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Jürgen Moltmann

German Reformed theologian (1926–2024)

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Moltmann described his theology as an extension of Karl Barth's theological works, especially the Church Dogmatics, and he described his work as Post-Barthian. He developed a form of liberation theology predicated on the view that God suffers with humanity, while also promising humanity a better future through the hope of the Resurrection, which he labelled a 'theology of hope'. Much of Moltmann's work was to develop the implications of these ideas for various areas of theology. Moltmann became known for developing a form of social trinitarianism. He was awarded several international honorary doctorates.

Life and career

Youth

Moltmann was born in Hamburg on 8 April 1926. His father was a teacher; the family was not religious. His grandfather was a grand master of the Freemasons. As a teenager, Moltmann idolized Albert Einstein, and anticipated studying mathematics at university.

World War II

Moltmann took his entrance exam to proceed with his education but instead was drafted into military service in 1943 at the age of 16, during World War II, serving as an Air Force auxiliary in the German Army. "The reading matter which he took with him into the miseries of war were Goethe's poems and the works of Nietzsche." He worked in an anti-aircraft battery during the bombing of his hometown of Hamburg by the Royal Air Force, an attack that killed 40,000 people, including a friend standing next to him. Ordered to the Klever Reichswald, a German forest at the front lines, he surrendered in 1945 in the dark to the first British soldier he met. From 1945 to 1948, he was confined as a prisoner of war (POW) and moved from camp to camp.

He was first confined as a POW in Belgium, then Scotland, then England. In the camp at Belgium, the prisoners were given little to do. Moltmann and his fellow prisoners were tormented by "memories and gnawing thoughts". They had escaped death but had lost all hope and confidence. After Belgium, Moltmann was transferred to a camp in Kilmarnock, Scotland, where he worked with other Germans to rebuild areas damaged by bombing. The hospitality of the Scottish residents toward the prisoners left a great impression upon him. In Scotland, they also saw photographs, nailed up confrontationally in their huts, of Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. The initial reaction of the prisoners was that these photos were propaganda, but gradually they began to see themselves through the eyes of the Nazis' victims. Moltmann was given a small copy of the New Testament and Psalms by an American chaplain and reading these gave him a new hope, as he recorded in his autobiography:

I read Mark's Gospel as a whole and came to the story of the passion: when I heard Jesus' death cry, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' I felt growing within me the conviction: this is someone who understands you completely, who is with you in your cry to God and has felt the same forsakenness you are living in now.

In July 1946, he was transferred for the last time to Norton Camp, a British prison located in the village of Cuckney near Nottingham, UK. The camp was operated by the YMCA and here Moltmann met many students of theology. At Norton Camp, he discovered Reinhold Niebuhr's The Nature and Destiny of Man. It was the first book of theology he had ever read, and Moltmann claimed it had a huge impact on his life. His experience as a POW gave him a great understanding of how suffering and hope reinforce each other, leaving a lasting impression on his theology. Moltmann later claimed, "I never decided for Christ, as is often demanded of us, but I am sure that, then and there, in the dark pit of my soul, he found me."

After the war

Moltmann returned home at 22 years of age to find his hometown of Hamburg (in fact, much of his country) in ruins from Allied bombing in World War II. In 1947, he and four others were invited to attend the first postwar Student Christian Movement in Swanwick, a conference center near Derby, England. The conference affected him deeply. Moltmann returned to Germany to study at the University of Göttingen, an institution whose professors were followers of Karl Barth and theologians who were engaged with the Confessing Church in Germany. He received his doctorate, supervised by Otto Weber, in 1952. From 1952 to 1957, Moltmann was the pastor in Bremen-Wasserhorst, and also pastor for students. In 1958 Moltmann became a theology teacher at the Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal that was operated by the Confessing Church and in 1963 he joined the theological faculty at the University of Bonn. He was appointed Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 1994. From 1963 to 1983, Moltmann was a member of the Faith and Order Committee of the World Council of Churches. From 1983 to 1993, Moltmann was the Robert W. Woodruff Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1984–1985.

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