Slovo a Smysl (Dec 2020)
Zachovat kontinuitu evangelické teologie – za jakou cenu? Příběh Komenského evangelické bohoslovecké fakulty v letech tzv. normalizace
Abstract
This study focuses on the ‘normalisation’ of the Comenius Protestant Theological Faculty in Prague. The author argues that it was undertaken here in a different manner than at other academic institu tions. This is particularly evident in the context of turnover, insofar as no changes were made to the party faithful [kádr] who made up the theological faculty after 1969. As a consequence, the faculty came to act as proxies of the regime’s normalisation policy. The author claims moreover that it was the students who most vocally opposed the changes made under normalisation, at least until 1974, when they protested against the expulsion of several parish priests from church services. For several of the protesters, this resulted in their own expulsion from the department. The decision to do so was made by government authorities, but its implementation was carried out by faculty adminis trators – that is to say, by professors who had been committed to the process of democratisation up to 1968, but who now called for obedience to the normalisation regime. Inevitably, such behaviour led to their discrediting and the weakening of their authority in evangelical circles. Meanwhile, these same members of the theology faculty emphasized that socialist society is a better guarantor of justice than the capitalist establishment, a position which deepened the crisis in the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren and undermined the relevancy of the faculty in the eyes of their students.
