Living in hope, Professor Moltmann points out, is an experiment. Hoping is a risky matter; it can bring disappointment and surprise developments. To live in hope is a mark of the Christian, and is so in every age, so that a theology of hope should not be regarded as a passing fashion. The essays collected in this book are experiments made by Professor Moltmann in conversation with a wider audience. They include the texts of lectures given in America, Asia, Africa and Australasia, as well as in Europe and are marked by the concern of a distinguished theologian that German theology shall learn from other cultures and other movements of thought. Almost all of them were written after 1970 and cover subjects in theology, ethics, philosophy of religion and politics. They also show how the themes of Professor Moltmann's two major books, Theology of Hope and The Crucified God may be applied in practice to the basic issues of our time.

Causing a considerable stir when it was first published in Germany in 1965, this work represents a comprehensive statement of the importance for theology of eschatology - and of an eschatological theology which emphasizes the revolutionary effect of Christian hope upon the thought, institutions and conditions of life in the here and now. Moltmann understands Christian faith essentially as hope for the future of humankind and creation as this has been promised by the God of the exodus and the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. God's promise is the compulsory force of history, awakening hope which keeps human beings unreconciled to present experience, sets them in contradistinction to prevailing natural and social powers, and makes the church the source of continual new impulses towards, in Moltmann's own words, "the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity in the light of the promised future that is to come".

Over the last four decades, the focus of M. Douglas Meeks's work has placed him at the centre of many of the most important developments in theological reflection and education. As a political, ecclesial, and metaphorical theologian, Meeks has given witness to the oikonomia of the triune God, the Homemaker who creates the conditions of Home for the whole of creation, in critical conversation with contemporary economic, social, and political theory. The essays of this volume were written to honour Meeks, Cal Turner Chancellor Professor Emeritus of Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, by addressing the theme of God's economy of salvation from biblical, historical, ecclesial, and theological perspectives. In an age of ecological devastation and economic injustice, Meeks teaches us how to place our hope - as disciples of Jesus, as members of local congregations, as stewards of institutional life, and as global citizens - in God's power for life over death through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. These essays will serve to enliven and clarify this hope for the sake of the world God so loves.

The liberating work of God calls the oppressed out of oppression and the oppressor out of oppressing. The challenge in seeking a thorough liberation of oppressors is to help them understand their need for freedom and how to seek this freedom in their own contexts. Patrick Oden provides a holistic biblical, historical, and theological analysis that diagnoses the underlying motivations and inclinations that lead to oppression. Part one addresses the context of oppression, in which most participants in oppression do not actively seek to harm others but are caught up in systems that tend toward the diminishment of others. Part two examines the biblical and early Christian response to oppression, discovering a thread that avoids condemning participation in society generally while also cautioning the people of God about being co-opted by society. Part three discusses how oppressors can withdraw from oppression, through a constructive analysis of four contemporary theologians-Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Sarah Coakley, and Jean Vanier-each of whom contributes to a widening vision of liberated and liberating life in which the once-oppressed and former oppressor can find peace together in community.

Borrowing is a problem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled with throughout his life and especially in active resistance to the Hitler dictatorship. We only "passively" share in the guilt of others (for example, in intercession), or we have to Become "actively" guilty (eg in resistance)? How is taking responsibility linked to responsible action? These and other questions are critically examined in relation to Bonhoeffer's entire works, especially his ethics.

Since the calls of the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic theologians have sought to overcome an overarching problem facing Jewish-Christian relations, the concept of "supersessionism"; the idea that God has revoked the spiritual and historical promises made to the Jewish people in favour of granting those same privileges to a predominantly Gentile Church. Israel, the Church, and Millenarianism breaks new ground by applying an ancient principle to the problem of Israel's "replacement": the early Church's promotion of millennialism. Utilizing the best in Patristic research, Aguzzi argues that these earliest Christian traditions made room for the future of Israel because Christ's reign in the Church was viewed as provisional to his historical reign on earth-Israel's role in salvation history was and is not yet complete. Aguzzi's research also opens the door for a greater Catholic understanding of the millennial principle, not shying away from its validity and relevance for understanding the importance of safeguarding Jewish particularity, while concluding that the Synagogue and the Church are indeed on a parallel trajectory; "...what will their...[Israel's]...acceptance be but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:15). Ultimately, the divine will is fulfilled through both Christian and Jewish means, in history, while each community is dependent, in different ways, upon the unfolding of God's future and the coming Parousia of Christ.

