Wednesday, June 3, 2026

It is the 3rd of June 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

It was two years ago today that the alert flashed on my screen- Jurgen Moltmann, dead at 98. I tucked this day away, waiting to tell the story that so many would tell in those ensuing days.

 

The NY Times, which made him something of an ecclesiastical celebrity in the 1960s, printed an obituary that called him “the theologian who confronted Auschwitz,” and numerous periodicals feted the theologian as a man who found God in a P.O.W. camp during World War II and confronted the Death of God movement (a movement that ironically, died before their proclaimed demise of God). Even Christianity Today, which in the 1960s published something of a scathing review of him, had an article written by a friend of 1517 and a former doctoral student of Moltmann, Paul Zahl, in which Dr. Zahl wrote, “I can think of almost no weaknesses in Moltmann’s character and soul, if I can put it that way. He loved those whom he was given to love with wholehearted enthusiasm.”

 

Jürgen Moltmann was born in Hamburg in 1926. His parents raised him in rural simplicity and a general atheism. As a boy, as was custom, he joined the Hitler Youth. During World War II, he barely survived the bombing of Hamburg as he was serving on anti-aircraft guns. In his distress, he recalled not asking “who” was God, but rather “where” was God. He served in the Wehrmacht in 1944 and was taken as a prisoner of War in Scotland, where he was given a Bible and began to read it voraciously. He wrote later that here he “began to understand the assailed Christ... who takes the prisoners with him on his way to resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope.”

 

After release, he went home to Germany and began to study theology. He would be ordained and receive his PhD by 1952, and serve as a pastor. While he admitted he was not cut out for pastoral work, it reinforced that his theology must be practical. This, and his theology had to make space for both the shame of Germany’s wartime sins and the horror of the holocaust.

 

In 1963, he became a professor at Bonn and in the following year published his groundbreaking work “Theology of Hope,” which was translated into English by 1967 and made him an up-and-coming star. He was featured on the front page of the New York Times as an antidote to the pessimism of Modern theology as espoused in the Death of God and adjacent movements. The front page read article read ““God Is Dead Doctrine Losing Ground to ‘Theology of Hope”.

 

His contention, as he later explained it, was that “God is with those who suffer violence and injustice and he is on their side…He is not the general director of the theater; he is in the play.” This “realized eschatology” or the ultimate victory of God in the present was also fleshed out with his “The Crucified God,” published in 1972- this was in part his answer to those who wanted the Hope placed in God’s concrete actions in Christ. He would write, “The godforsaken Son of God stands shoulder to shoulder with all those who feel godforsaken”. In 1975, he completed the “trilogy” with “The Church in the Power of the Spirit”.

 

Throughout his career, he spoke internationally and worked with the World Council of Churches (interestingly, he helped to convince them to use the unaltered Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed- without the “and the son” clause to bridge eastern and western churches).

 

In 1952, he married Elizabeth Wendel, also a student and theologian in her own right. They would write books together and have 4 children. After her death in 2016, he wrote Resurrected to Eternal Life: On Dying and Rising- a theological and personal reflection on death. For his 97th birthday, he reflected, “Every morning I am amazed that I am still here. ... To die means to let go. I am preparing myself for this. To die means to give one’s life over to God. I am preparing myself for that, too. The raising to eternal life is my hope in life and in death.” And he was. On this day in 2024, Jurgen Moltmann, the theologian of hope, received his final reward. Born in 1926, he was 98 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and even more spirit talk- it has us in John 14, verses 25 and 26:

25 “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 3rd of June 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who is a fan of the Cubs, who are kinda bad, but in a fun and lovable sort of way- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who was at the Angels game last night- perhaps you saw me, crying into my helmet nachos… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.