SCHLATTER, ADOLF. - Protestant theologian, one of the most influential in recent times, notable for his manner of reconciling criticism with faith. Born on 16 August 1852 in St. Gallen (Switzerland), died on 19 May 1938 in Tübingen.
His education was influenced by his pietist father, a minister of the Baptist sect, and by his mother, who remained in the Swiss Reformed Church, in which he was baptized. He studied at the Universities of Basel and Tübingen and adopted a "realistic" theology that adheres to the central message of the New Testament and judges all things according to love for Jesus. He served as a parish priest in Zurich and in Kesswil-Uttwil, on Lake Constance, among colleagues of a liberal and rationalistic bent. Through the influence of Bernese pietism, which had become prominent in the cantonal Diet, he was called (1880) to the University of Bern as a *Privatdozent* in New Testament studies and wrote his first book, on the Concept of Faith, which was fundamental to his entirely original theology. He was then (1888) appointed full professor of systematic theology at Greifswald, then a stronghold of believing and pietist theology in Germany. In the student town of Pomerania, he combined a somewhat exaggerated German patriotism. When Wilhelm II, in response to the crisis provoked after A. Harnack had stirred controversy over the Apostles' Creed, founded (1893) a chair of believing theology at the University of Berlin, Schlatter accepted the delicate position, which was at the center of the religious-political disputes of the day. He succeeded in establishing sincere collaborative HARAN (v.). In 1897 he accepted the New Testament chair at Tübingen with the right to deliver