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Dorothee Sölle [Death of God theologian, liberation theologian, political theologian]

1. Dorothee Sölle spent her life and writings to serve humanism and atheism at it fullest sense. She was from a biblical perspective a-normative and actually evasive of any fundamentalistic approach to the Holy Scriptures. She died in 2003 of a heartattack.

Her books speaks of atheistic passions:

Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God

The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (2001)

Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian (1999

Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic

In this book she lashed out against Fundamentalists or biblicist and calls them "Christofascists".

Suffering

She critiqued Christian masochism and theological sadism in this work.

2. Similar to Bonhoefer, Sölle maintained that God is suffering and is powerless alongside us. Therefore, humans are to suffer together against oppression, sexism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of authoritarianism. These ideas were already spelled out in main by Bonhoefer in his 1944 prison letters.

3. For the sake of perspective, we need to remember that Karl Barth, a transcendental focussed scholar, a transcendental Revelation focussed scholar, a Scriptural focussed scholar and an Incarnational focussed scholar, commented on Dietrich Bonhoefer's Prison Letters as "unstable" (see Karl Barth's letter on the 21st of December 1952 as cited by William Hamilton, "A Secular Theology For a World Come of Age," 459). Hamilton is very positive of Bonhoefer and follows the same lines of thinking in order to create a form of Atheism or God is Dead Theology.

4. Sölle was active in political theology speaking out against the Vietnam War, the arms race of the Cold War, and injustices in the developing World. She is thus a liberation theologian and a favorite of this type of deus ex machina (system using the Bible as an opportunistic instrument for some agenda or gain in the field of anthropology or humanism [only]).

5. She was married to an artist until she divorced him in 1964 and then she turned to political theology onwards after marrying a former Benedictine monk, monk Fullbert Steffensky.

6. It is possible that much of her work is psychologically linked to a hidden guilt "trip" that she tried to rationallize verbally with her political agendas in theology. A person's ontology has a forming affect on one's epistemology and that in turn an effect on one's methodology and de-ontology [the system of theology or books. or poem, or speech, sermon or lectures].

7. The Bible hold too many stings for a sinner and thus we find Sölle rejecting the fundamentalistic reading of the Bible as "Christofacist" reading.

8. Her publications reveal the scewness of her theology from a Biblical navigational point of view, or as Barth said of Bonhoefer, "unstable".

Her publications include:

Sölle, Dorothee (1967) Christ the representative: an essay in theology after the 'Death of God', London, SCM Press

(1970) Beyond mere obedience: reflections on a Christian ethic for the future, Minneapolis, Augsburg

(1974) Political theology, Philadelphia, Fortress Press

(1975) Suffering, Philadelphia, Fortress Press,

(1978) Death by bread alone: texts and reflections on religious experience, Philadelphia, Fortress Press,

(1981) Choosing life, Philadelphia, Fortress Press

(1983 ) Of war and love, Maryknoll, N.Y., Orbis Books,

(1983) The arms race kills even without war, Philadelphia, Fortress Press,

(1984) The strength of the weak: toward a Christian feminist identity, Philadelphia, Westminster Press,

Sölle, Dorothee and Cloyes, Shirley A. (1984) To work and to love: a theology of creation, Philadelphia, Fortress Press

Beyers Naudé, C.F. and Sölle, Dorothee (1986) Hope for faith: a conversation Geneva, WCC Publications

(1990) The window of vulnerability: a political spirituality, Minneapolis, Fortress Press,

(1990) Thinking about God: an introduction to theology, London, SCM Press

(1993) On Earth as in heaven: a liberation spirituality of sharing, Louisville, Ky., Westminster/John Knox Press,

(1993) Stations of the Cross: a Latin American pilgrimage, Minneapolis, Fortress Press

Solle, Dorothee / Dendf, Lawrence W. (Trn) (1995) Creative Disobedience.

(1995) Theology for skeptics: reflections on God, Minneapolis, Fortress Press,

(1999) Against the wind: memoir of a radical Christian, Minneapolis, Fortress Press,

(2001) The silent cry: mysticism and resistance, Minneapolis, Fortress Press,

(2001) "Confessing Christ in a Post-Christendom Context.", The Ecumenical Review (July 1, 2000).

