The Kingdom Anticipated: The Church and Eschatology

The idea that the church is an eschatological community, closely connected to the kingdom or reign of God, has not been prominent in ecclesiology. This article argues that the early Christian community understood its own existence in eschatological terms, as the ‘vestibule’ of God's reign (Bultmann). With the help of the concept of ‘anticipation’, it is argued that the church is an anticipatory sign of the kingdom, but that the relation between them requires nuanced statement. Central among the ways in which the church's eschatological character is instantiated is the Eucharist. However, such a view of the church also has pastoral, missiological and political implications.     

The Writing of the Kingdom: Thirty-Seven Aphorisms Towards an Eschatology of the Text

Starting from the question of the identities—in a given text—of author and reader, subsumed under the broader (Hegelian and post-Hegelian) question of "self" and "other" in exteriority, this essay attempts a theological response in three critical moments: the first follows the transcendental tradition of Western thought from the (Cartesian) turn towards transcendental subjectivity to the collapse of the dialectics of subjectivity in "postmodern" thought; the second moves the problem of exteriority from the realm of recognition that of promise and expectation (eschatology); and the third formulates a Trinitarian ontology of distance that accommodates this eschatology.     

Active Learning for the Kingdom of God

At the same time that teachers in theology and religion have been encouraged to consider how their personal identities affect their teaching, there has also been increased interest in active learning strategies. This essay argues that these two initiatives may be in conflict if the communal commitments of the instructor do not mirror the democratic commitments inherent to most active learning pedagogies. As a teacher of theology and ethics who is ultimately not committed to democracy but to the Kingdom of God, I have sought to develop learning strategies which avoid student passivity while focusing on the church as a foretaste to God's Kingdom. My consideration of this dilemma has drawn me to the educational philosophies of both John Dewey and Stanley Hauerwas, and in response to them I outline an active learning strategy which envisions the Christian church as a living tradition with students as dialogue partners and contributors to it.     

希望的末世论--现代基督教末世论述评

20世纪开始时,神学家们主要关心的问题是末世论。然而,那是一种脱离政治的末世论。同神学其它分支一样,末世论是按照私人的、个体的、存在主义的方式加以解释的。只是由于现代政治神学的出现,末世论才具有历史的、集体的、真正面向未来的定向。这一转折是从存在主义的内心生命向公共的社会生活的转折,是从个人的经历向历史的转折,是从超验的主体向政治的转折。在这一方面,希望神学起了关键的作用。希望神学的突出标志是：它力图表明末世论的教义是基督教神学的核心。上帝存在的问题,实际上是一个开放的未来的可能性的问题。上帝不存在于彼岸的某个地方,他正在到来。     

俄国宗教哲学的寻神运动

19—20世纪之交,俄国知识分子为致力于基督教意识、文化、政治、社会及个人生活观念的更新,于创新、张力、奋斗和挑战之中,发起了一场规模浩大的思想运动——新宗教运动。新宗教运动虽名称各异,其实就是20世纪初在俄知识分子中盛行一时的宗教哲学的寻神运动。别尔嘉耶夫是主要倡导者之一。这次寻神运动的实质是基督教和多神教、灵魂和肉体、神和人的统一,它对弘扬俄罗斯传统文化,加强俄罗斯民族的精神凝聚力具有深远的意义。     

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and the Kingdom of God: A Cosmological Integration

The core cosmological dimension of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) and Christianity emphasizes a similar truth—the future is now. As humans live in their preferred realities, they experience the future, problem free solution for their lives from a SFBT perspective. The Christian tradition emphasizes the in-breaking Kingdom of God beginning with the Christ event. The end has entered the now. However, the final consummation of the end-times is still as yet in the future which means that sin and death are part of the world. This Christian understanding of sin and fallenness provides humility to SFBT’s inherently positive view of the world (Bidwell, D. R. Am J of Pastor Couns, 3:3–21, 1999), while SFBT encourages Christians to see the kingdom of God in the now instead of the future.     

Living The Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theologies of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg

Abstract:  In recent theology, both Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg have made the kingdom of God a central theme in their thought. However, there has been little ensuing discussion delimiting the precise theological insights entailed in their positions or relating this aspect of their work to their broader theological endeavours. Moreover, discussions surrounding the moral implications of the kingdom of God in these two thinkers have been oddly estranged from the theological articulations on which these ethical suggestions have been based. This article aims to address this deficit in the current debate by examining and exploring the nature and role of the kingdom of God in Moltmann and Pannenberg's thought. Once the material content of the kingdom has been explored theologically, both theologians will be critiqued on the manner in which they include the theme of judgement into the kingdom, and the subsequent ethical results.     

论犹太教末世论

末世论是犹太教原创性教义之一,在2000多年的发展过程中,演变成为一种复杂的思想体系。复杂不仅体现在内容繁多,更体现在各派别在认识上矛盾重重,甚至互相对立,并且在发展过程中又受到波斯等外来思想的影响。对此,本文意在对犹太教末世论思想进行简单梳理,同时对其产生的原因和本质进行比较详细地分析。     

Beyond Strategy,Towards the Kingdom of God: The Post‐Critical Reconstructionist Mission of the Emerging Church

Abstract : The Emerging Church is a diverse global phenomenon which envisions a radical reforming of the theology and praxis of the broader Christian church in light of the philosophical and cultural shift from modernism to post‐modernism. Differing from the evangelical New Paradigm seeker‐sensitive Church's generational focus, and the organizational unity and routines of Mainline Protestant denominations the Emerging Church conversation endeavors to create committed, authentic, day‐to‐day communities that embrace ecumenical and ancient Christian theology and practices in order to live out the reality of the in‐breaking kingdom of God. Though precise systemic theological unity within the Emerging movement is recognized as an elusive goal that is generally not even sought, the movement as a whole finds much in common with post‐conservative and post‐liberal theology, and shares a joint mission with those who have been called to the task of post‐critical reconstruction.     

Universal Salvation in the Eschatology of Sergius Bulgakov

Bulgakov's deeply original and controversial eschatology remainslargely unexplored in modern scholarship. Following the universalistinsights of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, Bulgakov construedhell as a state of self-inflicted torment necessary to purifythe resurrected individual from evil. His arguments againstthe eternity of hell are as follows: the permanence of hellentails the eternal dualism of good and evil; the grace andmercy of God cannot be permanently resisted by free creatures;perpetual punishment is not commensurable with the finite crimescommitted in time; the idea of perpetual retributive punishmentleads to an anthropomorphic and unworthy image of a vengefulGod; the ontological and moral unity of humanity does not allowfor the eternal separation of humankind into the two separategroups of the saved and of the permanently damned. This articlelays out Bulgakov's vision of the universal salvation; investigatesthe roots of this vision in patristic thought; places Bulgakov'sproposal in the context of the nineteenth–twentieth-centuryRussian eschatology; and offers a critical evaluation of Bulgakov'sarguments against the eternity of hell.     

The God Beyond

This article is an attempt to describe the structure of imaging God at the adult level At the adult level of religious development, this structure has three interrelated pieces: first, there is an adult self;second, there is unfettered imaging; and third, there is the God the adult self is able to relate to in unfettered imaging, and this is the God Beyond. The article concludes with a brief look at how the adult self hears and speaks about the God Beyond.The author acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable help in writing this article of Neil J. McGettigan, Religious Studies Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.