Search Results

Millenarians

Damian Thompson

in Waiting for Antichrist: Charisma and Apocalypse in a Pentecostal Church

This chapter focuses on the small number of textbook millenarians in the congregation — people who were confident that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. It presents the story of Maureen, a woman ... More

This chapter focuses on the small number of textbook millenarians in the congregation — people who were confident that Jesus would return in their lifetimes. It presents the story of Maureen, a woman in her early sixties who not only provided a full account of how she was introduced to the concept of the End Times, but also claimed to have received an apocalyptic message from Jesus. Interview data are used to explore the social and psychological factors that might dispose a member of Kensington Temple to move beyond explanatory millenarianism to belief in an imminent parousia. It is shown that apocalyptic beliefs were influenced by conversion experiences, individual psychology, and degree of subcultural immersion.Less

 Households Expanding: Eschatological Visions of Christ

Jana Marguerite Bennett

in Water Is Thicker than Blood: An Augustinian Theology of Marriage and Singleness

This chapter considers states of life in relation to the time “in between” the redemption and the final event in salvation history, known alternately as the eschaton or the Parousia. God continues to ... More

This chapter considers states of life in relation to the time “in between” the redemption and the final event in salvation history, known alternately as the eschaton or the Parousia. God continues to work in this time by reconfiguring married and single households. While Christians cannot know the fullness of what the eschaton will be like, Augustine suggests that there are hints in this world, especially in the life of the church. The church is itself a household, and one that encompasses both the married and the single. The ecclesial household is the ultimate household through which God demonstrates how the smaller daily familial households are to be reconfigured. The church as Household of God demonstrates new, reconfigured household practices particularly through its own household rituals of washing in baptism and eating at the Eucharist.Less

The Hope of Salvation

G. B. Caird

L. D. Hurst (ed.)

in New Testament Theology

This chapter begins with a review of what New Testament writers say about the resurrection of Christ. It discusses the meaning of eschatology, and Jesus’ future coming — his Parousia. It analyses the ... More

This chapter begins with a review of what New Testament writers say about the resurrection of Christ. It discusses the meaning of eschatology, and Jesus’ future coming — his Parousia. It analyses the individual aspect of salvation in the form of the redemption of the body, and the belief that in the final days, God will regather the nations into a unit.Less

The Consummation of the World's History of Freedom

Morwenna Ludlow

in Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner

This chapter recapitulates some of the themes of Ch. 6––decision, freedom, grace––at the collective rather than the individual level. This involves examining what Karl Rahner means by individual, the ... More

This chapter recapitulates some of the themes of Ch. 6––decision, freedom, grace––at the collective rather than the individual level. This involves examining what Karl Rahner means by individual, the body, and the unity of human nature. The question of to what extent humanity as a whole can be said to make a free decision for God leads to reflection on the nature of the collective Christian task in working towards a world of greater peace, justice, and love. Rahner distinguishes this task from worldly ideologies and utopianianism, by emphasizing that humans are only at most co‐creators of the future world with God. The chapter concludes by connecting these ideas with Rahner's notions of resurrection, the beatific vision, and the parousia.Less

Jesus Founded a Church

Richard Swinburne

in The Resurrection of God Incarnate

Jesus forming a community based on 12 leaders could only be regarded in first‐century Palestine as founding a new Israel, a church. His instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper implied that he ... More

Jesus forming a community based on 12 leaders could only be regarded in first‐century Palestine as founding a new Israel, a church. His instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper implied that he expected that church would continue after his death. While he may have hoped that it would absorb the old Israel and that the latter would convert the Gentiles, however, the result was to be achieved, Jesus intended his church for all peoples. He did not teach explicitly that the Parousia (his second coming) would occur in his lifetime, but he did warn his disciples to be ready for its coming. The later church, in teaching the three central Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, developed the teaching of Jesus.Less

The Apostle Paul

J. A. Cerrato

in Hippolytus between East and West: The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus

The extant commentaries and fragments name Paul, or allude to him by title, about forty-one times. This is in contrast to Peter, who is named three times, and the ‘twelve’, who are mentioned about ... More

