Albert Schweitzer
Peter Hancock writes about a remarkable Christian
In January 1965, as we were travelling by boat down the west coast of Africa, I put the antenna of my short wave radio out of the porthole and heard station after station celebrating Albert Schweitzer’s ninetieth birthday at his hospital at Lambarene in the West African territory of Gabon. At Cape Town we boarded the train to travel by rail across four countries to Malawi, where I was to teach physics to very bright African lads at a school in the Angoni Highlands on the edge of the Great Rift Valley.
We were lucky to have mains electricity for four hours each evening and so were able to listen to music on our record player, including that of Schweitzer playing Bach on the organ. He played Bach at a much slower pace than other professional organists and thus brought out with great clarity the complexities of Bach’s contrapuntal music.
His recordings and the European concerts of his organ playing raised funds to support the hospital he had built, and worked in, for sixty years, at Lambarene. Schweitzer was, incidentally, the world’s leading authority on organ design and construction. And he learned by heart the entire works of Bach and five other composers. By the age of thirty he had earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. At that point, to the horror of friends and colleagues, he decided to abandon academia and embark on eight years of training to become a medical doctor so he could minister to the sick in Africa.
During the course of his life he wrote many books on theology, philosophy and music. He also wrote about his experiences of running a hospital in West Africa. Quotes leap off almost every page of his work. Many famous ones can be found on the internet. Here are some that might particularly interest Friends:
‘It fell to the church to call men to their senses away from the struggle of nationalistic passions, and to keep their minds focused on the highest ideals. However, the church was unable to achieve this; indeed it did not even make a serious effort to do so. Too often caught up in the demands of history and organization and too little moved by the Spirit, the church fell victim to the spirit of the times and confused dogmas of nationalism and realism with religion. One miniature communion alone, the Religious Society of Friends, has taken it upon itself to uphold the absolute validity of reverence for life as it is expressed in the religion of Jesus.’
From: Kultur und Ethic
‘The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration, never existed. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb. This image has not been destroyed from outside; it has fallen to pieces…’
From: The Quest of the Historical Jesus
‘He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.’
From: The Quest of the Historical Jesus
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