Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung

Barth. As we have already seen, Barth’s keen interest in the social question became visible in his learning of ethical socialism in Marburg. In addition, Barth’s acquaintance with S [Sombart] dates back to Barth’s student days at Berlin, although in Marburg in 1908 Barth had bought a copy of Sombart. Sombart’s writings such as Socialism and Social Movement (1896) and Der Moderne Kapitalismus (1902) were already published.64 In addition, as we have already seen, Sombart taught in Berlin during Barth’s stay there, and Sombart’s influence on Barth can be seen in his “Socialist Speeches,“ for example, in “Jesus Christus und die soziale Bewegung” (1911) and in “Die Arbeiterfrage” (1913/14).65

The installation service for Barth took place on Sunday July 9, 1911. Barth’s father, Professor Fritz Barth, gave the sermon. One of the confirmands (born in 1896) remembered: “It gave us a huge amount of respect that he came from Geneva to us in Safenwil, to our quiet little village, where most of the people were farmers or worked in the factory.”66 For the next ten years of his life, Barth would live and work here. As Barth began his pastorate in Safenwil, Gustav Hüssy-Zuber was the chairman of the church board who was responsible for the employment of the pastor, the church budget, and the link between the congregation and the community. The Hüssy family was a member of what Barth called the House of Hüssy, a factory dynasty in Safenwil. Their family members owned a weaving establishment, a paint factory, and a sawmill in the area. Barth considered this time to be formative in his theological development: “It was during my time at Safenwil that I changed my mind decisively in a way which also affected the outward form of my future career.”67

Barth also renewed his friendship with a former friend at Marburg, Eduard Thurneysen, a pastor of a neighboring church in Leutwil. Thurneysen was the person who brought Barth in contact with religious socialism in Switzerland. Through Thurneysen, Barth came into contact with Hermann Kutter, who was then fifty years old (1863–1931). Kutter completely impressed Barth by the “molten lava of his eloquence, like an uncanny volcano.” “Amazed at his astonishing intelligence and mental power,” Barth “learned to speak the great word “God” seriously, responsibly and with a sense of its importance.”68

Keenly aware of the political responsibility of a Christian in society, Barth preached on many political matters. In addition, Barth was active in Safenwil Arbeiterverein.69 The Hüssy family, which was highly respected in the church and in the civil community, owned a weaving mill and dye works as well as a sawmill where the workers were paid extremely low wages. They were not organized into a trade union. Barth even introduced Cohen, whom he knew at Marburg and read copiously in Geneva. However, the working people did not understand the academic discussions of socialism.70

In his first socialist speech at the meeting of the Laborers’ Society in Safenwil Barth dealt with the question of the origin and meaning of the state upon the request of the president of the Society. At the start Barth, however, preferred to give his lecture a different name: “Human Rights and Citizens’ Responsibility” (October 15, 1911).71 Herein Barth discussed human rights and citizens’ responsibility in regard to the origin and meaning of the state. “Human rights” is the catchphrase for “revolution” in all times. Revolution represents the demand for freedom in the name of human dignity. However, as long as revolution lies in the demand of a freedom movement for the individual, it is not fruitful for the origin of the state.72 In explanation of a relation between a capitalist revolution and human rights Barth—seeing human rights of personal freedom needing to be realized in the economic arena—discussed a clash with the human rights of the proletariat worker.73 Barth did not escape from a socialistic critique of the concept of social class. Here he understood a class struggle from above. “It is completely right, if it is spoken from a socialist side that this struggle has been opened not from the proletariat, but from the employer . . . It was the anarchy from above, to which the anarchy from below was only the answer.”74 What Barth intended in dealing with the problem of the state in view of a tension between human rights and citizens’ responsibility, is to combine two things: morality and politics. “Morality and politics may not be two different things, they are one and the same. A moral which could not be a political moral is no moral at all because the essence of the moral is just the political citizen’s responsibility.”75

Alongside Cohen, Barth argued for the progress of politics and morality not in the dream of an ideal state but in the ethical and political work. “In this progress or let’s say more precisely in this progress we set in motion the state-thought, and we operate our civil duty and just with it our human rights.”76 Cohen’s ethical socialism was incorporated into Barth’s reflections so that the state-thought must be produced anew “in a tension between human rights and civil duty.”77 In other words, in the progress from the human rights to civil duty and from the civil duty to human rights, Barth noticed a point of departure regarding the political problem and task.

With ethical socialism in Cohen’s sense, Barth noticed that the program of the Swiss Social Democratic Party would solve a relation between capital and labor in terms of a more or less violent expropriation of the means of production on the part of the state.78 However, Barth was of a different opinion. Instead of stressing the function of the state he “places his greater hope on the progress of social relations in all classes.”79 Seeing that organized labor stood against organized capital, Barth asked if this dialectical relation between capital and labor takes place for the civil duty. If so, citing August Bebel’s term “rote Kladderadatsch,”80 Barth conceived that something unexpected and unfortunate would happen. According to Barth, the Swiss Social Democratic Party raised the concept of class to a definitive form of society in a conservative way. In Barth’s view, “the highest aim of political endeavor cannot be fatherland.”81 What is more important for Barth is to balance political priorities between human rights and civil duty. This is the essence, meaning, and origin of the state.

Barth’s speech “Jesus and the Social Question” was the topic chosen by the workers’ union. In 1912 the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS) and the workers’ union came to terms with each other for mutual support regarding the agitation of socialism, propaganda, and educational work. Already in 1910 the workers’ union emphasized educational work in a series of public lectures for workers. Barth’s speech at the local Laborers’ Society on the theme “Jesus and the Social Movement” (on December 7, 1911) was extensively reprinted in the Aargau Free Press between Christmas and New Year’s. In this speech Barth called into question the injustices carried out by the local factory owners, one of whom was a member of his congregation. Barth’s lecture “Jesus Christ and the Social Movement” became an indication of Barth’s position about the relation between the gospel of Jesus Christ and socialism. Barth argued that Jesus himself was more socialistic than the socialists. “Jesus is the movement for social justice, and the movement for social justice is Jesus in the present. . . . The real contents of the person of Jesus can in fact be summed up by the words: ‘movement for social justice.’”