Jürgen Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann (born 8 April 1926) is a German Reformed theologian who is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen and is known for his books such as the Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, God in Creation and other contributions to systematic theology.

Jürgen Moltmann is the husband of Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, a notable feminist theologian.

Jürgen Moltmann described his own theology as an extension of Karl Barth's theological works, especially the Church Dogmatics, and he has described his own work as Post-Barthian.

Moltmann was born in Hamburg on 8 April 1926.

He described his German upbringing as thoroughly secular.

His grandfather was a grand master of the Freemasons.

At sixteen, Moltmann idolized Albert Einstein, and anticipated studying mathematics at university.

The physics of relativity were "fascinating secrets open to knowledge"; theology as yet played no role in his life.

He took his entrance exam to proceed with his education but instead went to war as an Air Force auxiliary in the German army.

"The 'iron rations' in the way of reading matter which he took with him into the miseries of war were Goethe's poems and the works of Nietzsche."

He was drafted into military service in 1943 at the age of 16 and became a soldier in the German army.

He worked in an anti-aircraft battery during the RAF bombing of his hometown of Hamburg, 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.

For the next few years (1945–48), he was confined as a prisoner of war and moved from camp to camp.

He was first confined in Belgium.

In the camp at Belgium, the prisoners were given little to do.

Moltmann and his fellow prisoners were tormented by "memories and gnawing thoughts"—Moltmann claimed to have lost all hope and confidence in German culture because of the atrocities at Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

They also glimpsed photographs nailed up confrontationally in their huts, bare photographs of Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Moltmann claimed his remorse was so great, he often felt he would have rather died along with many of his comrades than live to face what their nation had done.

Moltmann met a group of Christians in the camp, and was given a small copy of the New Testament and Psalms by an American chaplain.

He gradually felt more and more identification with and reliance on the Christian faith.

Moltmann later claimed, "I didn't find Christ, he found me."

After Belgium, he was transferred to a POW camp in Kilmarnock, Scotland, where he worked with other Germans to rebuild areas damaged in the bombing.

The hospitality of the Scottish residents toward the prisoners left a great impression upon him.

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 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.

Moltmann immediately went to work in an attempt to express a theology that would reach what he called "the survivors of [his] generation".

Moltmann had hope that the example of the "Confessing Church" during the war would be repeated in new ecclesiastical structures.

He and many others were disappointed to see, instead, a rebuilding on pre-war models in a cultural attempt to forget entirely the recent period of deadly hardship.

In 1947, he and four others were invited to attend the first postwar Student Christian Movement in Swanwick, a conference center near Derby, England.

He has received honorary doctorates from a number of institutions, such as Duke University (1973), the University of Louvain in Belgium (1995), the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania (1996), the Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan (2002), the Nicaraguan Evangelical University (2002), and the University of Pretoria in South Africa (2017).

Moltmann was selected to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures in 1984–85, and was also the recipient of the 2000 University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

Moltmann 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 has labelled a 'theology of hope'.

Much of Moltmann's work has been to develop the implications of these ideas for various areas of theology.

Moltmann has become known for developing a form of social trinitarianism.

His two most famous works are Theology of Hope and The Crucified God.

Moltmann also served as a mentor to Miroslav Volf.