German Theologian Wins $200,000 Prize

German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, whose vast academic output has been a major influence on a generation of European, North American and Latin American theologians, has won a $200,000 prize: the 2000 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

The award, given by the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary and the University of Louisville, recognizes outstanding and creative works that promote understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine.

Moltmann was cited for his recent book “The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology” (Fortress Press), which looks to the biblical “end times” with optimism rather than dread. The book argues that traditional ideas of the last days that stress God’s wrath and judgment are dysfunctional and even dangerous. He argues for a renewed eschatology anchored in hope, informed by Jewish and messianic thought and oriented toward the coming reign of God.

A professor emeritus of systematic theology at the University of Tubingen in Germany, Moltmann has been one of the most influential Christian theologians since his groundbreaking 1967 book “Theology of Hope.”