ethans feet

“We believe in the justification of human beings through faith ALONE and not through faith and heterosexuality” — Jurgen Moltmann.  So that’s that then.

This is a sketch of all this man has been through.  POW, veteran of WWII – on the German side, lost a son, brother euthanized for having a disability.  Yikes.  And this is the man who wrote A Theology of Hope.  Only in Jesus!

• Emergence vs. evolution. The idea that something NEW can emerge out of what is.  That the whole is MORE than the sum of the parts.  We cannot totally understand the something new simply by understanding the parts.  The world is not annihilated but transformed.  Deified (God indwelled).  The struggle between theology and science is better than mutual silence.

• Do we co-operate with God? Yep.  Even Paul says.  It’s not that god has NO hands but ours.  But God gives us the ability to respond and we have responsibility to do so.  He wants us to come of age and not to act like little children waiting for God to do everything.  And Calvin would agree with this.

• Original Sin: Augustan found this very important.  These ideas lead to a sort of Gnosticism.  We have received life and should give life to another generation.  Original sin has nothing to do with procreation.  The idea has more to do with COLLECTIVE GUILT, everyone is guilty of everything that happens in the world, because everything is inter-related.  We need a liberation from this universal guilt.  Sin came into the world through Cain and Abel.
• Atonement: Sacrificial language of Paul in the NT.  God is himself giving the sacrifice he is not asking for one.  God is always the protagonist.  Love takes God out of himself.
• Eschatology: New Creation is not the end but the beginning of the new creation.  Dispensationalism is not a Christian idea (it’s a Jewish one), based on the 7 day creation.  Creation is getting older and older until the end.

• “Unless you confess, God cannot bless” is wrong.  Is God by nature a non-contingent being?  Yes.  Is God waiting on us to act? No.  We cannot make conditions on God.  That is to make God an object/an idol.  God will bless who God will bless.  We respond.  In fact it is heathen to think so.
• Jesus talks about prayer as being persistent. But God knows already before I pray it.
• Death is not annihilation.
• Before God created he chose to become the creator.  And he had to contract himself to make space for God.  God has chosen to bind himself to time – or else he could not be called a “living” God.  Is that too Hegelian?  No, Hegel did not develop an understanding of the trinity.
• Pan-en-theism: means everything is in God.  But that’s only part of it, the more important part is that God is IN everything.  Calvin himself says that god is in everything only that we don’t have the eyes to see it.  If you see it in Trinitarian terms than we can understand it – If you see it in theistic terms it becomes problematic.

• Turning swords into plowshares: Double strategy of a community lived separately AND people who fight for peace.  The one needs the other to keep from becoming violent to see a picture of peace lived fully, and yet the separate community is not sufficient because it doesn’t really oppose evil.
• The influence of small groups of alternative life are very affective.
• The opposite of poverty is not property but community.  In a community we are strong.  Individualism is the lie of marketing.
• Individuals form a lonely crowd, only communities form communities.
• The church has 2 tasks: on the one hand to serve the need of the society and on the other hand a prophetic voice that speaks to those in power.
• The myth of progress is returning in the idea of globalization: and the abyss is approaching in the form of environmental catastrophe.
• “When I returned from the POW camps I vowed that I would never fight in a Germen military again, but I do vow to kill the dictator.”  JM

• The theodicy question is a problem that people have with God, but they wouldn’t have this problem with Jesus.  “If it weren’t for Jesus I would be an atheist like all of the people in my family”.
• Only the presence of God keeps alive the question of evil.
• Protest Hope: What is the art of hope 2 Peter 3:13sih, we weight AND hasten the coming kingdom.  To wait is not to adjust to unjust conditions in the present because you know it can be changed and will be changed.  So you resist conformity.  To wait and to hasten is to resist and to anticipate.
• We have 2 crosses, the real cross of Golgotha and we have the false cross of Constantine’s dream.
• Atonement: First there’s a Christology of solidarity – he suffers with us.  And he suffers FOR us, the guilty; the two have to be held together.  Justification is forgiveness of sin AND resurrection into new life.   Justification begins with the justification of the victims.

My wonderful friend Mike who tragically lost his son was in conversation with JM on how he too had lost his son, here’s a quote from JM.

• The why question cannot be answered because we would accept no answer.  The answer god gave to the question of Jesus was the resurrection and the new reality.  But refused to explain why it was necessary.  We have the consolation that we are not alone.  The other question is whether there is a process after death to fulfill the destiny of a life cut short.  God will bring to a good end what he had begun in a human person, and I trust in that.

It made me cry a little bit.

• On Method: Systems do not encourage discussion.  Behind all this, is the conviction that, humanly speaking, truth is to be found in unhindered dialogue.  Barth denies a natural theology but says that there is a theology of nature: it starts with the revelation of Christ that is reflected in the revelation of nature.   Is Christian theology for Christians or is for everyone?  Theology is the theology of the KOG which is coming.  We need a universal horizon if we want to be faithful to the gospel.  “reformed tradition is my tradition and the ecumenical church is my church”
• Read Elli Ezel’s book “Night”.  “God is not in control of everything; God is carrying and bearing everything”.
• The divine is apathetic:  platonic ideal in contrast to the tirades and emotions of Greco romans God.
• Incorporating experience into the work of theology.  Examples Mysticism, and doubt.  “theology not connect to life and death is a nice game, but only that, only a game for players.”
• On scripture: “I read the Bible with a presupposition to meet the dvine word in human words.” JM.  Galatians, “in Christ there is no male or female… etc” then Paul says “women don’t talk”.  What’s closer to Jesus?  Obviously Galatians.
• Political Theology: Over and against Luther’s “2 kingdoms”, in the face of Auschwitz.
• Postmodernity:“I think Post-modernity is another form of modernity.  We can only survive together.”