Redenbacher, Christian Wilhelm Adolf

REDENBACHER, rê´den-bāH´´er, CHRISTIAN WILHELM ADOLF: Bavarian Lutheran, conspicuous for his rigid Protestant position; b. at Pappenheim (37 m. s.w. of Nuremberg) July 12, 1800; d. at Dornhausen (a village in the valley of the Altmühl) July 14, 1876. He was educated at Erlangen (1819–23), and after five years of work as a private tutor and vicar became, in 1828, pastor at the village of Jochsberg. Here he was A sturdy opponent of rationalism, particularly in the columns of the Homiletisch-liturgisches Korrespondenzblatt, and he became known as a writer of popular devotional works also. Redenbacher achieved his chief fame, however, by his public remonstrance, while pastor at Sulzkirchen, against the order of the Bavarian ministry of war requiring all soldiers, including Protestants, to genuflect to the blessed sacrament when carried in procession (see Kneeling Controversy in Bavaria). In 1841 he declared such acts on the part of Protestants to be idolatrous, and in the following year he advocated open defiance of the order. In Oct., 1843, he was summoned before the military court at Nuremberg, and in January he was suspended for disturbing the peace by misuse of religion. He now retired to Nuremberg to await the outcome of his trial, and in Mar., 1845, was sentenced by the supreme court to a year's imprisonment. Such excitement had now been aroused among the Protestants, however, that the king remitted Redenbacher's imprisonment, although he still remained suspended. In 1848 the sympathy felt for Redenbacher outside of Bavaria resulted in his call to the pastorate of Sachsenburg in Saxony. Here he resumed literary activity, vigorously opposing the freethinking and revolutionary tendencies surrounding him. Meanwhile conditions had so changed in Bavaria that Redenbacher could accept a call, in 1852, to the pastorate of Grosshaslach, where he remained until 1880, when he was called to Dornhausen, holding the latter pastorate until his death.

The principal works of Redenbacher were: Wahrheit and Liebe (Nuremberg, 1842); Simon von Cana (1842; these two being his protests against genuflection); Christliche Allerlei (4 vols., Nuremberg, 1844–76); Einfache Betrachtungen, der Ganze der Heilslehre umfassend 2 vols., 1844–45; Das Lichtfreundthum (Dresden, 1846); Geschichtliche Zeugnisse für den Glauben (2 vols., Dresden and Calw, 1846–69); Kurze Reformationsgeschichte (Calw, 1856); Lesebuch der Weltgeschichte (3 vole., 1860–1867); Betrachtungen bei Leichengängnissen (Ansbach, 1869); Evangelienpostille (Schweinfurt, 1876); and the posthumous Epistelpostille (ed. by his son, T. Redenbacher, with a brief biographical sketch; Erlangen, 1878). He likewise edited the Neueste Volksbibliothek (7 vols., Dresden, 1847–53), and collected many of his own contributions in his Volks- und Jugendschriften (6 vols., Schweinfurt, 1871–75).

(E. Dorn)

Bibliography: Worte der Erinnerung an C. W. A. Redenbacher, Ansbach. 1876; F. Reuter, Die Erlanger Burschenschaft 1816–33, Erlangen, 1896; E. Dorn in Beiträge zur bayerischen Kirchengeschichte, v. 1–2 (1898); Bachmann, Monatsschrift für Innere Mission, June. 1900: ADB, xxvii. 516–518.