1889-1965
Theologian

Religion and Culture.

Along with Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich was the most influential Protestant theologian in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century. Tillich was adept at linking religion with all aspects of culture, including science, art, philosophy, psychology, and ethics.

Integrating Modernism.

Born in Starzeddel, Germany, in 1886, Tillich was the son of a Lutheran pastor who instilled in him what he recalled as a "heightened consciousness of duty and sin." By age twenty-four Tillich had received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Breslau. Drawn to the Romantic philosophy of Friedrich Schelling, Tillich was also preoccupied with resolving the challenges modern philosophy and science presented to traditional Protestantism. Under the influence of one of his teachers, Martin Kahler, he sought to integrate modernism into Protestant theology without compromising the distinctive message of Christianity, which he interpreted as being a...