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the richest modern theology of reconciliation came, not coincidentally, from the best theologian of religious socialism, Paul Tillich. He was deeply rooted in Hegel and Friedrich Schelling, and kept himself from relying overmuch on them by using Marx and Kierkegaard as brakes. The result was the richest theological system of the twentieth century, construing neo-Hegelian reconciliation as the answer to a universal problem: estrangement. Marx and Kierkegaard were correctives to Hegel on opposite sides, reminding Tillich not to subordinate class status or subjectivity to a theory. Knowledge is peculiar to the situation of the knower. But Tillich was like Hegel in employing multidimensional concepts and striving for reconciliation, unlike Marx and Kierkegaard.
When Tillich took his theological training at Halle at the turn of the twentieth century, the Ritschlian school dominated modern theology (more on this below). Modern theology began in the mid-eighteenth century with the German founders of biblical criticism. Until the modern era, every Christian theology operated within a house of authority. The external authority of the Bible and Christian tradition established what had to be believed about very specific things. Modern theology, also called liberal theology, broke away from authority-based religious thinking. The German founders of modern theology—Johann S. Semler, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Johann Jakob Griesbach, and Johann David Michaelis—surpassed the stodgy rationalism of the Early Enlightenment by deconstructing the biblical text. They called themselves "neologians" or liberal theologians, affirming their right to intellectual freedom, until Immanuel Kant came on the scene in the 1780s, after which the neologians called themselves Kantians. The first school of liberal theology taught, in Kant's fashion, that religion is true and important as the home of moral faith, and is false and distracting as anything else.
A second major school of modern theology adopted Friedrich Schleiermacher's critique of Kant and understanding of religion. Here it was said that Kantian theory is mostly correct, but Kantian religion is superficial, because the wellspring of every religion is religious feeling, not morality. Morality is about moral control, but religion is about awe, mystery, and the infinite. All religions construe the whence of human existence and dependence; Christianity is about the experience of redemption in Jesus Christ. Christian theology, rightly understood, is an interpretation of the Christian community's experience...