Jürgen Moltmann: Theodicy, Hope, and the Crucified ~ Rudolf J. Siebert

Jürgen Moltmann was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1926, to an irreligious family. As a youngster, Moltmann adored Albert Einstein, and looked to study mathematics at university. However, in 1943, at the age of 16, he was drafted into the German military, wherein he served in an anti-battery unit defending his hometown of Hamburg from British bombing. Later, he was reassigned to the Klever Reichswald - an imperial forest in North Rhine-Westphalia, near the Dutch border - wherein 1945 he would surrender to British forces. From 1945 to 1948, he was a prisoner of war in Belgium, Scotland, and England.
As a POW, he was assigned to Kilmarnock, Scotland, to help rebuild what was destroyed in the war. It was there that he was first confronted by the horror of the Holocaust, as pictures of concentration camps were deliberately nailed to the POW’s domiciles. Moltmann reacted to those pictures, understanding that he was part of the machine that created such horror and terror. Subsequently, he was given a New Testament and Psalms by an American chaplain. In reading the book of Matthew, he found Jesus on the Cross exclaiming, Eli Eli, lama sabachtani (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). Somehow, he found Jesus’ lamentation comforting in his own time of suffering and tribulation.
In 1946, at Camp Norton in Cuckney, UK, he discovered Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, The Nature of Destiny of Man, which he said changed his life forever. His post-war experiences - especially in relation to the horror and terror he experienced within the war - led him to study theology at the University of Göttingen, associated with the Confessing Church in Germany. Upon receiving his doctorate in 1952, he served as a pastor for students and theology lecturer. In 1963, he joined the theology faculty at the University of Bonn in West Germany, and in 1967 he became a professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen, where he remained until his retirement in 1994. After retirement, he continued to write, lectures, and serve in a wide variety of capacities in religious communities and organizations. On June 3, 2024, he died, leaving behind his four children, whose mother, Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel (a notable feminist theologian), had passed away already in 2016.
Moltmann was the author of numerous books, including his most influential trinity of books: The Theology of Hope (1964), The Crucified God (1972), and The Church in the Power of the Spirit (1975). These books had a lasting effect on Reformed theology, but also influenced Catholic and Orthodox approaches to modern theology. More than anything else, his theology is anticipatory - it expresses a deep-seated longing for the Kingdom of God, an end to suffering, misery, and the horror and terror of nature and history. It is a “liberation theology” that is truly theological, as opposed to a political philosophy camouflaged by theological concepts. Nevertheless, his theology had political and social implications, which he often talked about in his numerous public speeches.
To talk to us today about Jürgen Moltmann is Dr. Rudolf J. Siebert, whose early life and career parallels much of Moltmann’s: both lived in the Third Reich; both were drafted into the Germany military during WWII; both defended their cities during the saturation bombings; both were later captured and interned as POWs; both were later returned to Germany and studied theology, and both became professors within the realm of religious studies. Dr. Siebert is Professor Emeritus of Religion and Society at Western Michigan University, where he taught for 54 years, beginning in 1965. He is the author of over 30 books, hundreds of articles, the founder and director of the Institute for Future Studies at WMU, the founder and director of two international conferences in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Yalta, Ukraine.
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