Walter Künneth (1 January 1901 in Etzelwang – 26 October 1997 in Erlangen) was a German Protestant theologian. During the Nazi era, he was part of the Confessing Church, and in the 1960s took part in the debate around the demands of Rudolf Bultmann to 'de-mythologize' the New Testament as an advocate of a word-oriented interpretation of the Bible. The Walter Künneth Prize is named after him.
Life
Youth and Training
Walter Künneth was the fourth child of minister Lorenz Künneth and his wife, Setta (born Setta Schlupper). Young Künneth grew up in the second ministry location of his father, at Hersbruck. His mother died shortly after his birth, due to an illness connected with the birth. After attending the humanities Gymnasium in Erlangen (where he was especially shaped by the neo-Lutheran theology of Phillip Bachmann and the faculty), young Künneth studied evangelical Theology in both Erlangen and Tübingen, from Fall 1920 until 1924, with the last two at Tübingen influenced by Karl Heim and Adolf Schlatter. He attained a doctorate under Friedrich Brunstad in Philosophie in 1924, with a work on Richard Rothe's Idea of God. He also joined the Christian student-organization known as Wingolf.
Vocational Developments
During his time in Practical Seminary and a curacy in Munich (which lasted until 1926), he was ordained (2/15/25) and met his wife Mathilde, born Mathilde Ammon. In 1926, Künneth was chosen as a lecturer (Dozent) for the Apologetischen Centrale at the evangelical Johannesstift Berlin-Spandau, a department of the central committee for internal missions, where his student colleagues from Wingolf, Helmut Schreiner and Carl Gunther Schweitzer, already were employed. The concern in apologetics there was both the current Weltanschauung and religious situation of the Weimar Republic and the emerging Third Reich. Through a collection of materials that were marketed, published, and renumerated, the "New Apologetic" would give a reckoning for Christian Faith in speech with the modern World : in short, the first evangelical Work Academy was established. In 1927, Künneth left Berlin for Anbach to sit for a second theological exam, and he attained his Lizentiaten with a work over Kierkegaard's "Sündenbegriff". After his official Habilitation in Berlin in 1930, he held private lectures in Theology and Apologetics. By 1932, he had become the leader of the Apologetischen Centrale. Künneth noted, after a search for an angle of Biblical proof, that the Resurrection did not have an adept monographical work. And so came about the often-reprinted Theology of the Resurrection (1933). With Helmut Schreiner, he also published "The Nation of God", which specifically aimed with missionary intent at their own citizens in Germany. Due to the founding of the Deutsche Kirchen in the course of the year 1933, especially the meeting at the Berlin Sports Palace, the book addressed the themes posed by National Socialism: Führer-headship, obedience-principle, Jewdom, and the Race Question. After the events of '37, the Centrale was closed and Künneth's work was forbidden, Künneth was also banned from either publishing or teaching throughout the entire Reich. In the following year, however, Hans Meiser gave him a ministerial position at Starnberg. In 1944, he was made the deacon of Erlangen. In '46, he became Honorary Professor of Theology in Erlangen. In '53, he assumed Werner Elerts' chair. In his extensive work after this point, he analyzed the matter of State-ethics in The Great Waste (1947) and Politics between God and the Devil (1954).