Introduction

New discoveries arise alongside memories in every Christmas sermon that Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) ever delivered. This book invites readers into an informed experience of Christmas through eleven sermons.

Exploration of Themes

In these pages readers watch Schleiermacher lay discovery and memory side by side, because this is how his own famed systemic theological views of Christian faith and life developed throughout his life. These sermons evoke first curiosity then wonderment at the prospects reading can open.

Significance of Christmas

For Schleiermacher, Christmas was always a special time to engender such experiences--a time to survey different vistas of Jesus' birth and career.

Historical Context

Schleiermacher lived when the modern age was being born. He contributed substantially to that birth and to the health of modern times. His sermons collected here display the main theological grounds for his worldview, which is still quite timely today.