Schleiermacher

Abstract

Friedrich Schleiermacher is widely acknowledged to be the father of modern liberal Protestant theology and perhaps of modern theology generally. Karl Barth, though vigorously opposed to key aspects of Schleiermacher’s theology, admitted, “The first place in a history of the theology of the most recent times belongs and will always belong to Schleiermacher, and he has no rival.”¹ Keith Clements notes that “Schleiermacher’s ascription of religion to the realm of feeling marked the start of modern Protestantism’s habitual emphasis on the knowledge of God as inward and experiential.”²