“My God, where are you?”
With these few words, a career in theology began for a seventeen-year-old German soldier named Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann recounts these words as the first time he ever spoke to God.
Not particularly religious by upbringing, Moltmann found himself reeling from the experience of “barely surviving” the Allied air raid on Hamburg in July 1943. Called “Operation Gomorrah,” this military action created a firebombing that killed 40,000 people. Moltmann was astonished to have lived through the night, even though a person standing next to him was killed instantly during the air raid. He found himself calling to God and wrestling with why he lived, and others did not. “My God, where are you?”
Two years later, Moltmann was in Scotland at an Allied forces POW camp. The war was ending, and the POWs were shown films of the concentration camps being discovered by Allied forces. Like many German POWs, Moltmann was left cold and disillusioned as he sat in the camp and reflected on the state of things. Then one day, a chaplain gave a Bible to Moltmann, who had never read it until that time in his life.
In the midst of his readings, Moltmann found himself drawn to the death cry of Jesus upon the cross: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Moltmann reflects that in this text:
“I knew with certainty: this is someone who understands you…this was the divine brother in distress, who takes the prisoners with him on the way to resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope…This early fellowship with Jesus, the brother in suffering and the redeemer from guilt, has never left me since.” (1)
Elsewhere, he reflects:
“My experiences of death at the end of the war, the depression into which the guilt of my people plunged me, and the inner perils of utter resignation behind barbed wire: these were the places where my theology was born. They were my first locus theologicus, and at the deepest depths of my soul they have remained so.” (2)
Moltmann spent the rest of life in service to Christian theology, becoming a major influence through his writings from the mid-20th century well into our day. When he died on June 3, 2024, at the age of ninety-eight, he left a legacy of theological reflection and teaching through his lectures and writings that we will continue to read and ponder for years to come.
Through his career, Jürgen Moltmann offered an approach to theology, and, in turn, a glimpse of what life along “the way of Jesus Christ” looks like by his openness to engage unflinchingly with the margins of the world, especially those corners where persons are largely neglected by others who are in power (but really subservient to systems of success, overconsumption, and aggrandizement that drive our world, including this very nation we call our own).
In Moltmann’s writings (and indeed, paralleled in the work of other theologians writing in other global contexts), we discover a follower of Jesus who reminds us that the Godforsaken moment of Christ upon the cross repeats throughout the unfolding of history and indeed, in our own day. The followers of Jesus, however, are not to seek out ways to flee the pain but learn how to stand during the suffering and the often-systemic issues that create that suffering, and resolutely enter the fray.
To read the entire article, click here
Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash
“My God, where are you?”
With these few words, a career in theology began for a seventeen-year-old German soldier named Jürgen Moltmann. Moltmann recounts these words as the first time he ever spoke to God.
Not particularly religious by upbringing, Moltmann found himself reeling from the experience of “barely surviving” the Allied air raid on Hamburg in July 1943. Called “Operation Gomorrah,” this military action created a firebombing that killed 40,000 people. Moltmann was astonished to have lived through the night, even though a person standing next to him was killed instantly during the air raid. He found himself calling to God and wrestling with why he lived, and others did not. “My God, where are you?”
Two years later, Moltmann was in Scotland at an Allied forces POW camp. The war was ending, and the POWs were shown films of the concentration camps being discovered by Allied forces. Like many German POWs, Moltmann was left cold and disillusioned as he sat in the camp and reflected on the state of things. Then one day, a chaplain gave a Bible to Moltmann, who had never read it until that time in his life.
In the midst of his readings, Moltmann found himself drawn to the death cry of Jesus upon the cross: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Moltmann reflects that in this text:
“I knew with certainty: this is someone who understands you…this was the divine brother in distress, who takes the prisoners with him on the way to resurrection. I began to summon up the courage to live again, seized by a great hope…This early fellowship with Jesus, the brother in suffering and the redeemer from guilt, has never left me since.” (1)
Elsewhere, he reflects:
“My experiences of death at the end of the war, the depression into which the guilt of my people plunged me, and the inner perils of utter resignation behind barbed wire: these were the places where my theology was born. They were my first locus theologicus, and at the deepest depths of my soul they have remained so.” (2)
Moltmann spent the rest of life in service to Christian theology, becoming a major influence through his writings from the mid-20th century well into our day. When he died on June 3, 2024, at the age of ninety-eight, he left a legacy of theological reflection and teaching through his lectures and writings that we will continue to read and ponder for years to come.
Through his career, Jürgen Moltmann offered an approach to theology, and, in turn, a glimpse of what life along “the way of Jesus Christ” looks like by his openness to engage unflinchingly with the margins of the world, especially those corners where persons are largely neglected by others who are in power (but really subservient to systems of success, overconsumption, and aggrandizement that drive our world, including this very nation we call our own).
In Moltmann’s writings (and indeed, paralleled in the work of other theologians writing in other global contexts), we discover a follower of Jesus who reminds us that the Godforsaken moment of Christ upon the cross repeats throughout the unfolding of history and indeed, in our own day. The followers of Jesus, however, are not to seek out ways to flee the pain but learn how to stand during the suffering and the often-systemic issues that create that suffering, and resolutely enter the fray.
To read the entire article, click here
Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash