Christoph Hoffmann
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Christoph Hoffmann was born on 2 December 1815 in Leonberg in the state of Württemberg, Germany. He had a Pietist-Christian background and studied theology in Tübingen. An opponent of the much better known theologian David Friedrich Strauss, Hoffmann was elected to the First National German Parliament, which met in Frankfurt in 1848.
The failure of his efforts to create a better Christian State through politics caused him to return to the roots of Christianity as expressed by Jesus. He became convinced that Jesus had called for a radical change of attitude in people. The better state of being after such a change of attitude he saw as the Kingdom of God which was to be established.
Hoffmann dedicated his life to collecting people striving for such a "kingdom" and setting up communities in which their striving would express itself in daily life. Initially (1854) known as the Friends of Jerusalem, the group in June 1861 formed itself into an independent Christian religious organisation known as Deutscher Tempel, its members identified themselves as Templers. In 1868 the Templers started to create settlements in Palestine. Hoffmann died in the Templer settlement in Jerusalem on 8 December 1885.
Hoffmann's literary output focusses on his vision of a New Jerusalem, a community based Kingdom of God that would eventually spread over all the nations:
- He initiated publication of the religious sentinel Die Süd Deutsche Warte in 1845, which later became Die Warte des Tempels and under that name is still, 161 years later, pubslished today as the official voice of the Temple Society
- In Occident and Orient, Part 1, 2 and 3 first published in 1875, he produced a blueprint for community based social conditions leading towards a kingdom of God in the Middle East
- Mein Weg nach Jerusalem came out in 1884 and can be seen as an autobiography of his struggle to bring his vision to reality.
- with five Sendschreiben produced over the years Hoffmann tried to face some of the religious and social difficulties arising at the time.
