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In the shadow of empire: Josef Schmidlin and Protestant–Catholic ecumenism before the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2018

Albert Wu
Albert Wu*
Affiliation:
American University of Paris, 102 rue St. Dominique, 75007 Paris, France E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the life and ideas of Josef Schmidlin, the founder of Catholic ‘missionary science’ and the most influential German Catholic missionary theorist of the first half of the twentieth century. An admirer of the German Protestant missionary theologian Gustav Warneck, Schmidlin often appears in the historiography as a forerunner of the Protestant–Catholic ecumenical collaboration that emerged after the Second World War. Yet a close examination of his writing reveals a vigorous critic of Protestantism and the Protestant ecumenical movement. A sceptic of transnational missionary organizations, he remained a firm supporter of the German nation and imperial project. This article gestures towards both the continuities and the discontinuities between the early attempts at fostering confessional cooperation between Protestants and Catholics and the later iterations. It also examines how nineteenth-century entanglements between missions and empire shaped the ideas of Catholic missionary theory during the interwar years.

Keywords

CatholicismChristian missionsecumenismGerman historyimperialismnationalism
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 2018 , pp. 165 - 187
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Elisabeth Engel, James Kennedy, and Justin Reynolds for their invitation to contribute to this special issue. Udi Greenberg shared unpublished work that helped me sharpen my ideas about ecumenism and imperialism. The reviewers of the piece pointed out crucial errors and offered wonderful suggestions for revision. As always, I am thankful to Michelle Kuo for clarifying my muddled thinking.

References

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22 Schmidlin, ‘Josef Schmidlin’, p. 168.

23 Schmidlin’s work remained a classic in the field. The Catholic theologian Felix Fellner, writing in 1934, listed Schmidlin’s Habilitation as one of the most important modern interpretations of Otto von Freising’s work. See Fellner, Felix, ‘The “Two cities” of Otto of Freising and its influence on the Catholic philosophy of history’, Catholic Historical Review, 20, 1934, pp. 154–174 Google Scholar.

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28 Ibid.

29 Schmidlin, ‘Josef Schmidlin’, pp. 176–7.

30 Ibid.

31 Kasdorf, Hans, Gustav Warnecks missiologisches Erbe, Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1990, p. 6 Google Scholar. See also Best, ‘Godly, international, and independent’, pp. 591–5.

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59 Ibid., p. 322.

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63 Warneck, Protestantische Beleuchtung, p. 1. See also Armin Owzar, ‘Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam in German East Africa’, in Dujardin and Prudhomme, Mission and science, p. 356.

64 For a good overview of the entire debate between Warneck and Troeltsch, see Berner, ‘Religionsgeschichte und Mission’.

65 Schmidlin, Die katholischen Missionen, p. XIV.

66 Ibid., p. 1.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., pp. 1–2.

70 Ibid., p. 2.

71 Ibid., p. 10.

72 Ibid., p. 14.

73 Ibid., p. 30.

74 Schmidlin, ‘Die katholische Missionswissenschaft’, p. 16.

75 Schmidlin, Die katholischen Missionen, p. 2.

76 Schmidlin, Josef, Die christliche Weltmission im Weltkrieg, München-Gladbach: Volksvereins-Verlag, 1915, p. 70 Google Scholar.

77 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

78 Cited in Müller, Josef Schmidlin, p. 142.

79 Ibid., p. 159. As part of this campaign, Schmidlin refused to publish Jesuit opinions in the Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft.

80 Rivinius, Weltlicher Schutz und Mission, pp. 79–80.

81 Müller, Josef Schmidlin, p. 165.

82 Schmidlin, Die christliche Weltmission, p. 87. See also Schmidlin, Josef, ‘Rückblick auf die Kriegsgeschichte der Weltmission’, Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 9, 1919, p. 40 Google Scholar.

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86 Schmidlin, Die christliche Weltmission, p. 14.

87 Ibid., p. 16.

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid., p. 79.

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91 Schmidlin, Die christliche Weltmission, p. 16.

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93 See Schmidlin, Josef, ‘Missionslage und Missionsaufgaben angesichts des Friedens’, Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 9, 1919, p. 78 Google Scholar.

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101 Ibid., p. 14.

102 Ibid., p. 87.

103 Benedict XV, ‘Maximum illud’, Apostolic Letter on the Propagation of the Faith throughout the World, 30 November 1919, §20, text available at http://www.svdcuria.org/public/mission/docs/encycl/mi-en.htm (consulted 20 March 2018).

104 For more on the founding of Belgian missiology, see An Vandenberghe, ‘Beyond Pierre Charles: the emergence of Belgian missiology refined’, in Dujardin and Prudhomme, Mission and science, pp. 151–70.

105 See, for example, Schmidlin, August, Katholische Weltmission und deutsche Kultur, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: Herder, 1925, pp. 6–7 Google Scholar; and Charles, Pierre, Les dossiers de l’action missionaire: manuel de missiologie, Louvain: Editions de l’AUCAM, 1938, pp. 211–212 Google Scholar.

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108 Ibid., p. 102.

109 Ibid., pp. 126–7.

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111 Ibid. On Warneck’s ideas of European superiority, see Greenberg, ‘Protestants’, pp. 322–3.

112 Schmidlin, Katholische Weltmission, pp. 11–12.

113 Ibid., p. 61.

114 Schmidlin, Catholic mission theory, p. 337.

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119 Charles, Les dossiers, p. 212.

120 Ibid., p. 410.

121 I am grateful to Udi Greenberg for pointing me to the reluctance on the part of Protestant missionaries to seek cross-confessional collaboration.

122 Similar arguments played out in the international diplomatic sphere, as European powers continued to argue that they should supervise the process of decolonization. See Pedersen, Susan, The guardians: the League of Nations and the crisis of empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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124 Collet, ‘German Catholic mission science’, p. 108.