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The Awakening
Friedrich Zündel
Plough Publishing House
Published by Plough Publishing House
Walden, New York
Robertsbridge, East Sussex
Elsmore, Australia
©Copyright 2000, 2014 by Plough Publishing House
All rights reserved.
PRINT ISBN: 978-0-87486-982-8
PDF ISBN: 978-0-87486-570-7
EPUB ISBN: 978-0-87486-571-4
MOBI ISBN: 978-0-87486-572-1
The Awakening is based on three chapters
(“Der Kampf,” “Die Bussbewegung,” and “Die Wunder”)
from Friedrich Zündel’s biography
Johann Christoph Blumhardt, Zürich, Verlag S. Höhr, 1880.
The introduction is an abridged translation of an article
by Günter Krüger in Freundesbrief der Offensive Junger Christen
No. 131, March-April 91/2, 59–73. Used with permission.
Front Cover Photograph: © Eric Rank/Photonica
PREFACE
Though relatively unknown to many readers, Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–1880) is widely recognized in his native Germany, perhaps because of his landmark biography, which appeared the year he died and still remains in print. The terrifying psychic phenomena described in it catapulted his parish into the public eye and still draw streams of curious visitors to it, one hundred and fifty years later.
The central fact of Blumhardt’s life, however, was not his involvement in demonic struggle as such, but the childlike faith that led him into it – namely, his belief in the reality of the age-old battle between good and evil, and in a Jesus who was not only an historical figure, but a living reality whose cosmic power can be felt and experienced still today.
This faith embarrassed Blumhardt’s contemporaries, so much so that his nervous superiors tried to suppress him by restricting his pastoral work. It is even more suspect in our time, when scientific progress has rendered rationalism the only acceptable faith for thinking people, and the untidy mysteries of the supernatural are relegated to talk shows and fiction shelves. Mention God, or Satan, and you’re sure to evoke winces or worse.
For Blumhardt, there was no question about it: good and evil truly did exist, and not only in the abstract. To him, the well-known accounts of New Testament writers had meaning not only as parables or stories, but as factual instances of divine intervention in the lives of real men and women. To him, it seemed obvious that if demons were driven out, the sick healed, and the dead raised two thousand years ago, they could also be driven out, healed, and raised in the present too.
Zündel’s account is fascinating on an historical level, but it has vital implications for today’s reader. And though the quiet pastor at the heart of the struggle he describes worried that it might become a source of exaggerated rumors, he would still want it to be discovered and grappled with and read. More than that, he would surely want it to give courage to those who despair over the spiritual emptiness of our church-filled landscapes, and hope to those whose hearts are open to believe.
The Editors October 1999
I: THE FIGHT
On July 31, 1838, the people of Möttlingen, a small town in southern Germany, turned out to welcome their new pastor. A zealous thirty-three-year-old, Johann Christoph Blumhardt had spent years preparing for such a position, and was looking forward to serving his new flock as a minister, teacher, and counselor. Now, finally, he and his fiancée Doris Köllner could marry, settle down, and raise a family.
Blumhardt could never have anticipated the events he was about to be thrust into. Through them, the power of God to which he clung came close to him with a vividness experienced by only a few throughout history. At the request of his ecclesiastical superiors, he recounted these events in a detailed report entitled An Account of Gottliebin Dittus’ Illness. In his own memory the events lived on as “the fight.”
Before long, completely against Blumhardt’s wish, a distorted version of his report began to circulate publicly. This compelled Blumhardt, who had not even kept the original, to publish a carefully edited second version. He made one hundred copies and stated in the preface that he did not wish to see it circulated further.
Out of respect for that wish, the following account describes manifestations of supernatural forces only where necessary to demonstrate God’s victories over them. However, general, mysterious hints would envelop his struggle in an apocryphal twilight. Besides, Blumhardt regarded his experiences during the fight as so significant for the church and for the world that he would almost certainly agree to making their essential content public now. In a sense, we owe it to him to do so.
In the preface to his report Blumhardt wrote:
Until now I have never spoken with such boldness and candor to anybody about my experiences. Even my best friends look at me askance and act as though they feel threatened by even hearing about these things. Until now, most of it has remained a secret that I could have taken with me to the grave. It would have been easy to give an account that avoided offending any reader, but I could not do that. At almost every paragraph I asked myself if it was not rash to tell everything just as it was, but time and again an inner voice would say, “Out with it!”
So I dared it, in the name of Jesus, the victor. This is an honest report of what I can still remember, and I am firmly convinced that the Lord will hold his hand over me in this. My only intention is to tell everything to the honor of him who is the victor over all dark powers. I cannot take it amiss if somebody is mistrustful of these accounts, for these things are beyond our understanding. They are, however, based on observations and experiences over nearly two years, ones which can in every case be corroborated by eye-witnesses.
In speaking out unreservedly for the first time, I ask that the information given here be regarded as private, as when close friends share a secret. I also ask the reader to be so good as to read the whole report several times before forming a judgment. Meanwhile, I put my trust in Him who has human hearts in his power. Whatever the verdict of those who read this account, I rest assured in the knowledge that I have spoken the unvarnished truth, and in the rock-like certainty that Jesus is the victor.
Möttlingen, a parish at the northern end of the Black Forest which numbered 874 souls when Blumhardt arrived, encompasses two villages. Möttlingen proper, with a population of 535, overlooks the Nagold River and has the architecture, costumes, and customs of the Swabian lowland. Haugstett, the parish branch, is more typical of the Black Forest region, and its inhabitants
