Adolf Keller

Ecumenist, World Citizen, Philanthropist

Marianne Jehle-Wildberger, Kyburz, Mark Kyburz, John F. Peck

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781620321072
  9781498215145
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621895428
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Swiss theologian Adolf Keller was the leading ecumenist on the European continent between the two world wars. In this book the historian Marianne Jehle-Wildberger delineates his life and its achievements. Based on research in forty archives in Europe and the United States, a picture emerges that shows a wonderful man who was a personal friend oft Karl Barth, C. G. Jung, Thomas Mann, and Albert Schweitzer--and thus who was influenced by the spiritual tendencies of the twentieth century. Keller cooperated closely with the National Council of Churches. His Central Bureau of Relief in Geneva (Inter-Church Aid) was supported by American churches. His lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary on "Religion and Revolution" (1933)--in which he was one of the first commentators to denounce National Socialism in Germany--set a new standard of political discussion and are unsurpassed. Marianne Jehle-Wildbergers' book is an important contribution to twentieth-century church history and to the history of the twentieth century in general.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: From Village Boy to Pastor
• Chapter 2: Entering Ecumenism
• Chapter 3: The Ecumenical Movement
• Chapter 4: Crisis and a New Beginning at Life and Work, and from the Central Bureau to Inter-Church Aid
• Chapter 5: Opposing National Socialism, Supporting German Refugees
• Chapter 6: World War II and the Postwar Period
• Conclusion
• Chronology
• List of Persons
• Bibliography