Candler School of Theology mourns the loss of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Moltmann, who died on June 3, 2024, in Tübingen, Germany, at the age of 98. We are immensely grateful to have been able to count Jürgen as one of our own. From 1983 to 1993, he served as Robert W. Woodruff Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology. Since then, he visited Candler numerous times, often together with his beloved wife, feminist theologian Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel. Jürgen was honored at the school in October 2016 on the occasion of his 90th birthday with a conference entitled “Unfinished Worlds: Jürgen Moltmann at 90.”
Jürgen Moltmann and Steffen Lösel talk during the 2016 Candler Conference “Unfinished Worlds: Moltmann at 90.”
Jürgen was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. Since the publication of his timely Theology of Hope in 1967, he had been a voice that theologians, pastors, priests, lay Christians, and even bishops not only listened to but sought out for guidance. His books are many, and many of them have become classics, not just Theology of Hope, but also The Crucified God (1974), The Trinity and the Kingdom (1981), God in Creation (1985), The Way of Jesus Christ (1990), The Spirit of Life (1992), The Coming of God (1996), and Experiences in Theology (1999). Even in his advanced age, Jürgen kept writing his customary two pages a day – a daunting pace he always recommended to his students. The seven decades of Jürgen’s publications mark nothing short of a theological era.
Jürgen held chairs in theology at the Church Seminary in Wuppertal, the University of Bonn, and finally the University of Tübingen, where he taught since 1967. In Germany, most professors retire at 68. When Jürgen retired as Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1994, he made the world his university. For the last thirty years of his life, Jürgen turned into magister urbi et orbi, a teacher “for the city and the world.”
But he was not only a theologian of great renown. He also was a prophetic voice speaking up time and again to stir up Christians, whenever he felt that they got too self-assured in their life of faith. Jürgen was at the forefront of many important debates in the Christian church: from crafting a Christian theology after Auschwitz to calling for a greening of theology in light of the impending ecological crisis to encouraging liberation theologies all across the globe, from Latin America to Korea.
His concern for the oppressed of the world is perhaps best testified to by a tragic event. In 1989, when government death squads murdered six Jesuit priests and two women in San Salvador, Jürgen’s book, The Crucified God, was found on the floor soaked in the blood of the victims.
A few years ago, Jürgen wrote: “For me, theology is imagination for the Kingdom of God in the world and for the world in the Kingdom of God. As Kingdom of God theology, it is necessarily public theology and participates in the sufferings of this time, formulating the guiding memories and hopes on behalf of one’s contemporaries. Critically and prophetically, Kingdom of God theology interferes in public affairs—in the res publica of a society. Imagination for the Kingdom of God arises from the passion for the Kingdom of God, and this passion develops in the community with its Messiah Jesus” (“The Adventure of Theological Ideas”). There could be no better statement to capture Jürgen’s vocation as a theologian.
For Candler, however, Jürgen was first and foremost a dear friend. He considered Atlanta his American home and ever since his time as a distinguished guest professor here was always eager to come back. Deep and enduring friendships bound him to former Dean James L. Waits and his wife Fentress Boone Waits, his fellow German, Professor Manfred Hoffmann and his wife Betsy Lunz, and his old friend from his student years at the University of Göttingen, Professor Ted Runyon and his wife Cindy Runyon, to name just a few. Every time he and I spoke on the phone, Jürgen asked after each of them, about the rest of the faculty, and whatever was new at the school. He did not tire of reminiscing of his former visits with his Candler friends to Stone Mountain and Atlanta’s steakhouses.
Last but not least, two special friendships must be mentioned. The first one was to Ed Loring, Murphy Davis, and the Open Door Community. Since his first time in Atlanta, Jürgen grew fond of the community house on Ponce de Leon Avenue. Over many decades, he eagerly read their newsletter and always paid a visit when in Atlanta.
Jürgen Moltmann and Kelly Gissendaner following Gissendaner’s graduation from the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Lee Arrendale State Prison in 2011.
The second special bond which I would be amiss not to mention developed late in Jürgen’s life. It was a pen pal friendship to Kelly Gissendaner, an inmate on death row at Lee Arrendale State Prison. Kelly had studied Jürgen’s theology in the Certificate in Theological Studies program at the prison, which Candler established with other theological schools in the Atlanta area. Encouraged by her teachers, Kelly reached out to Jürgen by letter, and the two corresponded about theological questions over the course of years. When it was time for Kelly to graduate from the certificate program, Jürgen came to Georgia to offer the first ever commencement address at Lee Arrendale. At the occasion, he and Kelly met in person for the first time. It was also to be their last personal encounter. Despite great national and international protest, Kelly was executed by the State of Georgia in 2015. Jürgen was heartbroken.
As we bid farewell to a great theologian, a wonderful teacher, and, most of all, a close friend, we are reminded of the conviction expressed in one of Jürgen’s last books, Resurrected to Eternal Life: On Dying and Rising (Fortress Press, 2021), written out of deep personal reckoning with the death of his beloved wife Elisabeth on June 7, 2016: Death is not just an end but also a new beginning.
Even though we are deeply saddened, we rejoice with Jürgen as he enters this, his new beginning.
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Read Moltmann’s obituary on the World Council of Churches website.
Photos: Candler Communications and Emory Photo Video