Since the calls of the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic theologians have sought to overcome an overarching problem facing Jewish-Christian relations, the concept of "supersessionism"; the idea that God has revoked the spiritual and historical promises made to the Jewish people in favour of granting those same privileges to a predominantly Gentile Church. Israel, the Church, and Millenarianism breaks new ground by applying an ancient principle to the problem of Israel's "replacement": the early Church's promotion of millennialism. Utilizing the best in Patristic research, Aguzzi argues that these earliest Christian traditions made room for the future of Israel because Christ's reign in the Church was viewed as provisional to his historical reign on earth-Israel's role in salvation history was and is not yet complete. Aguzzi's research also opens the door for a greater Catholic understanding of the millennial principle, not shying away from its validity and relevance for understanding the importance of safeguarding Jewish particularity, while concluding that the Synagogue and the Church are indeed on a parallel trajectory; "...what will their...[Israel's]...acceptance be but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:15). Ultimately, the divine will is fulfilled through both Christian and Jewish means, in history, while each community is dependent, in different ways, upon the unfolding of God's future and the coming Parousia of Christ.

Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God is one of the most influential theological books of the twentieth century and a classic to be found on every reading list on Christian doctrine. Arguably the most powerful of Moltmann's books. The Crucified God is a seminal work on the crucifixion and its significance. The book takes death, despair and dreadfulness, the dark side of the human condition, with total seriousness and relates these to a liberating hope of redemption through divine agony and suffering. Influential for many years, especially with political and liberation theologians, but also much more widely, the book represents a concentrated blast of hard-edged doctrinal reflection and will continue to inspire upcoming generations who take seriously the life-changing notion that 'God was in Christ.' Reissued with a new foreword by the author himself.

For a time of peril, world-renowned theologian Jrgen Moltmann offers an ethical framework for the future. Long distinguished as the architect of political theology and father of the theology of hope, Moltmann has shown how hope in the future decisively reconfigures the present and shapes our understanding of central Christian convictions, from creation to New Creation. Now, in an era of unprecedented scientific advances alongside unparalleled global dangers, Moltmann has formulated his long-awaited Ethics of Hope. Building on his conviction that Christian existence and social matters are inextricably tied together in the political sphere, Moltmann unfolds his ethics in light of eschatology, clearly distinguishing it from prior and competing visions of Christian ethics. He then specifies his vision with an ethic of life (against the dominant ethic of death), an ethic of earth (against todays utilitarian ethic), and an ethic of justice (against todays social injustice and global conflicts). In the process, he applies this framework to concrete issues of medical ethics, ecological ethics, and just-war ethics. A creative and programmatic work, Ethics of Hope is a realistic assessment of the human prospect, as well as its imperatives, from one who stakes everything on Gods promise to rescue life from the jaws of death.

"The following efforts bear the title Theology of Hope, not because they set out once again to present eschatology as a separate doctrine and to compete with the well known textbooks. Rather, their aim is to show how theology can set out from hope and begin to consider its theme in an eschatological light. For this reason they inquire into the ground of the hope of Christian faith and into the responsible exercise of this hope in thought and action in the world today. The various critical discussions should not be understood as rejections and condemnations. They are necessary conversations on a common subject which is so rich that it demands continual new approaches."

Winner of Grawemeyer Award In this remarkable and timely work - in many ways the culmination of his systematic theology - world-renowned theologian Jurgen 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 solution. He centers instead on hope and God's 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: Are there eternal life and personal identity after death? How is one to think of heaven, hell, and purgatory? What are the historical and cosmological dimensions of Christian hope? What are its social and political implications. In a heartbreakingly fragile and fragment world, Moltmann's comprehensive eschatology surveys the Christian vista, bravely envisioning our horizons of expectation for personal, social, even cosmic transformation in God.

Jrgen Moltmann formulates necessary questions about the significance of Jesus the Christ for persons today. He offers a compelling portrait of the earthly Jesus as the divine brother in our distress and suffering and points to the risen Christ as the warrant for the "future in which God will restore everything . . . and gather everything into his kingdom." Urging that acknowledgment of Christ and discipleship are two sides of the same coin, Moltmann contends that the question of Jesus Christ for today is not just an intellectual one. Moltmann takes fresh approaches to a number of crucial topics: Jesus and the kingdom of God, the passion of Christ and the pain of God, Jesus as brother of the tortured, and the resurrection of Christ as hope for the world, the cosmic Christ, Jesus in Jewish- Christian dialogue, the future of God, and others.

Modern humanity has accepted a truncated, impoverished definition of life. Focusing solely on material realities, we have forgotten that joy, purpose, and meaning come from a life that is both immersed in the temporal and alive to the transcendent. We have, in other words, ceased to live in God. In this book, renowned theologian Jurgen Moltmann shows us what that life of joy and purpose looks like. Describing how we came to live in a world devoid of the ultimate, he charts a way back to an intimate connection with the biblical God. He counsels that we adopt a "theology of life," an orientation that sees God at work in both the mundane and the extraordinary and that pushes us to work for a world that fully reflects the life of its Creator. Moltmann offers a telling critique of the shallow values of consumerist society and provides a compelling rationale for why spiritual sensibilities and encounter with God must lie at the heart of any life that seeks to be authentically human.