9. Notice that the contribution to the Death of God theology came shortly after her divorce in 1964, namely in 1967. Two years later she married the former Benedictine monk. Her political theology started and in 1974 she actually wrote a book about it.

10. In 1983 she lashed out against the arms race.

11. In 1984 she particpated in liberation theology of a feminist kind.

12. In 1986 she wrote a book together with a political activist in South Africa, Beyers Naudé.

13. Political theology was still in her vocabulary in 1990 when she wrote the book on political spirituality.

14. Liberation theology is the subject in 1993 with a liberation spirituality of sharing.

15. In typical Feuerbach jargon [an atheistic skeptic], she wrote a book Theology for skeptics in 1995.

16. Knowing very well where she comes from she wrote a book on "against the wind" in 1999.

17. Resistance was her topic of her book in 2001.

18. The following sources are helpful to understand the role of Sölle:

Mary Grey (2005). "Diversity, Harmony and in the End, Justice: Remembering Dorothee Soelle". Feminist Theology (SAGE Publications) 13 (3): 343–357.

Pinnock Sarah K., editor (2003) The theology of Dorothee Soelle, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothee_S%C3%B6lle

19. On her term Christofacism it is said:

"Christofascism [Christianity mixed with Fascism] is a concept in Christian theology first mentioned by Dorothee Sölle, a socially-engaged theologian and writer, in her book Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future in 1970. To Dorothee Sölle, Christofascism was caused by the embracing of authoritarian theology by the Christian church. It is an arrogant, totalitarian, imperialistic attitude, characteristic of the church in Germany under Nazism, that she believed to be alive and well in the theological scene of the late 20th and turn of the 21st century".

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothee_S%C3%B6lle

20. There are wrong interpretations of the Bible and there are wrong hermeneutics of the Bible but in the process of reaction against the systems in society that were created by these wrong interpretation one should not demolish both the systems, interpretations and the Bible. Therefore, her reaction against Fundamentalism is her greatest fall. Either the Bible is normative or it is not. There is no middle way. In this regard, Karl Barth is correct "It is not the right human thoughts about God which form the content of the Bible, but the right divine thought about men . . . . One can only believe or not believe. There is no third way" (Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man [London: Eng. Hodder and Stoughton, 1928], 41 and 43).

21. If one looks at the title of her 73 page book, Creative disobedience in 1995, one already raises the eyebrows: in the sphere of God there is no sanctified disobedience. Biblically that is impossible but since she is against a fundamental reading of the Bible, it does not matter to her.

22. There is something to be said about the dangers of using her works to build a theology. The following example makes that clear:

"Douglas John Hall, Professor of Christian Theology at McGill University, relates Sölle's concept of Christofascism to Christomonism, that inevitably ends in religious triumphalism and exclusivity, noting Sölle's observation of American fundamentalist Christianity that Christomonism easily leads to Christofascism, and that violence is never far away from militant Christomonism. (Christomonism, also known as Unitarianism of the Second Person, accepts only one divine person, Jesus Christ.) He states that the over-divinized ("high") Christology of Christendom is demonstrated to be wrong by its "almost unrelieved anti-Judaism". He suggests that the best way to guard against this is for Christians not to neglect the humanity of Jesus Christ in favour of his divinity, and to remind themselves that Jesus was a Jewish human being."

van wyk notes:

We must remind outselves that the liberal stream in Reformed Theology in the Netherlands have exactly declared Jesus not divine for the same purposes. They have gone against the fundamental reading of the Scripture in this regard.

23. In one of her poems she said:

"That's how they assert their authority,

maintain order

and keep away from the pulpit

the crude speech of the common people.

O lord, make us into instruments of your peace:

instruments of conflict not harmony"

Source: Revolutionary Patience [Title was borrowed from the Chinese Communist Mao Zedong].

Van Wyk notes: how is it possible to look for peace with instruments of conflict and not harmony? It is a confused Christianity that she is explaining here.