Otto Bauer: From Religious Socialism to Apocalyptic Thinking

Otto Bauer (1897-1986) is one of the co-founders of religious socialism in Austria. His life and work is an important example of the violent history of Austria in the 20th century as well as of the crisis of modernity itself and contributes especially to a serious reflection on the relationship between religion and politics in our contemporary world. He was not only persecuted by the catholic authoritarian state that governed Austria from 1934 to 1938 but was also forced to leave Austria with his family when Hitler came to power after the annexation of Austria by the German Reich in 1938. The aim of the project is a systematic analysis of the still mostly unpublished papers, letters, and book manuscripts of Otto Bauer according to a twofold research focus. First, it discusses the beginning of religious socialism in Austria in regard to the need of a new paradigm of secularism. Religious socialism supported strongly the separation of church and state, without, however following the secularist paradigm to expel religion from the public realm. It already anticipated the demands of religious pluralism when it rejected, for instance, the complete separation of church and school - a position most Socialists hold - supporting instead state subsidies for private religious schools if this is available to all confessions. Secondly, the project discusses also Otto Bauer`s turn towards an apocalyptic understanding of the modern world. After World War II, he started to use apocalyptic passages of the Bible - especially from the New Testament - as a heuristic tool to understand a world that is threatened by humanity`s self-destruction. In this regard Bauer`s writings contribute to a better understanding of the apocalyptic dimension going along with Christianity (Pieper 1953; Dempf 1954; O`Donovan 1999; Illich/Cayley 2005; Girard/Doran 2008) and to the development of an enlightened catastrophism that is able to answer the apocalyptic threats challenging our world today (Anders 1993; Jonas 1993; Dupuy 2002; Rees 2003). Project Website: http://www.uibk.ac.at/systheol/ottobauer/

This research project aimed for the commented publication of previously mostly unpublished writings of the little Otto Bauer (18971986) who founded with his friends in the twenties of the last century the Union of Religious Socialists (Bund der religiösen Sozialisten / BRS) in Austria. His writing can roughly be grouped into two periods. Bauers early writings that we labeled as religious socialism stem mainly from the years between 1926 when the BRS was founded and 1938 when Bauer and his family were forced into exile in Switzerland, France and finally the United States. Two books of the project deal with this first period. An electronic book with the title Menschheitskämpfer [The fighter on behalf of humanity] collects Bauers more than one hundred articles between 1926 and 1934 from the journal of the BRS with this very name that was edited by him. The second book with the title Der politische Kampf der Religiösen Sozialisten Österreichs [The political struggle of the religious socialists in Austria] comprises mainly Bauers history of the BRS to which he added in the 70s interesting parallels to the then emerging liberation theology in Latin America. The importance of these first two volumes consists in the historical insight they allow into the struggle of Catholic social teaching about its relation to socialism. From todays point of view, the position of the BRS on the question of religion in the public sphere is very interesting. The religious socialists criticized clearly a clerical understanding of the church with its close relationship to the state. Their demand for a separation of church and state, however, was not based on a laic privatization of religion. For them religion was not a private matter but a chief thing. In addition, their criticism of capitalism is also significant for our world of today. Their position is close to liberation theology and to the rejection of an economy of exclusion that kills as it was expressed by Pope Francis in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium from 2013.We labeled the second period of Bauers work that was written mostly in the exile in the U.S. as his apocalyptic writings. Exemplarily, we prepared his spiritual album (Stammbuch Geistliches Tagebuch) for publication. Bauers apocalyptic writings, which show the dangers of modern technology by especially referring to nuclear weapons, come close to contemporary apocalyptic philosophers like Josef Pieper (19041994) or Günther Anders (19021992). For Bauer, however, it is important that he connects his insights into the apocalyptic dangers of modernity with the theological virtue of hope. For this reason, he is much closer to the Catholic philosopher Joseph Pieper than to the atheist philosopher Günther Anders. Also in this regard are Bauers writings important for our current world in which a pessimistic worldview is spreading in the West and needs to be connected to the virtue of hope if a desperate longing for absolute security will not lead to an increase of the risk potential.