2021 Theses Master's

Religious Socialism - Paul Tillich, the Kairos, and the Present Moment

Adomeit, Fynn

The first part of my thesis is dedicated to Paul Tillich and the Kairos of the past. On the one hand, I am writing about important landmarks of Tillich’s life in Germany. On the other hand, I systematize Tillich´s thoughts about religious socialism. Drawing on my conclusion of part one, I follow Tillich's critical impulses to make religious socialism useful for the kairos of the present. An important approach thereby is the expansion of the proletariat and the breakdown of the two-class schema already expressed in the "Socialist Decision," which can no longer be maintained in this way in the neoliberal postmodern era. Moreover, Tillich places the political protest of the proletariat in the prophetic tradition of theology, while the future of the protestant principle (the theological protest) can only be found in the decision for socialism. However, religious socialism is for him no time- and spaceless project; he always talks about his own historical situation. Therefore, it is important to bring his thoughts in conversation with our contemporary theo-political struggles for social justice. The loud demand for social justice, as it is expressed again and again by contemporary theologians in various forms, is placed in the tradition of religious socialism and thus made radically fruitful. Concluding the second part, I make a case for why religious socialism still matters today.