Eleven American Pentecostal pastors sat nervously with Pope Francis at the Vatican in June 2016. The meeting, arranged by Thomas Schirrmacher, then chair of the theological commission of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), was an opportunity for the guests to ask the pontiff anything they wanted. Two years earlier, Francis had publicly apologized for past Catholic persecution of the charismatic movement.
At the time, the Italian Evangelical Alliance had cautioned against growing ecumenical openness where “insurmountable” doctrinal obstacles exist. The American delegation was similarly opposed to Schirrmacher’s engagement but had agreed to the meeting. No one wanted to ask the first question. Amid the awkwardness, Francis took the initiative.
He asked the delegation to pray for him.
Schirrmacher said what followed was a life-changing experience for the Pentecostals. They prayed for the pope. He prayed for them. By the end, he said, their theological concerns didn’t matter much anymore as they agreed with Schirrmacher that Francis was a genuine believer and had no intention to convert them to Catholicism.
Matters of theology and doctrine have always mattered to Schirrmacher, who turns 66 today. The German theologian has four doctoral degrees and authored more than 100 books, including a six-volume treatise on ethics. Committed to Christian unity, he served as general secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance from 2021 to 2024. Yet his life has been a lightning rod of controversy—particularly when he neared the halls of power.
Even seemingly straightforward truths, he finds, have prompted critical reaction.
“If I say, ‘God is love,’” said Schirrmacher, “it could start a global discussion.”
Born in 1960, Schirrmacher traces his family history to 18th-century Huguenots exiled from Austria to Prussia. His father served on the board of the missions agency World Evangelization for Christ, and Schirrmacher interacted with many visiting missionaries. He met Billy Graham as a child, and again in 1983. By then, Schirrmacher was a young pastor who had planted seven churches. Graham advised him to continue pursuing advanced theological studies.
Two years later, a covered-up scandal at his church led Schirrmacher to resign, he said. He and his wife Christine started a publishing house in Bonn. Secular titles sold, while religious books sustained his passion. Schirrmacher described these as “some of the best years of their lives,” as they focused on their business, child-rearing, and academics—he in ecumenical theology and she in Islamic studies. Her focus supported his fledgling interest in religious freedom, leading to a 1985 visit with the Orthodox ecumenical patriarch in Turkey.
But Schirrmacher did not only aim for unity abroad. In 1994, despite his cessationist upbringing, he brought Pentecostals into the Bonn Evangelical Alliance. Two years later, he also navigated opposition to integrating them into the national Evangelical Alliance of Germany. All the while, he continued his academic studies, teaching missions at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia and founding the Martin Bucer Seminary in Bonn in 1996.
Then the Pentecostals tested his ecumenism.
The European Assemblies of God approached Schirrmacher to send its pastors to study at his newly formed institution. At first he refused, as their beliefs didn’t match with the school’s Reformed theology. Eventually he accepted, but first Schirrmacher asked to preach an anticharismatic sermon at the largest Pentecostal church in Germany.
He spoke against pride in the spiritual gifts while also validating God’s continued use of signs and wonders to draw people to Jesus—emphasizing they also point to the importance of the Scriptures and the church. After his closing prayer, the senior pastor ran up to the stage and asked, “When can you come back?” as the audience jumped and clapped in appreciation.
Schirrmacher felt convicted.
“I felt like Peter in that story, as if God told me directly, ‘I am using the Pentecostals to evangelize the world, so you cannot bypass them,’” he said, referring to Peter’s meeting with Cornelius in Acts 10.
The Assemblies of God were not the only outliers at Martin Bucer. Schirrmacher’s connection to Turkey led…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on June 25, 2026. Please click here to read the full text.
And click here for a Q&A interview with Thomas Schirrmacher on his involvement with the Muslim world, published at Middle East Harmony. Among other topics, it asks how he views the region differently than most American Christians.
Jayson Casper 