Tradition and Transformation

Tradition and Transformation Theology in the ‘Christians for Socialism’ Movement in the Netherlands, 1974-1989 S.C.W. Beentjes U972678 Tilburg School of Catholic Theology Thesis MA Christianity and Society 15 ECTS Dr. K. Schelkens 30th October, 2019 Cover picture: Harbert Booij, Sketch showing Karl Barth with a red hat, Opstand 6, no. 1 (1979): 4. 1 Contents Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Methodology 6 Historiography 9 1. Church and World: One Debate for Multiple Churches 12 2. Marching in Step with Marx 26 3. Babylonian Captivity in the Bourgeois Thought 34 4. Politics as Praxis 49 Conclusion 61 List of Abbreviations 65 Sources and Literature 66 2 Abstract As a historical concept, ‘the long 1960s’ do not refer to the actual decade but rather embody a period of change. With regard to the churches, this change is often discussed in terms of ‘secularization’ and ‘deconfessionalization’. This has resulted in the image of protests in which students ‘exchanged God for Marx’. By looking at the Christians for Socialism-movement in the Netherlands, this thesis argues that the experience of Marxist- inspired protests did not only result in apostasy, but also affected theology. So, the storm of the students protests did not only rage outside the churches, but also inside the churches. Among these young Christians the preference for action over theory was transferred to theology, in which ‘praxis’ gained dominance over ‘doxis’. Thanks to this political operationalization of theology, young theologians cherishing very different theological traditions could work together in one movement. 3 Introduction When the Christian newspaper Nederlands Daglad interviewed the Dutch professor in theology Rinse Reeling Brouwer on the occasion of his retirement, he was asked about his sympathy for the German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the 1970s and 1980s. This was not the first time journalists demanded an explanation from a former member of the Dutch movement Christenen voor het Socialisme (Christians for Socialism; hereafter CfS) for their (supposed) support to oppressive regimes like the one in the GDR. Only three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, even before CfS ceased to exist in 1994, two journalists brought a series of interviews with Marxist-engaged theologians about the end of communism together in the book Een wereld zonder tegenspraak?. Between this publication in 1992 and the interview with Reeling Brouwer in 2019, articles with an identical angle appeared every now and then.1 This question whether and why Dutch Christians supported the communist regimes in Eastern Europe also found its way into the academic debate. The historian Beatrice de Graaf wrote a, both acclaimed and controversial, dissertation on the (Protestant) Churches, the peace movement and their relations to the GDR. She found that some Christians for Socialism, without knowing it themselves, functioned as informants for the Stasi. It made her label all political sympathizers of the ‘real existing socialism’ with GDR-loyal partners as ‘Christians for Socialism’. This might be understandable within the scope of her study, but is still an overgeneralization of the CfS-movement. The first CfS- members did not found the movement in 1974 to support the GDR, let alone to become a Stasi information-channel.2 De Graaf’s definition of the CfS as a GDR-instrument is a dominant factor in the historical image of the movement and therewith overshadows other historical aspects of the movement that might be interesting within Church history. One of these aspects is the inter-confessional character of the movement, as both Protestants and Catholics participated in the CfS-movement. Because of this mixed background of its members, 1 Job de Haan, Bert Rijpert, and Dick Boer, Een wereld zonder tegenspraak?: 'Linkse' theologen na de teloorgang van het socialisme (Baarn: Ten Have, 1992); Dick Schinkelshoek, "Portret Rinse Reeling Brouwer: Een moderne monnik," Nederlands Dagblad, June 22 2019; "'Complete nonsens over ons uitgestort'," Trouw, July 28 1997; Joke van Kampen, "God komt van buiten," De Groene Amsterdammer1994. 2 Beatrice de Graaf, Over de muur: De DDR, de Nederlandse kerken en de vredesbeweging (Amsterdam: Boom, 2004), 17; Lodwijk Dros and Cokky van Limpt, "Studie over Stasi en IKV roept verzet op," Trouw, December 8 2004; M. E. Monteiro, "Beatrice de Graaf, Over de muur. De DDR, de Nederlandse kerken en de vredesbeweging Amsterdam: Boom, 2004," Trajecta 15 (2006). 