. See T. Adorno, Negative Dialectics (London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1973) 146-8.Adorno promoted a post-Auschwitz education to ensure that Auschwitz never happensagain.


This new theology searched for a Christianity that empowered and setpeople free, while ensuring that the necessities of life were equallydistributed. It also struggled for suitable language with which toreappropriate the Christian message in ways that allowed prayer andaction to focus on reconciliation rather than power.33 For Soelle, thegospel of Jesus Christ was central because it invites a personalrelationship with Christ and a personal commitment to those in need,not a pre-occupation with orthodoxy.

With two collections of poetry, Revolutionary Patience, and Of War andLove,34 Soelle attempted to make sense of brutality and oppressionthrough a concrete praxis and hope fashioned in the light of the gospeland Christian solidarity. Her thought reflected the growing need tolisten and respond to the suppressed voices in the existential situation ofthe 1980s. (These insights remain pertinent for the present, wounded,globalised world of the twenty-first century.) She also critiqued thefailure of German Protestantism to attend to peace-making. These textsexposed an ideology of “security” in the early eighties, whereby NATOleaders were allowed to override the democratic process by notinforming the people of West Germany that the superpowers wereproceeding with a nuclear arms build-up in the guise of “defence-preparedness”. For Soelle, being a Christian in the context of militarismmeant more than “humming apolitical carols”. Instead she argued infavour of civil disobedience and a call to resistance through whichChristian imagination learns to resist the media, who play along withthe state machinery and shape public consciousness on how peace canor cannot be made.35 In her view, this type of critical action grew out ofa shared vision informed by mystical prayer.

THE MYSTICO-PROPHETIC LIFE

Over the following decades Soelle argued that mystical inwardnessmust mature into objective outwardness. Mystics highlight what is

33. The liberation theology that emerged between Medellin and Puebla is more explicit

than most European theologies. This form of theology combines the political and themystical dimensions of Christian faith and praxis.

34. See Dorothee Soelle, Revolutionary Patience (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977).Originally published as Meditationen & Gebrauchstexte (Berlin: Wolfgang Fietkau, 1969).Also published as Die revolutionäre Geduld: Gedichten (Berlin: Wolfgang Fietkau, 1974). Seealso Dorothee Soelle, Of War and Love (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983). Originally publishedas Im Hause des Menschenfressers: Texte zum Frieden (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1981).

35. For over 25 years, Soelle employed the concept of resistance in her theologicalreflections. In her view the Bible not only summons believers to do God’s will in a worldof injustice, but it is also an implicit call to martyrdom: “They who want to save their lifeshall lose it”, means “to take the risk of resistance in full awareness.... Becoming aChristian, growing into Christ seem possible only as one grows into a movement ofresistance.” (Against the Wind, 99).


missing or absent from this world, such as the need to be loved or thedesire for relationships that promise to transcend lifeless ways of living.

When Soelle addressed the inner movement of mystical experience inThe Inward Road, one route that opened the way to God for her was thatlived by the medieval German mystics.36 They employed a three-stepmethod of learning to give oneself to God: an initial experience, “I yieldmyself up”; a response to the present moment, “I leave myself in God’scare”; and the free action of departing from self, “I leave my selfbehind”. Learning to yield up the self that permeates thirteenth-centurymysticism is still relevant provided that it is adapted to localsituations.37 Yet she observed that people seldom take the step ofleaving the self. The step of abandoning false egos requires the believer“to leave the self, to put away depression, to make the self empty, open,and ready”, for “only if we are empty, the mystics tell us, can God fillus”.38

In a world which insists that the inner life of the mystic does notexist, Soelle turned to the biblical model of mystical inwardness andrenewed engagement with the world portrayed in the experience andactions of the Jewish prophet Elijah. She re-appraised Elijah’s innerjourney from the time the angel awoke him. The symbol of sleep isinterpreted as a moment when Elijah experienced a “change ofconsciousness”. His journey became a time of inaction, aloneness andsilence, which plunged him into a journey that seemed to cover a life-time, and effected in the prophet a shift from “ego to self”. Elijah veiledhis face with his mantle. This action contrasted with the unveiling ofGod’s self to the veiled ego of Elijah, the mystical way through which hereached the farthest point of his self-journey.