The extant commentaries and fragments name Paul, or allude to him by title, about forty-one times. This is in contrast to Peter, who is named three times, and the ‘twelve’, who are mentioned about seven times. Paul is, therefore, the dominant apostolic figure of the commentaries. The commentaries refer to him in forms and titles common to the early patristic period. He is ‘the apostle to the Gentiles’, the author of the epistles, and the martyr. Parts of Hippolytan commentaries on the epistles are preserved, including the work entitled de resurrectione ad Mammaeam imperatricem. The survey by Carroll D. Osburn of Pauline citations in the extant Greek texts of the commentaries has turned up forty citations of sixty-two separate verses of text. The study of the traditional Greek corpus by John C. Fenton lists more than 280 citations and allusions to the texts of Paul. The commentaries rely on Paul to support doctrines of eschatology, particularly the doctrines of the antichrist, the parousia, and the kingdom of the saints.Less

The eschaton

J. A. Cerrato

in Hippolytus between East and West: The Commentaries and the Provenance of the Corpus

Several commentaries and commentary fragments include the basic component of ‘thousand-year-ism’. As in most extant chiliastic texts of the second and third centuries, belief in a millennial kingdom ... More

Several commentaries and commentary fragments include the basic component of ‘thousand-year-ism’. As in most extant chiliastic texts of the second and third centuries, belief in a millennial kingdom is accompanied by other doctrines of equal length and significance, including the delayed parousia, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgement. Millenarism rarely occurs separate from this integrated combination of teachings found also in the representative writers of the age. Patristic historical apocalyptic eschatology was typically developed within a chronological framework, a sequence concluding with the chiliastic ‘kingdom of the saints’. The constituent parts form the core of an early tradition, exemplified in Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and the commentaries advance a particular chronological schema. Distinctive to early Christianity in this schema is the term ‘antichrist’.Less

Early Jewish and Christian Figures of Ethiopia

Roy Kay

in The Ethiopian Prophecy in Black American Letters

The emergence of the figurations of Ethiopia, derived from Psalm 68:31, begin with rabbinic and patristic writings. The readings of Psalm 68:31 in these sources initiate numerous figures of Ethiopia ... More

The emergence of the figurations of Ethiopia, derived from Psalm 68:31, begin with rabbinic and patristic writings. The readings of Psalm 68:31 in these sources initiate numerous figures of Ethiopia that will reverberate in first white and then black Protestant letters in America. This chapter is broken into two main sections. The first presents figural reading and history in patristic literature through an explanation of Auerbach's essay, “Figura.” Second, rabbinic and patristic readings of Psalm 68:31 are mapped and analyzed. While the rabbis read Psalm 68:31 as a sign of Ethiopia's conversion to Judaism, the church fathers have a grander understanding of the verse. Ethiopia is a synecdoche for all Gentile nations, and physical blackness cloaks the sin of Gentile idolatry. The conversion of Ethiopia prefigures the salvation of all Gentile peoples who come to Christ and hence hasten the Parousia.Less

The God Who May Be and the God Who Was

Craig Nichols

in After God: Richard Kearney and the Religious Turn in Continental Philosophy

This chapter explores what might be called the incarnate historicity of the phenomena of the life, death, and potential rebirth of the “same” God of the Western ... More

This chapter explores what might be called the incarnate historicity of the phenomena of the life, death, and potential rebirth of the “same” God of the Western ontotheological tradition. It holds that for the multivalent advent concepts, or in metaphysical parlance, parousia concepts, of the Western tradition are the indispensable conditions of a present return to the God-who-may-be through the God-who-was. The discussion looks into the eschatological theogonies of the God-who-was and the God-who-may-Be. By recasting Kearney's project in the terms of a Hegel–Heidegger, or system-deconstruction, tension, and by defining this ambiguous middle place as an eschatological theogony, it attempts to clarify the tension necessarily remaining in Kearney's own “onto-eschatological” discourse. It also suggests that Kearney's discourse must necessarily lean more closely to the romantic side he insists that if the God-who-may-be turns out to be a monster when expectation turns to realization, or possibility to actuality.Less

Chastity: Joseph and the Midnight Bridegroom—Holy Monday

Eugen J. Pentiuc

in Hearing the Scriptures: Liturgical Exegesis of the Old Testament in Byzantine Orthodox Hymnography

