Jürgen Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann (born April 8, 1926) is a Christian theologian.

Returning Home

Moltmann returned home at 22 years of age to find his hometown of Hamburg (in fact, his entire 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 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.

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In 1947, he and four others were invited to attend the first postwar Student Christian Movement in Swanwick, a conference center near Derby. What happened there affected him very 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.

Related Topics:
Derby - University of Göttingen - Karl Barth

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Since his studies at Göttingen ended, Moltmann has continued to speak and write concerning his views of theology.

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