Walter Klaiber
Bishop Walter Klaiber
Retired
Europe
Bishop Walter Klaiber is a retired Bishop of The United Methodist Church, having served from 1989-2005.------------------------
Walter Klaiber was born in Ulm, Germany. Having studied Protestant Theology at the Theological Seminary in Reutlingen and the Universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, he graduated and served as the pastor of an Evangelical United Brethren congregation in Nürnberg.
He was ordained into the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1966.
Form 1969-1971, he was Assistant Lecturer in New Testament with Professor Dr. Ernst Käsemann; from 1971-1989 he held the position of Lecturer in New Testament Studies and Greek at Reutlingen United Methodist Theological Seminary.
He continued his studies, earning the Doctor of Theology degree from the University of Tübingen in 1971; his doctoral dissertation was published in German under the title: Rechtfertigung und Gemeinde (Justification and the Church), 1982.
In the years 1977-1989 he was Dean of the United Methodist Theological Seminary at Reutlingen. He was elected Bishop of the United Methodist Church in 1989 and was assigned to the Germany Central conference (then West Germany).
After the Reunification of the separated Central Conferences in East and West Germany in 1992 he was elected Bishop for the whole area.
Walter Klaiber retired April 2005 as an active bishop of the church, but he still serves as the Chair of the Council of Christian Churches in Germany and as President of the German Bible Society. From 2001 till 2006 he has been one of the Presidents of the World Methodist Council.
He has written several books; published in English are: Embraced by the Spirit (out of print); Call and Response. Biblical Foundations of a Theology of Evangelism (Abingdon 1997); and together with Manfred Marquardt: Living Grace. Outline of a Theology of The United Methodist Church (Abingdon 2002).His newest book in English is Justified before God (Abingdon 2006 forthcoming). His latest publication in German is a book on Genesis 1-11 and the implications of the biblical account of the Creation and the first phase of the history of humankind on our present understanding of God, nature and human beings (Schöpfung, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2005).
He was married to Annegret Klaiber, M.D. who passed on July 23, 2022. From that union, they had three sons and four grandchildren.
Mailing Address
Albrechtstrasse 23
Tuebingen
D-72072
Germany