Schleiermacher: Christmas Dialogue, The Second Speech, and Other Selections ed. by Julia A. Lamm (review)

The theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher might seem to be among the last places one might look for insight into spirituality. In the first place, Schleiermacher stands in the Protestant Reformed tradition with its deep suspicion that all talk of spirituality is pervaded by works righteousness. Second, Schleiermacher's theology, especially in his magnum opus The Christian Faith, is complex and abstract such that discovering meaning for lived spirituality can be daunting even for the specialist. Against this impression, Julia Lamm claims that Schleiermacher was "a virtuoso of spirituality" and, in this important volume, she demonstrates as much and that Schleiermacher's theology is the source of great insight into the theory and practice of Christian spirituality.

Pietism and early German Romanticism significantly informed Schleiermacher's deep engagement with spirituality. Characteristically, Schleiermacher speaks not of "spirituality," but of "piety," a term dear to Calvin and the Reformed tradition and to the Moravian Pietism in which he was schooled. Schleiermacher drank deeply from the Pietist well, imbibing a joyful sense of communion with Christ that lives in the fellowship of believers. As Lamm notes, Schleiermacher's participation in the Romantic Circle in Berlin provided him a "post-Kantian" community and ethos that moved beyond the Enlightenment while maintaining its critical spirit. Among this intimate society of countercultural artists and intellectuals Schleiermacher's fascination with the infinity of human consciousness, the turn to the particularity of historical traditions, and the emphasis on Bildung (formation) of human character was nurtured. Ultimately he understands himself to be "a Pietist of a higher order," as his affirmation of pious apprehension of God in Christ is recast in a ground-breaking theology that moves beyond traditional supernaturalism and Enlightenment rationalism. As presented by Lamm, we have a rich and deep spirituality rendered in a modern, post-Kantian key. Spirituality for Schleiermacher is not an ascent from the material to a transcendent spiritual realm, but remains embodied and this-worldly, discovering the divine in and through the finite.

This volume is comprised of Lamm's introduction and fresh translations of the Christmas Dialogue, the second Speech from The Speeches On Religion, two sermons, and four letters. The introduction shows Lamm's erudition as a Schleiermacher specialist and provides an insightful analysis of the lively spirituality evident in these texts.

The Second Speech and the Christmas Dialogue are early works with some poetic and dramatic flair. The Speeches set forth Schleiermacher's revisionist understanding of religion as "sensation and taste for the infinite," important historically as transcending the predominant Enlightenment view of religion as cognitive knowledge and morality. The Speeches identify religion as a form of feeling (as distinguished from action or knowledge) in which there is a sense of union with the universe. Lamm's analysis of feeling lifts up its character as a receptive state, without which one sinks into a narrow minded and empty consciousness. Feeling is primarily receptive, but it is an active receptivity in which persons take up what they have received and appropriate it in their own distinctive way. This appropriation of feeling then becomes formative of one's character, stamping it with deep respect for nature, love for other persons and for humanity as a whole, and surrender: that is, acceptance of one's own finitude and mortality and a letting go of the deep desire for immortality.

The Christmas Celebration: A Dialogue, published in 1806, is just that—the story of friends gathering on Christmas eve to celebrate the incarnation. Lamm helpfully notes that the context for this work includes skepticism regarding the historical reliability of the Bible, particularly the birth narratives and the fact that Prussian authorities had banned Christmas eve celebration in the church because it had become too much a New Year's celebration. Schleiermacher's work, inspired by a flute concert he had heard and hastily written as a Christmas present to friends, responds to...