The nub of Soelle’s argument was that as a result of Elijah’s mysticalexperience in the cave, the prophet in him knew that only in turningfrom the face of God to the face of the world with a renewed com-

36. See Dorothee Soelle, The Inward Road and The Way Back: Texts and Reflections on

Religious Experience (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1978) 81. Also published as Deathby Bread Alone: Texts and Reflections on Religious Experience (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978).Originally published as Die Hinreise: Zur Religiösen Erfahrung: Texte und Überlegungen(Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1975). Here reference is made to the writings of the German mystics:Heinrich Seuse in J. Quint (ed.), Deutsche Mystische Schriften; Meister Eckhart in J. Quint(ed.), Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Predigten und Traktate (Munich: Hanser, 1969); and W. Oehl(ed.), Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters 1100-1500 (Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1972).

37. German mystics of the Middle Ages were fascinated with an inward journey, but itwas assumed that they were given no instructions for the return journey and the life that issupposed to be new or recreated. Soelle believed that this interpretation is deceptive. Inpractice, medieval mystics were active leaders who founded schools and were engaged inChurch and court politics, often being punished for their activities, such as presenting theirtheology in the local language rather than in scholastic Latin (The Inward Road, 88). See TheStrength of the Weak, 104. See also Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters 1100-1500.

38. See Soelle, The Strength of the Weak, 105.


mitment to relieve its pain would God continue to touch the heart of thismystic-called-to-be-prophet. Soelle embraced the belief that mysticismis a method of self-emptying, in which the open hands of the mystic atprayer become the clenched fist of political engagement. Thus, con-templation and action constituted a unity, in which there was no roomfor any dualism between mysticism as love of God and propheticengagement as love of neighbour.39 Her proposal for a Christian ethicof solidarity with all life develops from mysticism.40

In 1974, Beverly Harrison, a lecturer in ethics and feminism at UnionTheological Seminary, New York, read Soelle’s books and campaignedto engage her on the teaching staff.41 Between 1975-1987, Soelle held theposition of visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at UTS. Themajority of her students were mature people with varied backgrounds;they introduced her to what were entirely different traditions of African-Americans, Asians, and Australians. This was a period of radicalchange in which Soelle consolidated a contextual and narrative form oftheology that addressed the issues of suffering, peace and war, Christianfeminism42 and liberation theology.43

Prior to her move to New York, Soelle was engaged by the GermanGreen Party’s attempt to structure a holistic understanding of work, asshe too was investigating what work does to the worker when the cycleof tasks excludes the worker from the overall vision of the enterprise.44

She based her analysis on Hegelian and Marxist understanding that thealienation of human beings from themselves is an historical fact, not an

39. Soelle, The Inward Road, 89.40. Soelle resisted a tendency in Christian thought to view the vita contemplativa as of

greater intellectual value, the spiritual and saintly above the praxis of the vita activa . Herpoint is “neither to practice an introverted mysticism nor to engage in an extrovertedcritique of the age alone, but to find one’s vita mixta between contemplation and activity asa ‘mutuality of receiving and giving’”. See The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2001) 201. Originally published as Mystik undWiderstand: Du stilles Geschrei (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1999).

41. Soelle was grateful to Beverly Harrison for having introduced her to the Americanfeminist movement: “It is no exaggeration to speak of her as a mother of feminist theology.Tirelessly she supports, counsels, and stimulates women in theology, organizes meetingsand conferences. She critiques sexism in all shapes or forms and went after every personaland institutional manifestation of the exclusion of women” (Against the Wind, 65). See E.Moltmann-Wendel’s comment that in the early 1970s the UTS bookstore was “a treasurehouse of theological literature on women’s literature, of a kind that was still completelystrange in Germany”: Autobiography (London: SCM Press, 1997) p. xiii.

42. At UTS and in New York, Soelle encountered numerous feminist thinkers andtheologians, including Letty Russell, Phyllis Trible, Rosemary Radford Ruether, CarterHeyward and Dorothy Day.

43. See Dorothee Soelle, Choosing Life (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). Originallypublished as Wählt das Leben (Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz, 1980); and The Strength of theWeak, 1984.

44. The Green Party’s utopian dreams were similar to the pre-scientific Germansocialists’ desire to improve the quality of human work. Earlier, Marx, Fournier,Proudhon, and Weitling had also envisioned an equitable division of labour and fulfilmentin work.


inherent characteristic of human nature.45 From the late 1980s she wasvisiting Professor at universities in Europe, and in North and SouthAmerica.

