Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance (Germany)

Archbishop Prof. Dr. theol. Dr. phil. Thomas Schirrmacher, PhD, DD, (born 1960) is since 2021 Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance. He is also President of the International Council of the International Society for Human Rights.

Schirrmacher is extraordinary professor of the sociology of religion at the state University of the West in Timisoara (Romania) and teaches human rights and religious freedom at Oxford University (Regent’s Park College). He is also founder, meanwhile the President Emeritus, of ‘Martin Bucer European Theological Seminary and Research Institutes’ with campuses in Berlin, Bielefeld, Bonn, Chemnitz, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Istanbul, Izmir, Linz, Munich, Pforzheim, Prague, Sao Paulo, Tirana, Zurich, where he tought social ethics and comparative religions. 

He studied theology from 1978 to 1982 at STH Basel (Switzerland) and since 1983 Cultural Anthropology and Comparative Religions at Bonn State University. He earned a Drs. theol. in Missiology and Ecumenics at Theological University (Kampen/Netherlands) in 1984, and a Dr. theol. in Missiology and Ecumenics at Johannes Calvin Foundation (Kampen/Netherlands) in 1985, a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Pacific Western University [today: California Miramar University] in Los Angeles (CA) in 1989, a Th.D. in Ethics at Whitefield Theological Seminary in Lakeland (FL) in 1996, and a Dr. phil. in Comparative Religions / Sociology of Religion at State University of Bonn in 2007. In 1997 he received a honorary doctorates (D.D.) from Cranmer Theological House, in 2006 one from Acts University in Bangalore.

He has authored and edited 102 books, which have been translated into 18 languages. His newest books include ‘Corruption’ (2016), ‘Human Rights’ (2015), ‘Human trafficking’ (2014), ‘Fundamentalism: When Religion turns violent’ (2013), ‘Racism’ (2012), ‘The Persecution of Christian Concerns us All: A Systematic Theology’ (2011) and in German: ‘Suppressed Women’ (2013) and ‘Internet-Pornography’ (2008).

Schirrmacher regularly testifies in Parliament, in High Courts, and at the United Nations and OSCE, e.g. in the German parliament (Deutscher Bundestag), the House of Lords, the EU Parliament, the US Houses of Representatives or the Supreme Court of Brazil.