Book Review: Schleiermacher: Christmas Dialogue, the Second Speech, and Other Selections

Abstract

Schleiermacher: Christmas Dialogue, Second Speech, and Other Selections. Edited and translated by Julia A. Lamm. Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2014. xvii + 296 pp. $29.95 (paper).Friedrich Schleiermacher is known by many as the father of modem and a masterful preacher. In this welcome volume, Julia Lamm offers readers a masterful introduction and an important body of texts for understanding Schleiermacher as both a theorist and literary genius of Christian spirituality. In Schleiermacher the term of art is Frommigkeit or piety; Lamm seeks to build upon this well-known theological concept and demonstrates that contemporary research on Christian spirituality identifies key markers (anthropological, social, historical, and practical) that are all present in Schleiermacher's writings.One of the most helpful interpretive proposals of the introduction is Lamms pairing of Schleiermacher with Pierre Hadot, the French philosopher and author of Philosophy as a Way of Life. By considering Schleiermachers theology as a spiritual exercise (pp. 36-44), Lamm demonstrates why examination of his earlier spiritual writings requires constant reference to the later theological writings, but also (and perhaps more importantly) why reading the earlier literary and homiletical texts are essential if one is to understand correctly Schleiermachers later, more systematic reflections on the spiritual life.The Christmas Dialogue is a fitting entrance into the selections, maintaining suggestive hints of Schleiermachers spirituality while embedding these hints within the discourse of various personalities. earnest piety of the daughter Sofie initiates reflection upon the Christmas holiday, with a high point in Karoline's opinion about the interactive nature of universal and particular joy: joy here is really the central concept that ties this text to Schleiermacher s sense of Frommigkeit. story of the evening closes with the entrance of Josef, who ends the speeches abruptly and returns the festive group to a consideration of the child: The speechless subject demands or generates in me a speechless joy, and in my joy I can only smile and cheer like a child (p. 150).Lamm's translation of the Second Speech from On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers is the first English version of the 1806 edition, allowing for a revealing comparison with the 1799 speech with which many are already familiar through Richard Crouter's translation. Gone is the celebrated entreaty for the despisers of religion to familiarize themselves with the idea of an intuition of the universe. Language of Wissenschaft and erkennen also increases as language of Metaphysik decreases, and the despisers are now also suggestively labeled Wissenden in a few places, translated by Lamm as Knowing Ones. …