Paul Tillich

Nationality

Germany

Date of Birth

1886

Date of Death

1965

Political
Preference

Paul Tillich was born in the German village of Starzeddel (now Starosiedle, Poland). He was the son of a conservative Lutheran pastor of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia’s older provinces and a more liberal mother. In 1911, Tillich finished his PhD at the University of Breslau and a year later, he got his Licentiate of Theology degree at Halle-Wittenberg in 1912. Tillich was a Privatdocent of Theology at the University from 1919 to 1924. From 1924, he was a Professor of Theology at the University of Marburg (1924-1925), Dresden University of Technology (1925-1929), University of Leipzig (1925-1929) and the University of Frankfurt (1929-1933). During the 1930s, came into conflict with the Nazi party due to his public lectures and speeches throughout Germany. When the Nazi party rose to power in 1933, Tillich was dismissed from his position as a professor. Through Reinhold Niebuhr, Tillich got a position within the faculty at New York City’s Union Theological Seminary. He would stay at this university until 1955, when he became a professor at Harvard University. In 1963, he became a professor at the university of Chicago, which he remained until his death in 1965.
In the 1930s, Tillich was involved in the Fellowship of Socialist Christians, organized by, among others, Reinhold Niebuhr. The organization later changed in name to Frontier Fellowship and then to Christian Action. During the war, Tillich was invited by the Commission for a Just and Durable Peace to become part of a group of European exiles, both academics and politicians and diplomats, to discuss the future of the post-war world, in particular of Europe.

In the early 1950s, Tillich published the first volume of Systematic Theology and Courage to Be, which made Tillich known in academia. In 1961, Tillich was one of the founding members of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture.