Title: Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth.
Author: Jürgen Moltmann
Bibliographic Info: 254 pp
Cover: Soft
Publisher: Fortress (2010)
ISBN-10: 0800696581
ISBN-13: 9780800696580
With thanks to Fortress Press for the review copy
Buy it at Amazon!
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Throughout the past few months, I have provided on this blog insights from this latest book of Moltmann’s. For those who are not familiar with Jürgen Moltmann let me summarize. He is a German theologian born in 1926. During his time as a POW in World War II, Moltmann lost all of his hope due to what the Germans were doing at places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, but he gained a greater hope after finding Christ in a New Testament he was provided with in POW camp.
After the war, Moltmann studied at the University of Göttingen and since has authored numerous books on theology. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Tubingen University. In a nutshell, his theology can be summarized as an eschatological outlook, seen through the lens of the the hope we find in the resurrection of Christ. He has been accused of being everything from being a Patripassianist and a universalist, to teaching a pure liberation theology (which is true to an extent, though not according to some definitions of liberation theology I have seen).
This volume is comprised of 17 chapters which are divided into four sections:
- The Future of Christianity
- The God of Resurrection: Christ’s Resurrection – The Resurrection of the Body – The Resurrection of Nature
- God is Righteousness and Justice
- God in Nature
The first section contains two essays, which can be succinctly reduced to the following points,
- The future of Christianity is the church
- The future of the church is the kingdom of God
The second section consists of six essays which discuss the resurrection of Christ, the future resurrection of the righteous, the resurrection of nature, and the future of God’s kingdom on earth. The following is one of my favorite lines from the book,
With the raising of Jesus, God’s own ‘arising’ has begun, and it will bring about justice for all the wretched and for the whole earth. With the raising of Jesus, God himself has arisen, to fulfil his promises to all those he has created.
The third section contains six chapters which focus upon the nature of God, with specific chapters on Monotheism and Trinitarianism. In one chapter, after describing the “Manichean idea about the end” which is prevalent in American evangelicalism (e.g. Hal Lindsay, Tim La Haye, et al), Moltmann then discusses his own dialectical universalism. The final section of this book contains two chapters which address such modern-day issues as evolution and eugenics.
All in all (as Moltmann would say!) this latest volume of his is great! However, after reading this book, I could not shake the feeling that he intended it as his final major theological work. I hope I am wrong and that he contributes much more literature concerning his theology of hope, but if it is the climax of his life’s work, then it is very fitting indeed.
The origin of the Christian faith is once and for all the victory of the divine life over death: the resurrection of Christ. ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’: that is the heart of the Christian gospel. It is the gospel of life. … Jesus didn’t found a new religion; he brings new life into the world, the modern world too. So we do not so much need interfaith dialogues, interesting though they are. What we need is a common struggle for life, for loved and loving life, for life that communicates itself and is shared, life that is human and natural – in short, life that is worth living in the fruitful living space of this earth. (pg. 77)
