Theological Horizons: identity and relevance

Imagine the Church had one of those sticker nametags that says, “Hello My Name is…” Rather than putting a proper name in the blank space, a simple description was written. What would it be?

In The Crucified God, Jürgen Moltmann describes the church in crisis in terms of relevance and identity, and he describes the ways in which different wings of the church have approached the issue of relevance and identity. The first wing of the church seeks to maintain its identity by defending orthodox doctrine. The second wing of the church seeks relevance by being politically and socially active. The first wing accuses the second wing of assimilation, and the second wing accuses the first of sectarianism. Relevance and identity appear to ram heads.

In this discussion, Moltmann has raised some important issues for me, namely that maintaining identity should not mean seclusion and that solidarity should not entail assimilation. In addressing these issues, Moltmann builds upon Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison theology in which Bonhoeffer asserts, “The church is only the church when it exists for others” (Letters and Papers from Prison, 382). Moltmann explains that in order to exist for others it cannot mean that the church must then become like the other, e.g. like society, for that would merely entail residing in the company of those like yourself.

Moltmann exclaims, “Bonhoeffer’s ‘existence for others’, to which so much appeal has been made, becomes meaningless if one is no longer any different from others, but merely a hanger on. Only someone who finds the courage to be different from others can ultimately ‘exist for others’, for otherwise he exists only with those who are like him” (The Crucified God, 16).

Existing for the other must then entail being different from the other. Existing for the other necessarily excludes assimilation. However, existing for the other also excludes sectarianism, retreating into the ghettoes of marginalization, for this too is a sort of assimilation in so far as it passively accepts the marginalization of institutionalized religion in secular society. “Christians, churches and theologians who passionately defend true belief, pure doctrine and distinctive Christian morality are at the present day in danger of lapsing into pusillanimous faith…they build a defensive wall around their own little group,” and they risk losing their identity by accepting “the increasing isolation of the church as an insignificant sect on the margin of society, and encourage it by their sectarian withdrawal” (The Crucified God, 20).

Rather than falling victim to either form of assimilation – sameness or sectarianism, existing for the other entails plunging into society as a reality distinct from society.

If the church in America is to have a future (which I remain quite hopeful about), then its nametag must surely entail a description that is both relevant and faithful to its identity. It can do so by naming its identity to be in the crucified one whose identity is revealed in his relevance. As Moltmann says, “[Jesus] revealed his identity amongst those who had lost their identity, amongst lepers, sick, rejected, and despised, and was recognized the Son of Man amongst those who had been deprived of their humanity” (Crucified God, 27). Moltmann seems to suggest that the church reveals and maintains its identity and relevance by its difference and solidarity.  

Last Things Last (?): destiny illuminating the present

This month I finished classes for an M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary, and I must say that I have had a very stimulating few years at Fuller. Faculty, staff, and peers have made the whole experience immeasurably rewarding. I could not have asked for a better seminary experience.

When I was mapping out seminary classes, I had not intentionally planned to study eschatology at the end of my time at Fuller – roughly speaking eschatology is a fancy word for talk about stuff at the end or destiny. I suppose that it was a bit fitting for me to study eschatology at the end of my seminary education, and for my last assignment, I wrote a paper briefly outlining my reflections on the consummation of creation. Last things last. However, in the past few months and weeks, I have begun to wonder whether or not eschatology belongs at the end. Maybe it belongs near the beginning.

Over the past several years, I have studied various aspects of Jürgen Moltmann’s theology, a Reformed post-Barthian theologian. A little more than a year ago, I studied a few dimensions of Moltmann’s Christology in The Way of Jesus Christ, and this week I have begun reading Moltmann’s Theology of Hope in which he puts eschatology at the beginning of the theological task rather than at the end – in contrast Barth places eschatology on the circumference of the theological task and atonement at the center (Dogmatics, IV.1). Moltmann explains, “A proper theology would…have to be constructed in the light of its future goal” (Fortress Press, 1993, Theology of Hope, 16). Thus, Moltmann begins with eschatology.

Moltmann explains that eschatology is not merely about stuff at the end but is about hope, and he claims that eschatology is the torch that illumines the path into the future; eschatology tells the future about the present. “Hope’s statements of promise…must stand in contradiction to the reality which can at present be experienced…they do not seek to bear the train of reality, but to carry the torch before it” (18). 

Moreover, drawing Barth’s beginning and end together, Moltmann places revelation and eschatology together indicating that God does not simply reveal God’s self but reveals God’s self as the God of promise. God’s promises fuel hope for the future, and God’s promises for the future are grounded in Jesus, particularly in the resurrection of Jesus. Consequently, Moltmann places priority on hope for precisely the same earth on which and for which Christ died and was raised. Christian hope, Moltmann exclaims, “sees in the resurrection of Christ not the eternity of heaven, but the future of the very earth on which his cross stands” (21).

The future of the earth is pledged and established on the resurrection of Jesus, and this hope based on the resurrection of Jesus has implications for the present. The fulfilled future invigorates action in the unfulfilled present. Moltmann explains, “As long as hope does not embrace and transform the thought and action of men, it remains topsy-turvy and ineffective. Hence Christian eschatology must make the attempt to introduce hope into worldly thinking, and thought into believing hope” (33). Hope for the future stimulates social action and reform.

Rather than supposing eschatology to be something that belongs exclusively to the distant future attached to the rest of theology like an appendix, it may very well be the case that eschatology is the opening to theology. Talk about destiny belongs near the beginning. Telos shapes the present. Hope fuels faith and life, and more particularly hope based on the resurrection of Jesus provides concrete specificity to the sort of hope for which the church hopes. As the Nicene Creed concludes, we look forward to the resurrection of the body and the world to come. For Moltmann, however, this profession about the future belongs at the beginning, and the world for which the church hopes is the earth on which Jesus' cross stood. It may just be the case that theology is possible only because there is hope.