Schweitzer, Albert

Schweitzer, Albert (1875–1965), German theologian, physician, and organist. In Das Messianitäts- und Leidensgeheimnis (1901; Eng. tr., The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, 1914) he expounded the idea that the Lord's teaching centred in His conviction of the imminent end of the world. The book caused a stir, and in 1902 Schweitzer was made a lecturer at Strasbourg University. In Von Reimarus zu Wrede (1906; Eng. tr., The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1910), he developed an interpretation of Christ's life on the basis of ‘thoroughgoing eschatology’; he held that the Lord shared with His contemporaries the expectation of a speedy end of the world and, when this proved a mistake, concluded that He Himself must suffer in order to save His people from the tribulations preceding the last days. In 1911 he took a degree in medicine and in 1913 he went to Lambaréné in Gabon (then French Equatorial Africa) to care for the sick and engage in missionary work. Having been interned in France in 1917, he went back to Strasbourg in 1918. His Kulturphilosophie (1923) summed up his views on ethics as ‘reverence for life’. In 1924 he returned to Lambaréné; his hospital there was his main concern for the rest of his life, though he continued his theological writing. He exercised considerable influence on Continental as well as on English and American Protestant theology.