The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology

In this remarkable and timely work--in many ways the culmination of his systematic theology--world-renowned theologian Jürgen Moltmann stands Christian eschatology on its head. Moltmann rejects the traditional approach, which focuses on the End, an apocalyptic finale, as a kind of Christian search for the "final He centers instead on hope and God promise of new creation for all things. "Christian eschatology,” he says, "is the remembered hope of the raising of the crucified Christ, so it talks about beginning afresh in the deadly end." Yet Moltmann's novel framework, deeply informed by Jewish and messianic thought, also fosters rich and creative insights into the perennially nettling questions of eschatology: Is there eternal life? Does personal identity survive death? How is one to think of heaven, hell, and purgatory? What are the historical and cosmologi- cal dimensions of Christian hope? What are hope's social and political implications? In a tragically fragile and fragmented world, rent by violence and violation, Moltmann's bold eschatology compre- hensively surveys the Christian vista and bravely envisions "horizons of expectation" for our personal, social, even cosmic transformation in God.