eschatology and gaza

I've been writing the eschatology section of my constructive theology. It is a hard and appropriate time to do it, focused as I am on Israel's ground invasion of Gaza. (A friend of mine works for maannews.net/en, if anyone wants to read about it from a Palestinian source.)

It's pretty weighty to try to write about the coming new creation when there's so much of the violent, senseless one going around today. Here's a quote from an old friend I keep coming back to:

"Give me a hundred preachers... who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of God on this earth."
- John Wesley

Well?


[Thanks to Noah and Emily for the address correction. The above link should work now.]

Summer Moltmann Blogging: Golgotha and Auschwitz

From The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 210.

"This means that it is neither religious poetry nor a disregard for the dignity of the individual and alien suffering of others when we see Golgotha and Auschwitz together, and say that Christ too was murdered in Auschwitz. The apocalyptic Christ suffers in the victims of sin and violence. The apocalyptic Christ suffers and sighs too in the tormented creation sighing under the violent acts of our modern human civilization. We therefore have to extend the remembrance of Christ's sufferings to all those in whose fellowship Christ suffers, and whom he draws into his fellowship through his sufferings. It is only when the remembering extends to their sufferings that hope will spread to the fields of the dead in history. But where forgetfulness is the order of the day, the dead are slain once more and the living become blind."

Summer Moltmann Blogging: the Solidarity of Christ

From The Way of Jesus Christ, p.180. (I've changed the male God language to female God language, leaving it otherwise unchanged.)

"Let us sum up:
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings because through them God shows her solidarity with human beings and her whole creation everywhere: God is with us.
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings because through them God intervenes vicariously on our behalf, saving us at the point where we are unable to stand but are forced to sing into nothingness: God is for us.
'The sufferings of Christ' are God's sufferings, finally, because out of them the new creation of all things is born: We come from God.
Solidarity, vicarious power and rebirth are the divine dimensions in the sufferings of Christ. Christ is with us, Christ is for us, and in Christ we are a new creation. In what sense is God love? God is the power of solidarity, the vicarious, the regenerating power."

summer moltmann blogging: sabbath and autonomous zones

I've talked before about Hakim Bey's book Temporary Autonomous Zones. The idea is that it's important to create small, even temporary places where domination-free life can be experienced. This is more effective as a revolutionary tactic than overthrowing a dominating state or system, as such a system will immediately crush you the moment you get enough power to threaten it. With the T.A.Z. thing, folks can experience what this other life is like, and get excited about starting their own autonomous zones. Bey stresses that these can be the size of a city or a bed. I see good churches at such zones, and Moltmann has turned me on to the temporal power of such an idea via sabbath. (This time I've made the God language gender neutral, but it's otherwise unchanged...)

This is from God in Creation, p.282.

"In [God's]rest all created beings find their won rest. In the presence of God's existence is the blessing of their existence. Everything that is made has been called by the Creator from non-being into being. Everything that exists is menaced by non-being, for it can again be made a nothingness. That is why everything that is, is restless and on the search for a place where this menace cannot reach it- for a 'resting place'. It is not merely the human heart which is 'restless until it finds rest in Thee', as Augustine said. The whole creation is filled with this same unrest, and transcends itself in the search for the rest in which it can abide."

God and Suffering

What I've been doing for a month and a half: Moltmann.

From The Trinity and the Kingdom, p. 49:

God and suffering beyond together, just as in this life the cry for God and the suffering experienced in pain belong together. The question about God and the question about suffering are a joint, a common question. And they only find a common answer. Either that, or neither of them finds a satisfactory answer at all. No one can answer the theodicy question in this world, and no one can get rid of it. Life in this world means living with this open question, and seeking the future in which the desire for God will be fulfilled, suffering will be overcome, and what has been lost will be restored. The question of theodicy is not a speculative question; it is a critical one. It is the all-embracing eschatological question. It is not purely theoretical, for it cannot be answered with any new theory about the existing world. It is a practical question which will only be answered through experience of the new world in which 'God will wipe away every tear from their eyes'. It is not really a question at all, in the sense of something we can ask or not ask, like other questions. It is the open wound of life in this world. It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound. The person who believes will not rest content with any slickly explanatory answer to the theodicy question. And he will also resist any attempts to soften the question down. The more a person believes, the more deeply he [sic] experiences pain over the suffering in the world, and the more passionately he asks about God and the new creation.

This summer at somefolks.blogspot.com: Block quotes from Jurgen Moltmann! Yay!