German theologian Jürgen Moltmann brings his theology of hope to America this week with two lectures at New York's Trinity Church conference God's Unfinished Future. You can watch the conference live or access video recordings later (WIndows Media Player required). A video on Moltmann's life (in English) as well as a fascinating interview with him can be accessed here.
Two key events in Moltmann's youth led him to Christian theology: he miraculously survived the firebombing of Hamburg, and then, in a POW camp after the war, he was handed an edition of the New Testament and Psalms by an American military chaplain. His thinking was later heavily influenced by his teacher in Göttingen, Karl Barth, by his readings of Bonhoeffer and the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch (Das Prinzip Hoffnung), and later by his encounter with Liberation Theology.
Professor Moltmann's field of study - eschotology - also animates evangelical Christians in America, who anticipate Armageddon - the final battle between good and evil when Jesus will return and consign non-believers (presumably gays, Muslims, liberals, feminists - all those who refuse to worship at the altar of G.W. Bush) to eternal damnation. For Professor Moltmann, this Jesus is a "terrorist".
"The image of the God who judges in wrath has caused a great deal of spritual damage."(Moltmann)
Jürgen Moltmann's theology of hope provides a corrective to the common view of the End Times as a violent apocalypse. Christian faith is hope for the future of mankind, and the Telos of history is the Kingdom of God, the reality of which can also be discerned in the present. Expectancy, or hope, underlies all faith. Christian eschotology presents us with an alternate view of the future - the Kingdom of God - which in turn as a liberating effect on the intolerable present here-and-now. Thus the Gospels are transformative with respect to the world as it exists. The basic outline of Moltmann's theology can be found in his essay Hope and History:
"In the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount, in the beatitudes, and in the call to discipleship, Jesus re-presents through his own presence and mission that not-yet-realized future of the kingdom in which God is God. In that he himself announces the arrival of this future he brings eschatological freedom into the misery of the present." from Jürgen Moltmann, Hope and History
Professor Moltmann's visit to America is timely and welcome.
Comments