Research so far has hardly taken notice of the fact that Paul Tillich (1886-1965) served and preached in his home church for some ten years before beginning his academic career in 1919. These early sermons were published for the first time in 1994 by this author. They show at first glance a strong apologetic interest. Tillich's premiss is a 'living dialectical relationship' between Christianity and modern culture. His probationary sermon on 1 Cor. 3:21-23 is for this reason a sermon laying out the task of an apologist, and an anticipation of his memorandum 'Kirchliche Apologetik' presented to his superiors in 1913. The sermons preached in Lichtenrade in 1909, in Nauen in 1911-12, and in Moabit in 1912-13, are also sermons directed at the educated layperson. Typical are themes such as, 'a longing for death and a fear of death', 'God and suffering', 'the many and the mass', 'the rights of the individual and his justification'. However, it can be seen here already that Tillich the apologist turns increasingly into the pastor This is particulary a apparent in the sermons he held during the First World War. The pastoral care comes to the fore particularly as a spiritual quietive: i. e., as a comfort in suffering, and as an exhortation to stand firm. The apologetic aspect stands aside, bur nevertheless returns again as a theology of sacrifice, judgement, suffering, and eternity: as those elements of a war theology which serve the pastoral care, The preacher wants to console and strengthen the individual soldier. Tillich's sermons preached in Spandau after the German defeat to the soldiers returning home and to the wounded thus interpreted the German collapse as a chance given by God to begin afresh. A characteristic feature of Tillich's early sermons is the correlation between temptation and the certainty of God. This explains the prevalence of the pastoral over the apologetic approach.

Enthalten in:
Theologische Literaturzeitung; 1999/Nr.3 Monatsschrift für das gesamte Gebiet der Theologie und Religionswissenschaft (1999)

---

Serie / Reihe: Theologische Literaturzeitung

Personen: Sturm, Erdmann

Schlagwörter: Seelsorge Predigt Tillich, Paul Lebenslaufforschung Apologetik 1908-1918