Boyle Lecture 2011
TUesday 8th February 2011 at 6.00pm
at ST Mary-le-Bow
lecturer: professor Jürgen Moltmann
Born in 1926, Professor Moltmann is a German theologian and Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
He is most noted as a proponent of the 'theology of hope' and for his incorporation of insights from liberation theology and ecology into mainstream trinitarian theology.
In 1944 Moltmann's secular education was interrupted when he was drafted by the German army. He was sent to the front lines in the Belgian forest where, in 1945, he surrendered to the first British soldier he met. For the next few years (1945-47) he was confined as a prisoner of war and moved from camp to camp. His experience as a POW had a powerful impact on his life, as it was in the camps that he had time to reflect upon the devastating nature of the Second World War, developing a great sense of remorse. It was also in the camps that Moltmann met Christian chaplains, was given the New Testament and Psalms to read, and had his first introduction to Christian theology. He gradually felt more and more identification with and reliance on the Christian faith. Moltmann later claimed, 'I didn't find Christ, he found me.'
In July of 1946, he was transferred for the last time to Northern Camp, a British prison located near Nottingham, UK. The camp was operated by the YMCA and here Moltmann met many students of theology. At Northern Camp, he discovered Reinhold Niebuhr's Nature and Destiny of Man - it was the first book of theology he had ever read, and Moltmann claimed it had a huge impact on his life. In 1947, he and a group of other POWs attended the first postwar Student Christian Movement in Swanwick, a conference centre near Derby. What happened there affected him very deeply. Moltmann returned to Germany in 1948 at the age of 22 to pursue theological training. He received his doctorate from the University of Gottingen, under the direction of Otto Weber in 1952. From 1952 to 1957 Moltmann was the pastor of the Evangelical Church of Bremen-Wasserhorst. As a prisoner of war in a British camp during World War II, Moltmann observed that his fellow prisoners who had hope fared the best.
After the war, it seemed to him that Christianity was ignoring the hope offered in its promise of a future life. Moltmann is known as one of the leading proponents of the theology of hope. He believes that God's promise to act in the future is more important than the fact that he has acted in the past. What is implied by this focus on the future, however, is not withdrawal from the world in the hope that a better world will somehow evolve, but active participation in the world in order to aid in the coming of that better world.
The most influential work by Moltmann is his Theology of Hope, published in English in 1967. Moltmann proposes that Christian hope should be the central motivating factor in the life and thought of the Church and of each Christian. For Moltmann, the whole creation longs for the renewal by the 'God of Hope'. Empowered by hope, the Christian's response should therefore involve: mission of the Church to all nations, the hunger for righteousness in the world, and love for the true life of the imperiled and impaired creation.
Although Moltmann is perhaps most conspicuous, he is not the only theologian of hope. His theology is in concert with that of Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, in whose essay 'Dogmatic Theses on the Doctrine of Revelation' is found a similar emphasis on understanding of all reality in terms of the eschaton.
responder: professor Alan Torrance
Professor Torrance was born in 1956 and is Professor of Systematic Theology at St Mary's College of the University of St Andrews. He lectured at King's College London from 1993 to 1998, where he was also Director of the Research Institute in Systematic Theology. He previously lectured at Knox Theological Hall and the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
He is part of the Torrance family of Scottish Theologians. His uncle was Thomas F. Torrance, former Professor of Systematic Theology at New College, Edinburgh, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1976. His father, J.B. Torrance, was professor at Aberdeen and wrote the influential Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace. His cousin is Iain Torrance, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, and another former Moderator of the General Assembly. His cousin Iain's uncle, Ronald Wallace, was Professor of Biblical Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Alan Torrance's teaching interests are primarily in the areas of philosophical and systematic theology, theological anthropology, the person and work of Christ, and theological ethics. He researches actively in the fields of Christology, the social implications of the doctrine of reconciliation, theological epistemology and theories of time. In July 2007 he and Professor Eric Priest FRS were awarded £65,300 by the Templeton Foundation to promote a major series of lectures on science and religion in St Andrews.
The 2011 Boyle Lecture will take place on the 8th February at 6.00pm at St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside EC2.
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