Jonathan Poletti
1 min readJul 27, 2023

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Oh hey there, Thanks for the probing question!

If the question is, "Did Tillich force himself on anyone?" I take the case to be weaker than I'd understood.

The key example would be the anecdote in the 1985 Niebuhr biography. A little story is told about how Niebuhr sent the woman to Tillich who groped her in his office, and Niebuhr never forgave him for this affront. But no source is listed, and there's no quotes or supporting references. The anecdote works to distance Niebuhr from the toxic Tillich and might've been made up for that purpose.

Rollo May did emphasize Tillich's kindness. And Christians would be very prone to conjure "abuse" allegations to sidestep the adultery problem, which might require them to consider Hannah Tillich's knowledge and consent.

So barring further info I'm not really stressing the sexual harassment angle. I'm more struck by the huge amount of work that Tillich seemed to have put into his sexual investigations—a vast Christian effort to explore sex that was just trashed.

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