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P.O.W. TO THEOLOGIAN Jurgen Moltmann, professor of theology at the University of Tubingen, may well be one of the most influential Protestant theologians in the world today. Lecturing to Army chaplains and German pastors at Augsburg in August 1986, he told his own true story to explain why he was pleased to accept the invitation to address American Army chaplains. He was conscripted into the German Army to fight Americans in World War II and, like many other German soldiers, he soon became a prisoner of war. At this point of his life, he had no particular religious awareness and he recalled that he and his fellow prisoners of war felt that they had been betrayed by Hitler. They were ashamed and filled with despair. An American Army chaplain came into their camp and distributed New Testaments to the prisoners. Moltmann reached into the inside of his coat pocket and pulled out a worn New Testament. “And here is mine,” he said. “It…
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