Kazoh Kitamori

Kazoh Kitamori (北森 嘉蔵, Kitamori Kazō, 1916 – September 1998) was a Japanese theologian, pastor, author, professor, and churchman. His most famous work in the West is The Theology of the Pain of God, which was published in 1946 in Japan and in the United States in 1965. He was a longtime professor at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. He was, along with Kōsuke Koyama, a leading contributor to Protestant Christian theology from twentieth century Japan.

Kitamori was born in Kumamoto in 1916. In high school, he was so impressed by a paper he read about Martin Luther that he made the decision in 1935 to go to Tokyo to attend the Lutheran Theological Seminary there. He graduated in 1938. Having finished his studies at the seminary, he attended Kyoto Imperial University, studying in the literature department under Hajime Tanabe, a disciple of Japanese philosopher Kitarō Nishida. He graduated from the university in 1941, and continued there as an assistant until 1943. In 1943, he moved to the Eastern Japan Theological Seminary, which later became Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. He became a full professor in 1949, and continued to teach systematic (dogmatic) theology there until his retirement from teaching in 1984. He received a Ph.D. in Literature from Kyoto Imperial University in 1962.

Kitamori was a major post-war theologian in Japan and this status made him one of the most important players in the re-formation of the Kyodan Church (United Church of Christ in Japan). He served both as a pastor, serving a congregation for forty-six years, and as a churchman, serving in various capacities and helping to draft of the confession of faith of the Kyodan Church.

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