A. James Reimer

Allen James Reimer ( born August 10, 1942 † 28 August 2010) was a Canadian Mennonite theologian who until his retirement in 2008 as professor at Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo and the Toronto School of Theology of the University of Toronto had.

Reimer grew up in a small town on the south-western Manitoba. He made a theological bachelor's degree at the Canadian Mennonite University and at the University of Manitoba. Later he studied theology and history at the University of Toronto. In his dissertation Reimer compared the two German theologian Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Tillich concerning the political implications of their differing theological approaches.

In his theology Reimer took more classic Trinitarian positions and differs so much from the other positions Mennonite theologians who focus more like John Howard Yoder on aspects of the Sermon on the Mount. Nevertheless, the Christian social ethics also takes in Reimers theology a broad space. As Yoder 's pacifist Reimer. In the course of his dissertation, he took strong distance from the theological views Emanuel Hirsch, who during the Nazi dictatorship openly supported Hitler as a representative of the German Christians and.

Reimer was also politically active and was for several years an active member of the social democratic New Democratic Party. A. James Reimer can be considered as representative of the Christian Left.

Reimer has written a number of essays and articles, among others, in the books Mennonites and Classical Theology and Paul Tillich: Theologian of Nature, Culture and Politics were summarized. In addition to his work on Paul Tillich and Emanuel Hirsch Reimer sat apart with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the role of churches in the Nazi era, the critical theory, the history of the Anabaptist movement and ethical issues.

Works (selection)

• Werner Schuessler, A. James Reimer (eds.): The prayer as a fundamental act of faith, philosophical- theological reflections on prayer understanding of Paul Tillich, Münster 2004.
• A. James Reimer: Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Tillich. Theology and politics in a time of crisis, Berlin 1995.