Identificación De Las Alternativas De Localización

He thoroughly enjoyed talking with people about practically everything. His range of interests was limitless.

Tillich's admission that he did not read very much was a state­

ment that is surprising. He said that he felt " . . . like a barbarian

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because I never read." There could be little doubt that he had read

the most important books of Western culture and that he had assimilated their basic ideas. He had mastered the classics, but apparently he had not read much contemporary literature.

His diary revealed such human qualities as enjoying dancing with

the attractive girls aboard ship. He commented candidly upon the appear­

ance of the women he would meet and about his drinking with them. He appreciated his wine and would not overlook an opportunity to tell his

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wife about what he was drinking and whether he had a "hangover" the t?

4X next day. For example, he commented upon an English vicar and himself

drinking two bottles of wine while they talked in the parsonage until $

midnight.

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In each country he visited the art galleries and museums whenever

there was an opportunity to do so. And he attended concerts. He com­

mented upon everything he saw in passing, from prostitutes (in several major cities) to the observation that "St. Giles Cathedral has a steeple

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shaped like the Scottish crown. Inside, the usual Puritan devastations."

He described the landscape of Scotland and his feelings when he saw the

North Sea. It brought back strong memories of happier days in Germany.

He still enjoyed taking bicycle rides, playing chess, hiking in the mountains, and swimming.

His diary also made it clear that ha enjoyed going to bohemian

places. This had been true since his student days in Berlin. He would

describe the people that he would see there. In addition, he would relate his effect upon those who had come to hear him lecture, and he would speak about the quality of the discussion that would follow his presentation. And on every opportunity, he would talk politics and religion with whomever he encountered.

While he was in Paris his interest ranged, in a day's activity, from visiting the Louvre to attending a cabaret with a floor show fea-

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turing nude girls. He told of visiting houses of prostitution with

friends who found the human nature interesting there. He was fascinated

by prostitutes. Wherever he had been, for instance, he had eagerly

sought out the location of the "red-light" districts in that city, and

he would then take his wife to see where they were. According to Hannah,

Paulus had never engaged in sexual activities with whores, but he did.

... , 3 ... .... . i_... . ... ... ... .... . ... ...y ... ... ..y ...AT;

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on one occasion, take his wife to a brothel in Paris where they sat J

and talked,

A curious contradiction could be seen in that ha greatly disliked dirty or sexual jokes, but he enjoyed pornography.*^ In addition to pornographic books and magazines, his wife found a pornographic letter

under his blotter on his desk. In moments of bitterness she was tempted

to place it between the pages of his life's work so that all the world could see " . . . the obscene signs of the real life that he had trans­ formed into the gold of abstraction— King Midas of the spirit."*^ There were times when she considered getting a divorce, but Tillich did not want one and together with mutual friends he would talk her out of it.

Although he would visit historic cathedrals and churches when ha traveled, Tillich would not seek out a congregation with whom to worship on Sunday. However, even when he was not traveling he did not take an

active interest in a local church. This was true when he lived in New

York. The reasons for this would be speculative. But in his book. Theology of Culture, he said;

While in Continental Europe the theological faculties were the leaders of the Protestant churches, in American Protestantism the real power was in the hands of the presbytery or the corresponding bodies. Theology is not dismissed, but it is reduced to a secondary role in American Protestantism— a lesson we had to learn.44

This awareness contributed to his lack of local church involvement.

Still, he was affiliated with an American denomination, the United Church

of Christ. And he frequently would be asked to preach on Sunday in

churches of many denominations.

A serious theologian, reserved in appearance, Tillich was also a person who would reveal his emotions in public. On his fiftieth birthday his friends surprised him with a party of cake, flowers, and singing that

45

caused him to "bawl without restraint."

TilXlch attend chapel every morning, as did everyone else, and Tillich 46

supposedly answered in jest, "But that is before midnight," It was

He had been a prolific writer and had written three books and

numerous articles before leaving Germany, In America his books were

translated into English. These were: The Religious Situation. The

Interpretation of History, and The Protestant Era. What was significant was that Tillich wrote out of a demand for his thinking about a certain

topic. A lecture frequently related to the historic situation of tha

time. These early books were collections of his essaye and lectures.

His writing of articles in America continued in considerable

abundance, as an annotated bibliography would indicate. Suffice it to |

be said, that in spite of the language barrier, his ideas were being recognized for their breadth and depth of analysis and were becoming

increasingly popular. In 1940 Yale University honored him with a Doctor

of Divinity degree.

During the decades of the 1940s and the 1950s his teaching and

writing attracted tha attention of a wider audience. In addition to his

work in the United States, he lectured at German universities, Marburg in

1948 and the Free University of Berlin in 1951. At Nottingham, England, ha delivered the Firth Lectures; they were published as Love. Power, and Justice.

His working habits would be of interest to us. He was a night

person and found it difficult to start his day early. It was his custom

to sleep late, and he would complete only an hour or two of working time

before lunch. He usually had classes in the afternoon. His most produc­

tive hours were from ten at night until one or two in the morning, and he prized highly these hours that he had alone. His wife related the story that the president of Union Theological Seminary had suggested that

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wall known that ha was jealous of his solitude and that he often got

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his best ideas while he was walking by the ocean or in the mountains. In spits of his heavy German accent, Tillich was a popular lec­

turer. He had the capacity to convey the impression that what he was

discussing really mattered, and each person listening had the feeling that he was talking to him. "'Sometimes I think it is ray mission to

4S bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.* he wrote." His lectures communicated this.

In 1951 the first volume of his Systematic Theology was one of

the significant theological publishing events of the year. This was

the first stags of his three volume work. He said that he had started

to work on it in 1925, so it was slow in coming to fruition, but his central ideas had not changed much in the little more than a quarter of

a century that his Systematic Theology had been in the making. The

favorite concepts that he had bean advocating in his own unique system #

were presented with a careful coherence.

Tillich's career continued at Union Theological Seminary until

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1955, when he retired at the age of sixty-nine, only to become University ffi

I

Professor at Harvard University. Tillich was praised for being a mature human being with a rare combination of a stimulating mind and a charis­ matic personality.

Rollo May tempered this praise by saying; "I used to say to him

this, because he surely must have known acceptance experientially* His

inability to cope with tha demonic in his life contributed to his living

It that, while his mind had developed magnificently, his emotions had been

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left behind at the twelve-year-old level." Tillich was a troubled man

who could say, "I have produced the phrase, 'You are accepted.' But I

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