With a grant from the Goethe Institute in the nineties, Soelle was ableto travel throughout Latin America gathering stories of discriminationand exploitation which demanded theologies that liberate from all formsof violence, especially those affecting women’s sexuality, children andtraditional cultures.46 Like others, Soelle discovered that five hundredyears after the Spanish Conquista another form of misery is beingproduced by present-day conquerors who threaten human dignitythrough a one-world, globalised culture that is uninterested in thecauses of human suffering or the rights of alternative societies. On herpilgrimage amongst indigenous communities she encountered peoplewho still proudly wear traditional clothing, and who, despite poverty,laugh as they continue to struggle and pray. While acknowledging thatsuch resistance is cause for celebration, she warned againstromanticising theologies of liberation.

Soelle also published an introduction to theology, a response tosceptics, a personal memoir, and in 2001 an extensive reflection onmysticism and resistance.47 In a world dominated by militarism,exploitation, and oppression, her essays discussed not only the politicalaspect of spirituality, but they also offered a challenging spirituality ofsharing that embraces the “conciliar process” of peace, justice and theintegrity of creation.48

45. See D. Soelle and S. A. Cloyes, To Work and To Love: A Theology of Creation (Phila-

delphia: Fortress, 1984). Originally published as Lieben und Arbeiten: Eine Theologie derSchöpfung (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1983).

46. Dorothee Soelle, Celebrating Resistance: The Way of the Cross in Latin America (London:Mowbray, 1993) p. x. Also published as essays between 1986-1991, and as The Stations ofthe Cross: A Latin American Pilgrimage (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993). Originallypublished as Gott im Müll: Eine andere Entdeckung Lateinamerikas (Munich: Deutscher, 1992).While few theologians are concerned with the rights of children and their right to speak inthe Church, Soelle highlighted the struggle for life of Latin American children in “Amongthe Street Children” (1993) 13-15; “Grandpa eats Grapes” (1993) 16-17; “On the Swings ofLa Paz” (1993) 108. In the vignette “Sacred Space” (1993) 78, she was delighted to findchildren who articulated new expressions of faith in a post-ecumenical Third World.

47. See Dorothee Soelle, Thinking About God; and Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995). Originally published as Es muss doch mehr als allesgeben: Nachdenken über Gott (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1992); Against the Wind; andThe Silent Cry. For Soelle, the term “the silent cry” derives from a series of metaphors in ananonymous letter from the late Middle Ages. The author, a pastor, addresses God in thelanguage of the medieval German mystics who sought new names for God beyondtraditional metaphorical terms of “Father, King, Most High”. Soelle argued that as a namefor God “the silent cry” is not tainted with connotations of domination or command, andthat as a gender-free image it alerts people to the unheard voice of God in the world (TheSilent Cry, 6).

48. See The Window of Vulnerability; Celebrating Resistance; and On Earth as in Heaven: ALiberation Spirituality of Sharing (adapted from essays written between 1986-1991; Kentucky:Westminster/John Knox, 1993.)


CONCLUSION

The legacy of Dorothee Soelle echoes in her Evensong theology as apraxis of gospel living discovered through questions raised from what isheard, seen and felt in life. It grows out of human narrative that makessocial victims visible. Within a praxis that is attentive to the humancondition, Soelle engaged in a second step, analysis, which asks who isexcluded from the social and economic situation. A third step bringsinto play a liberating spirituality formed from personal experience andprayer, which becomes self-critical through knowledge of other faithsand cultures. Finally, in a renewed praxis, the poor, suffering andmarginalised are the teachers. What they say and do humanises us.

Soelle kept alive Bonhoeffer’s prophetic belief that a time will comewhen people will speak God’s word and change the world. Hertheology recognised hope in God’s historical future; it struggled to beself-critical, was committed, broke open the meaning of the Gospel,initiated Christian action, and expressed “a preferential option for life”.She struggled for a Church that is hungry for the reign of God, one thatoffers an alternative vision for a world divided by race, sex and power.Such a Church confronts situations that are harmful to the hearts, mindsand bodies of women, children and men, and it offers fragments ofchange and healing.

Dorothee Soelle’s life and work is a theology that invites us to look atthe Church and the world through God’s eyes, to listen and hear withGod’s ears, to name oppression in all its forms;49 to set free therevelatory power of experience, the gift of bodiliness, and theuniqueness of individuals and critical Christian communities. Soelle’slegacy promises to empower the political conscience of all, who amidstdehumanising forces that undermine God’s vision for creation makepresent fragments of heaven in this unique geo-political region of earth.

49. Martin Buber, Ecstatic Confessions (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985) 63.

In Memoriam Dorothee Soelle

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