Last week the death was announced of Jürgen Moltmann, the great German theologian, at the age of 98. Moltmann was not a well-known writer, certainly not a household name, but he was one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century and left his mark on several generations of clergy, in the Church of England and elsewhere, including me. So why was he important?
When I studied theology at Oxford in the late 70s, the prevailing academic tone was set by theologians who rejoiced to distance themselves from the orthodox beliefs held by most Christians. This scepticism led to a book published in my first year entitled ‘The Myth of God Incarnate’, featuring essays from Oxbridge theologians (and others) showing how the language of the creeds about the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus), the resurrection and other beliefs was mythological and could not be taken literally (or even seriously). They based this on linguistic, philosophical and historical arguments, with no reference to the actual world in which people lived. This collection outraged more conservative Christians, leading to a counter-blast by the Rector of the church I occasionally attended, Michael Green, who assembled an another group to write ‘The Truth of God Incarnate.’ This, to me, was more intellectually convincing, but it still lacked the rootedness in the real world life lived by most people, especially in the politically tumultuous era of the 1970s.
IN the same year I came across ‘The Crucified God’ by Jürgen Moltmann, an academic whose theological thinking clearly emerged not just from study but from the lived experience of the many people in the world who experienced suffering in their day to day life. In particular he posed the question of how people can talk of God at all after the Holocaust where so many of the prayers of Jewish people went unanswered. His belief that God was suffering on the cross and continues to suffer in all people, leading us beyond it through the resurrection, unlocked for me the mystery of the Atonement in a way that no other interpretation has ever done.
It was not however until I met him 20 years later at a clergy conference that I understood the source of his theology and was struck by the true humility and depth of the man. As an eminent Professor he was obviously the keynote speaker, yet it was a short meditation following Morning Prayer that most impressed me. At the time I was suffering from a crippling shoulder pain, but during his inspiring talk the pain seemed to lift. He spoke of his coming to faith as a German prisoner of war in Scotland following the war, where he was welcomed, along with his fellow Germans, by the local people. The army chaplain had given him a Bible and he spoke of reading Jesus’ cry in Mark’s Gospel: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He continued: ‘I knew with certainty: this is someone who understands you. I began to understand the assailed Christ because I felt he understood me: this was the divine brother in distress, who takes the prisoners with him on the way to the resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope.’
At breakfast I managed to get a few words with him, where I thanked him for his words and his books which had showed me how to preach from my own and other people’s experience, as well as on political themes, an approach which I adopted even before my ordination and which has never left me. I also shared with him my own experience of acceptance by a German family- in 1974 not 1947- when, aged 16, I spent 3 months in Darmstadt as part of my schooling. The father of the family told me ‘Hugh, we are not Germans but Europeans’ and one of his sons became a Lutheran pastor and continues to correspond with me.
This mixture of friendship, shared experience and shared faith in the ‘divine brother in distress, who takes prisoners with him on his way to the resurrection’ , has continued to motivate me thoughout my life and ministry and into retirement.
Thank you Professor Moltmann for showing me the way.
Hugh's Views 