Dorothee Söelle was a
leading German feminist liberation theologian, poet, activist and author of
many books. She taught for 12 years at Union Seminary and emphasized the role
that mysticism can play in the struggle for social and gender justice. She died
in 2003, the year I was studying her in seminary.
Söelle was required
reading given her strong theological statements surrounding the Holocaust. The
idea of a God who was "in heaven in all its glory" while Auschwitz
was organized was "unbearable" for Söelle. She felt strongly that God
has to be protected against such simplifications. She coined the term
Christofacism as a statement against fundamentalist Christianity. The role of
the complicit church in Nazi German was highly formative in her theological development.
I remember my professor talking about how ashamed Söelle was of the Christian
church for not just ignoring, but enabling the Nazi rise to power. WWII footage
of church services in Hilter’s Germany record the images of Nazi flags draped
across altars. For some people Söelle was a prophet who abolished the
separation of theological science and practice of life, while for others she
was a heretic, whose theories couldn't be reconciled with the traditional
understanding of God, and her ideas were therefore rejected as theological
cynicism. In the Episcopal Church her work is seriously regarded as
transformative and relevant.
It is through courageous
theologians such as Dorothee Söelle that we are challenged to forge a faith
that shapes and directs our lives. Many of us have ideological convictions that
are based on our political self-understanding. But Söelle and other Christian
mystics hold us accountable for having political convictions that are not
grounded first and foremost in a mature understanding of the work of the
Godhead that strives tirelessly for justice, that is, balance.
To get to where Söelle is, we must, especially on this day, on Good Friday, understand that the Gospels
are, among other things, political documents - that Jesus was not only a Rabbi and healer, but was
most certainly an activist. Like all activist he knew the dangers and the
stakes. His procession into Jerusalem that we celebrated on Palm Sunday was a
political protest, a mockery of Herod’s military procession. In an act of civil
disobedience he went into the temple to protest the corruption of
institutionalized Judaism with a grand display of righteous anger. In his rage
he picked up the tables and threw them over and threw out the money handlers.
Throughout his ministry he confronted the political machinery of Rome and
Judaism with great courage and unwavering conviction, grounded firmly in the scriptural depiction of the fairness of
God’s nature and God’s compassion for the poor. The phrase, the Kingdom of God,
was coined in direct opposition to the Kingdom of Rome. He could not win
against the powers and principalities and he knew it. But he could show us how
we are to respond. He has provided for us a model of righteous anger with an
absence of violence. Though the violence done to him was brutal, Jesus himself
had never once instigated or condoned a single act of violence against another
human being.
We seem squeamish about
associating the Christ with politics, but in fact, our theologies, often immature and
unmoored from its original source, or a total lack thereof, has been shaping our
political landscape for decades. We have become a God-less, fearful people in
desperate need of a Christ. Not a Jesus crushed on the cross for the sole purpose of ensuring our heaven-bound destination. No, we are in need of a Christ from which we cannot
be separated, not by sin, not by death, not by the cross, not by any enemy, nor
any threat of darkness. We are in need of a Christ who struggles as we
struggle, who suffers as we suffer, who laughs as we laugh, who weeps as we
weep. We are in need of a Christ who is the source of our convictions not the
defender of them; a Christ who informs every thought we think and who guides
the meditations of our hearts. We are in need of a Christ to teach us how to
live as if everything in the whole of creation depends upon it, and how to find
the courage to protest the power of evil that hems us in at every turn. And we are in need of a Christ who can teach us the
meaning of the word Mercy.
One of the best known
works by Dorothee Söelle is a poem which she delivered on Oct. 1, 1968.
CREDO
I
believe in God
who
created the world not ready made
like
a thing that must forever stay what it is
who
does not govern according to eternal laws
that
have perpetual validity
nor
according to natural orders
of
poor and rich,
experts
and ignoramuses,
people
who dominate and people subjected.
I
believe in God
who
desires the counter-argument of the living
and
the alteration of every condition
through
our work
through
our politics.
I
believe in Jesus Christ
who
was right when he
“as
an individual who can’t do anything”
just
like us
worked
to alter every condition
and
came to grief in so doing
Looking
to him I discern
how
our intelligence is crippled,
our
imagination suffocates,
and
our exertion is in vain
because
we do not live as he did
Every
day I am afraid
that
he died for nothing
because
he is buried in our churches,
because
we have betrayed his revolution
in
our obedience to and fear
of
the authorities.
I
believe in Jesus Christ
who
is resurrected into our life
so
that we shall be free
from
prejudice and presumptuousness
from
fear and hate
and
push his revolution onward
and
toward his reign
I
believe in the Spirit
who
came into the world with Jesus,
in
the communion of all peoples
and
our responsibility for what will become of our earth:
a
valley of tears, hunger, and violence
or
the city of God.
I
believe in the just peace
that
can be created,
in
the possibility of meaningful life
for
all humankind,
in
the future of this world of God.
Amen
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