Hendrik Kraemer

• german

Foreword

This booklet is intended to acquaint the reader with the personality of Hendrik Kraemer. When we have to move from Limonenstrasse in Berlin - Dahlem to Lindenstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg in October 2002, we decided to keep ant take with us the name of Hendrik Kraemer Haus. Being aware that Hendrik Kraemer’s heritage is rarely known even in our "sphere", we would like to draw attention to his personality and work through this little booklet.

We thank Bas Wielenga for his thorough work on Hendrik Kraemer’s ecumenical heritage, using the sources provided by the library of Hendrik Kraemer Hause.

We thank Montserrat Ortiz - Moran, a European voluntary worker in our project who had spent many hours on compiling an exhibition and this booklet.

Thanks also to Stephania Weigmann for translating several texts.

This booklet may serve as an introduction in Hendrik Kraemer’s life and work. Those who are interested to learn more about him are invited to look for further information in the books by Kraemer and about him in our library.

Berlin, March 2003

On behalf of the Hendrik-Kraemer-Haus Sabine Albrecht.

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Biography

• 17 may 1888: Born in Amsterdam.

• 1900-1905/ after the dead of his parents he was interned in an orphanage of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam.

• 1906-1921: He was studying at the school for missionaries in Rotterdam. Then he studied Indonesian language in the university of Leyden

• 1921-1936: In Indonesia, he was translating the bible and promoting the autonomy of the young Indonesian churches.

• 1937-1948: Professor of history of religions and comparative religion in the university of Lyden.

• 1938: Tambaram Conference: The Christian message in non Christian world

• 1940: Hittler’s troops in Netherlands.

• 1942-1943: Kraemer was intended in the concentration camp of St. Michielgestel.

• 1945: Hendrik Kraemer was a member of the delegation of the churches of USA, UK, France, Netherlands and Switzerland which met in Stuttgart with the new Council of the Evangelical Church of Germany

• 1948-1955: He was the first director of the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey

• from 1951: "Bossey in Berlin"

• 1957: he was the leading figure in the institute "Kerk en Wereld" in Driebergen

• 6 January 1959 Heindrik Kraemer Hause was inaugurated

• 11 November 1965/ Hendrik Kraemer died in Driebergen where he was buried.

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Which are the contributions of Hendrik Kraemer?

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How was Hendrik Kraemer’s childhood?

He was born in Amsterdam the 17th May, 1888 in a working class family. His father, a tailor originally from Germany (Süderwick), died when Hendrik Kraemer was 9, and his mother died when he was 12 years old. Having lost his parents, Kraemer had to live in an orphanage of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam which was run by Stern Orthodox Calvinists. Hendrik Kraemer was disenchanted of the kind of Christianity and in his rebellion against the orthodox routine of prayers and worship he started to read the bible as a source of consolation and inspiration when he was 15 years old. In the meditation he quotes psalm 27 "Father and Mother leave me, but the lord takes me in". one year later he decided to become a missionary.

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From Netherlands to Indonesia (1921-36)

Kraemer married in 1919 with Hyke van Gameren. They had two daughters and two sons but one of them had died with 7 years old. In the Netherlands, Kraemer was a student at the school for missionaries and read oriental literature at the university of Lyden. The Bible society of Netherlands appointed Kraemer at the supervisor for Bible translation work in Java (Indonesia). In Indonesia he spent fourteen years translating the Bible and helping with the creation of Christian Literature in indigenous language. During those years he became sensitive with the emerging nationalist movement and he started to criticise the Dutch colonial politics through an analysis of the cultural and economical situation. Kramer did not only criticise the Dutch colonial paternalism, but he also promoted the autonomy of the young Indonesian Churches by training its leaders. Kraemer wrote his dissertation on a 16 century mythical text from Java.

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Why did Kraemer decide to return from Indonesia

In 1937 he returned to the Netherlands because he thought that for the mission it was more useful to work in Holland that overseas. The university of Lyden invited him to teach history of religion an comparative religion. From the period from 1937 to 1948 he was working for the renewal of Dutch church towards an understanding that its renewal could take place only through the renewal of its apostolate. He was convinced that the renewal of the church has to involve the congregations; therefore Kraemer travel from congregation to congregation in order to convince them of a new vision of the church and its mission , to strengthen the resistance of the church to Nazism, and to prepare the base for the new beginning after the wall. Through this movement called "Congregation Building" (Gemmenteopbouw) he contributed to the renewal of church.

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The Christian message in non Christian world and "Biblical Realism", Where is the controversy?

In 1938 the International missionary council asked him to make a study in preparation of the Tambaran conference (India). The result of this conference was his best-known and controversial book "the Christian message in the non - Christian world" This book was published in German, English, French and Swedish and had a big influence in subsequent decades of missiological thinking. In this book Heindrik Kraemer argues that " the radical religious realism of the bible revelation, in which all religious and moral life revolves around one point only, namely the creative and redemptive will of the living, holy, righteous Got of love, the exclusive of nature and history, of man an the world, has to be the standard of reference." But while this "biblical realism" has been seen as an important contribution to the ecumenical vision of "the whole Church with the whole Gospel, to the whole world" many missiologists have faulted Kraemer for overemphasising the exclusiveness of the Christian message and "its radical discontinuity" with other faiths, thus not doing sufficient justice to God’s active presence in them.

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Spiritual resistance against Nazism and afterwards

In 1940 Hitler’s troops invaded Netherlands. In 1942 Kraemer together with other professors was interned in the concentration camp of St. Michielgestel for protesting against the introduction of a law precluding non Aryans from being public servants, which bad led with the dismissal of Jewish colleagues. In the concentration camp Kraemer together with politicians, scholars, church and labour union leaders discussed the possible post war political and church structures under the eyes of guards. He was kept in the concentration camp for more than one year. After the war Kraemer interfered by appeals to the church and to the people of the Netherlands. For long - time he was committed to establishing a centre of lay education "Church and World", which was to contribute to a new orientation of theological education.

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Ecumenical institute in Bossey, between Switzerland, the Netherlands and Berlin

Hendrik Kraemer is one of the key figures in the genesis of the modern ecumenical movement. From 1947 to 1957 Kraemer was the first director of the Ecumenical institute at Chateau de Bossey, near Geneva. The main purpose of the ecumenical institute was to "equip the saints for their diakonia in the world". The laity was seen as the vanguard of the diakonia and witness of the church. During those years Berlin was a focus of the "non Christian world" so every year Kraemer and some of the staff members of Bossey travelled to Berlin for seminars offering Bossey courses to GDR citizens with emphasis on laity groups.

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How and when was the Heindrik-Kraemer-Haus born?

On January 6, 1959 Hendrik Kraemer came to Berlin for the occasion to give the centre his name. Bé explains that Hendrik Kraemer" once a year came to Berlin (because at that time was not so easy for the people from the socialist countries to visit Bossey) (…) I asked him, at the end of the 50’s, whether we might name our small work or our small house in Berlin after him. The answer was: Why not? But you mean of course, the question of dialogue. Well, I don’t know your dialogue partner to well, Marxism, specially as it is thought and practiced in the socialist countries, but I m sure that it is a question of dialogue and you have to go ahead. And so he gave his name to our house on January 6 1959.

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"Expectat Resurrectionem"

Hendrik Kraemer died in 1965 at the age of 77 and was buried in the cemetery of Driebergen under a stone with the inscription "Expectat Resurrectionem"