1914–1965

Paul Tillich and the "method of correlation"

Paul Tillich's theology was shaped by his experience as a military chaplain at the front in the First World War and by his subsequent attraction to religious socialism in Germany. In 1933 the Nazis burned his book, and he emigrated to the United States. There, with the support of Reinhold Niebuhr, he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and then at Harvard and Chicago.

His chief works were the three-volume Systematic Theology (1951, 1957, 1963) and The Courage to Be (1952), which made him known to the general public. Later this book became a point of support for "death of God" theology. Tillich died in 1965; by common assessment he remained a "theologian of culture" who did not create a lasting school.