This blogs starts a series on re-visiting a theology of hope in a technological age. For full transparency, I write this as my reflection on the topic progresses. I do this on purpose, in the hope that this reflection is not limited to an isolated individual’s musings but instead can open the way for a dialogue with others. Theology is done best when done in community. In an age of instant global communication, the possibilities for dialogue widen and allow for an in-time collaboration that was simply not possible before. Hence, I invite the reader to enter this not as a passive receiver of information but instead an active participant in this conversation. Feel free to post comments or email me directly through the contact form in the site.
In this first blog, I want to discuss the emergence of a theology of hope in the middle of the last century looking at its most prominent proponent -German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. His seminal work Theologie der Hoffnung [Theology of Hope] in the mid 1960’s would initiate a revolution in academic theology that reverberated through decades to come. Here is how it started.
The Emergence of a Theology of Hope
Each theology engages a particular set of questions which are considered to be crucial to the context of the theologian. To do theology is precisely that: to observe the world and listen to its most perennial questions. Then, in prayerful mediation, under the guidance of the Spirit and in dialogue with their community, to seek out answers emerging from the Christian tradition and practices.
Jurgen Moltmann’s theology emerges from the Post-war experience as the world was taking stock of the horrific atrocities executed by the European powers. One of the questions his world was asking was how could there be a good God in a world where Auchwitz happens? Even seventy years later, this question rings in Western ears challenging the European Christendom projects of the previous centuries. If Christian societies were capable of such cruelty and destruction, what is even the point of upholding the Christian religion as the foundation of our political structures? Furthermore, is Christianity even relevant for individuals in a post-war age or does it belong to the history books? The crisis cast both existential (personal) as corporate (political) doubts on an European Christian identity.
A Passionate/Suffering God
A temptation, then and now, is to relegate religious expression to a privatized individualistic piety. That is, all that matters is me, Jesus and my salvation. As long as my passport to heaven is stamped, I don’t need to engage with worldly affairs. The world is confusing enough and meaningless, let me endure its reality in the weeks and escape to heavenly dreams on the weekend.
Moltmann resists this temptation by taking seriously the suffering in the world. If Christianity is to have a voice in the public square (and in our lives), it must actively engage with the questions people and societies are asking. If our faith inadequately addresses the crisis of our time, then it is no longer useful or pertinent to our time.
He starts by reframing the problem. In one of his shortest books, Open Church, Moltmann sees apathy as the biggest curse of our age:
[Our] one-sided orientation towards accomplishment and success make us melancholic and insensitive. We become incapable of love and incapable of sorrow. We no longer have tears, and we smile only because we are supposed to keep on smiling…We become apathetic, still alive but surely and slowly dying inwardly. (pg 23)
Theology of hope starts and ends with a passionate God. It is important here to recover the original meaning of the word passion. It is not just about energy and zeal but also about suffering. The best example is the Passion of Christ, where we see both an unyielding zeal as well as the resulting suffering Christ goes through. A passionate God means one that is moved by the world suffering, cries with them but also moves to action to answer the cries of humanity.
The End is the Beginning
If every theology has a starting point, theology of hope begins with the end. This is what theologians call an eschatological approach. Eschatology is the study of the last things which has come to mean many different things. Recently, because of evangelical pop culture, eschatology has sadly become synonymous with exhaustive speculation about the end of the world. That is not what Moltmann means by it.
Instead, he is following New Testament scholarship in recovering the centrality of the eschatological hope in the Early church. That is, the fact that the apostles and early Christians believed in an actual installation of God’s kingdom on earth. They believed it to be an imminent event. The point of it was not the destruction of the world but the future vindication of God’s people in view of their present political oppression. Hence, the gospel message, in the First and still in the Twenty-First century, has political implications.
By doing so, Moltmann is joining a chorus of theologians, scholars and some clergy in bringing eschatology from the supernatural realm to the natural world. With time and heavy influence from Greek philosophy, eschatology became focused on the after-life. Instead, they want to correct this notion so that Christians can focus more on the here and now.
Hence, this recovery the eschatological character of early Christianity should translate into present action. While grounded in God’s action, it raises the question of how to live today in a way the reflects that future reality. In short, how do we bring the future liberation of God’s people into the present?
Inspired on Moltmann’s writing, the early 70’s would see the emergence of a Latin American, Catholic version later known as liberation theology. If eschatology is about a political reality, then what would that look like in the context of Latin American poor? This is the topic of part 2.