4 there was no common ‘CfS-theology’. The fact that the movement was inter-confessional also implied they had a broad international orientation. The horizon of CfS did not stop at the ‘real existing socialism’ in the GDR. There was also attention for Marxist movements in Latin America, as Catholics were more inclined to sympathize with these groups. In spite of the diverse religious backgrounds, all members of the CfS-movement were committed to the Marxist-Christian dialogue. This religious diversity on the one hand and shared political commitment on the other hand, provides an interesting case to study the processes of convergence and divergence in the rapidly changing Dutch religious landscape. In order to view the CfS-movement in this church historical context, this study moves away from the political perspective as employed by De Graaf and tries to develop a religious perspective on the CfS-movement. This religious perspective needs to be carried by a research question that has eye for both the (religious) diversity and (political) unity within the movement. This research question will be as follows: How did the Christians for Socialism movement in the Netherlands operationalize the religious traditions in the different churches for political use? In order to answer this question, this thesis will be divided in three chapters. The first chapter will look at the origins of the Christians for Socialism in the different churches in the period before its foundation in 1974, because the long 1960s are crucial to understand the Christian-Marxist dialogue in the 1970s and 1980s. The second chapter will look at the structure of the movement and the role of Marx in keeping the theologians from different backgrounds together. The third chapter will delve into the theological diversity in the CfS-movement that was the result of the inter-confessional origins. The fourth chapter will analyze the political activism of CfS in the light of this theological diversity. The historical scope of the second, third and fourth chapter will be the period between 1974 and 1989; the year in which the fall of the Berlin wall meant an important shift of paradigm for the Christian-Marxist dialogue. As already mentioned, I will approach these subtopics with a religious perspective. Before starting with the first chapter, I will therefore elaborate on this religious perspective in the methodology section and take a closer look at the added value of this religious perspective in the existing literature and historiography. 5 Methodology As the CfS-movement continued to exist until 1994 and many of the main actors are still alive, the CfS movement undoubtedly belongs to the domain of Zeitgeschichte (contemporary history). After the Second World War, German historians started to treat Zeitgeschichte as a separate part of history. Zeitgeschichte as an historical interpretation of the recent past enabled German historians to study sensitive topics like the Nazi-regime or the DDR-regime.3 This makes Zeitgeschichte politically relevant too, for example when historical actors are still alive. Considering this background, it is not strange that many studies in Zeitgeschichte are concerned with political sensitivities surrounding oppressive regimes.4 However, this is not the only way to practice Zeitgeschichte and study the CfS. Within Zeitgeschichte, different historians can work on one research object with alternative conceptual or theoretical frameworks in order to show different aspects.5 The religious perspective in this thesis presents an alternative conceptual framework for the political perspective of De Graaf. This conceptual framework has to be developed in connection to the research question, so first the concepts of the research question have to be clear. As this research asks how religious traditions in the different churches were operationalized for political use, it is important to define the ‘religious traditions in the different churches’. If religion is concerned with the relation to the supernatural, religious traditions are the beliefs, practices and institutions that give forms to this relation to the supernatural. Churches are institutes carrying a religious tradition in both material (buildings, liturgy) and immaterial (theology, church structure) sense.6 Though most CfS-members could not identify completely with the churches from their youth, the religious traditions of these churches had shaped their Christian identity. The CfS-movement had a quite ambiguous relationship with the churches, as they saw it as their task to ‘represent a socialist point of view in the churches as a legitimate 3 S. Conrad, The Quest for the Lost Nation: Writing History in Germany and Japan in the American Century, ed. E. Burke, III, K. Pomeranz, and P. Seed, The California World History Library (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). 4 Cf. Graaf, Over de muur: De DDR, de Nederlandse kerken en de vredesbeweging. 5 M. Fulbrook, "Approaches to German Contemporary History since 1945: Politics and Paradigms," Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 1, no. 1 (2004). 6 Darren E. Sherkat, "Religiosity," in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), ed. James D. Wright (Oxford: Elsevier, 2015). 6 position’.7 To do this, they appropriated and interpreted the religious tradition to proof the legitimacy of their socialist interpretation. In the research question, this interpretation is called the ‘operationalization for political use’. To operationalize something, is to make it usable. In this case, usable in a political context. So, with its operationalization the Christians for Socialism wanted to make clear that a religious tradition had to advocate political action.

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