Jürgen Moltmann was born on 8 April 1926 in Hamburg, Germany. A theologian, he developed a ‘theology of hope’ based on God’s suffering with humanity and the promise of a better future. Drafted by the German Army in 1944, he surrendered and was taken prisoner. Influenced by Christian chaplains, he studied theology and became Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Bremen-Wasserhorst in 1952. After lecturing at the Kirchliche Hochschule, Wuppertal, he joined the University of Bonn in 1963. He retired as Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen in 1994.
Member of the Faith and Order Committee of the World Council of Churches, he was also Visiting Professor at the Candler School of Theology. Moltmann won the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology (1995). Important works include Theology of Hope (1964), The Crucified God (1972), The Church in the Power of the Spirit (1975), Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology (1993), and In the End—The Beginning: The Life of Hope (2004).