edited by Margaret Kohl. Introduction by Richard Bauckman
Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Minn. 292 pages
What is so encouraging about Jürgen Moltmann is the vitality of his faith in the promise of God. Yes, he is a brilliant theologian whose work has influenced generations of theologians and pastors. Yes, he set the stage early in his career for theological conversations that still reverberate today. But underneath the influence of Moltmann is the true source of his vision: faith in the living God. It is this faith in the living God that is on display in this book that contains selections from all his major theological writings.
In the early 1960s, “Theology of Hope” lifted up themes from the Bible that interpreted the times, yet did so in a way that illuminated the God of the Bible whose character is promise. This gift of interpretation through a creative theological reading of Scripture is what Moltmann does best. His critics fault him for his reading the times and responding with a theology that corresponds to it, as if the latter were only an attempt to stay current.
This collection of readings demonstrates that Moltmann has been thinking deeply about the implications of a living God since his conversion to the Christian faith in a prisoner of war camp in England where he was detained as a German solder. There he resolved that Christian theology must be done in light of the Holocaust and in conversation with Judaism. “The Crucified God” was his attempt to express this through a radically new interpretation of Jesus’ death. That set him upon his next step in “The Trinity and the Kingdom” where insights about the Trinity invigorated a renewed theological conversation on the importance of the Trinity for Christian faith.
One could argue that Moltmann has been in every conversation of theological importance over the last 50 years, either at the center or on the edges. This collection of readings is a great primer for those who have not been exposed to his thought and a source of renewal for those who wish to return to his work. What is most remarkable and frequently missed is the new direction that Moltmann began with “God in Creation,” which remains a major theological interpretation of humanity and creation. He took up the notion of God’s presence in all creation that makes humanity part of a community. He began to work out the notion of perichoresis in theological practice. “Everything that is, exists and lives in the unceasing inflow of energies and potentialities of the cosmic Spirit.” Continuing this line of theological reflection, and drawing upon the Jewish philosopher Marin Buber, Moltmann argues that it is the relationship that matters most. “In reality, relationships are just as primal as the things themselves. … Everything exists, lives, and moves in others, in one another with on another, for one another, in the cosmic interrelations of the divine Spirit.” He keeps thinking comprehensively and creatively about the implications of the living God who has opened up the future through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The collection concludes selections from “Ethics of Hope” that describe the practices of his Trinitarian theology. This volume shows the remarkable breadth of a remarkable Christian theologian.
ROY W. HOWARD is the pastor of Saint Mark Presbyterian Church in North Bethesda, Maryland, and the Outlook book editor. He studied theology with Jürgen Moltmann.
