Claus Harms was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 clergyman and theologian.

Harms was born at Fahrstedt

Diekhusen-Fahrstedt

Diekhusen-Fahrstedt is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....

 in Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

, and in his youth worked in his father's mill. At the University of Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

 he repudiated the prevailing rationalism

Rationalism

In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 and under the influence of Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was a German theologian and philosopher known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant orthodoxy. He also became influential in the evolution of Higher Criticism, and his work forms part of the foundation of...

 became a fervent Evangelical preacher, first at Lunden (1806), and then at Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

 (1816).

Harms's trenchant style made him very popular, and he did great service for his cause especially in 1817, when, on the 300th anniversary of the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

, he published side by side with Luther's theses, ninety-five of his own, attacking reason as "the pope of our time" who "dismisses Christ from the altar and throws God's word from the pulpit."

As a musician, Harms sought to restore Lutheran hymns back to their original state. To this end, he researched the original texts from people such as Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

, Gerhardt

Paul Gerhardt

Paul Gerhardt was a German hymn writer.-Biography:Gerhardt was born into a middle-class family at Gräfenhainichen, a small town between Halle and Wittenberg. At the age of fifteen, he entered the Fürstenschule in Grimma. The school was known for its pious atmosphere and stern discipline...

, and others, hoping to find the original texts for the hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

s his people were singing. In this he was mostly successful - the textual reforms he made still remain in hymnals today. He was unsuccessful, though, in restoring the tunes to their original states. The Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

-style tunes employed by the early Reformers had largely been smoothed out, such that the lively syncopations common to music of that era had been replaced by simple, plodding meters. His attempts met with early resistance, and he abandoned the project.

Besides volumes of sermons Harms published a good book on Pastoraltheologie (1830). He resigned his pastorate on account of blindness in 1849, and died on the 1st of February 1855. See Autobiography (2nd ed., Kiel, 1852); Michael Baumgarten

Michael Baumgarten

Michael Baumgarten , German Protestant theologian, was born at Haseldorf in Schleswig-Holstein.He studied at Kiel University , and became professor ordinarius of theology at Rostock . A liberal scholar, he became widely known in 1854 through a work, Die Nachtgesichte Sacharjas...

, Ein Denkmal für C. Harms (Brunswick, 1855).

Quotations

"The Evangelical Catholic is a glorious Church; it holds and conforms itself chiefly to the Sacraments. The Evangelical Reformed is a glorious Church; it holds and conforms itself chiefly to the Word of God. More glorious than both is the Evangelical Lutheran Church; it holds and conforms itself both to the Sacraments and the Word of God. Into this Lutheran Church both the others are developing, even without the intentional aid of men. But the way of the ungodly shall perish, says David (Ps. 1:6)." (the conclusion of Claus Harms' 95 Theses)