This chapter analyzes the Scriptures in several hymns prescribed for Holy Monday, whose central theme is chastity as exemplified by the Joseph story (Gen 37–50). Aspects of Joseph’s story (i.e., ... More

This chapter analyzes the Scriptures in several hymns prescribed for Holy Monday, whose central theme is chastity as exemplified by the Joseph story (Gen 37–50). Aspects of Joseph’s story (i.e., being sold by his brothers, refusing the lures of Potiphar’s wife and enduring imprisonment, his ascension to power) are fused together in this day’s hymns. By enduring trials and resisting temptations, Joseph is a type of Christ whose integrity remained undefiled by temptations and trials. Jacob lamenting the loss of his son was portrayed by hymnographers as a type of God lamenting his crucified son. “Trials and scourges” referring to divine judgment of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (2 Macc 7:37) was transferred by hymnographers to Christ’s Passion. The Holy Week’s ubiquitous motif of the “Midnight Bridegroom” (Matt 25:1–13) interconnects with the chastity theme, pointing to watchfulness (i.e., awaiting the coming [Parousia] of Jesus the Bridegroom) as a prerequisite of chastity.Less

Undoing (K)not of Apophaticism: A Heideggerian Afterthought

Elliot R. Wolfson

in Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania

This chapter examines recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. It ... More

This chapter examines recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology. It is reasonable to argue that we must marshal the best metaphors in an effort to imagine what technically cannot be imagined, but such efforts ensnare the human mind in representing the unrepresentable and imaging the imageless by the production of images that, literally speaking, are false, and in so doing, the very allure to the alleged transcendence is severely compromised. Rather than expanding the analogical imagination in envisioning transcendence, the epochal duty is the need to overcome it, to rid monotheism not only of the psychological tug to personify the impersonal but also of what Corbin called the “pious illusion of negative theology” and the pitfall of “metaphysical idolatry.” If we were to apply the unrestrained smashing of all idols without political prejudice or psychological need, then the more fruitful use of the apophatic rhetoric in our moment would be to get beyond the anthropocentric bias to undo both the masculine and the feminine imaginaries that have informed our depictions of the deity. On hermeneutical grounds a genuine unknowing, unencumbered by a theopolitical agenda, should yield a twofold agnosis that would it make it difficult, if well-neigh impossible, to speak of any doxa about matters divine. The more radical negation presumes neither a presence that is absent nor an absence that is present; there is simply nothing of which not to speak, and hence it should occasion the end of God-talk, even of an apophatic nature, a mode of speech predicated on the seemingly absurd proposition that what is said is never what one is saying. The exigency of the moment—to subjugate the theistic anthropomorphization of God and the corresponding egoistic theomorphization of self—demands a sweeping and uncompromising purification of the idea of infinity from all predication, including the ecological tendency to deify the cosmos in incarnational language as the embodiment of a gift of transcendence. Structurally, givenness requires giving and the given, but not everything given is a gift. To portray the latter in postmodern terms as a bestowal on the part of divinity liberated from the straightjacket of ontotheology does not mitigate the problem of presuming that what is given is a gift, which in turn rests on the even more laden assumption that the giving is expressive of some form of generosity or grace on the part of the giver.Less

Jean- Yves Lacoste: A God of Liturgy and Parousia

Christina M. Gschwandtner

in Postmodern Apologetics?: Arguments for God in Contemporary Philosophy

Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy is the subject of Chapter 8. Closely following and at times vigorously criticizing Heidegger’s philosophy, Lacoste has developed a phenomenological ... More

Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgy is the subject of Chapter 8. Closely following and at times vigorously criticizing Heidegger’s philosophy, Lacoste has developed a phenomenological analysis of prayer and liturgy as our “being-before-God,” which he suggests goes beyond Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world.” He also attempts a recovery of “presence” as a useful phenomenological term by focusing on the mystery of the Eucharist. For him, liturgical experience and presence are always also closely linked to the expectation of the parousia. Like Chrétien, Lacoste is very interested in phenomenologies of prayer and of the body. He also emphasizes the communal aspect of religious faith far more than some of the other thinkers.Less

Eschatological Affliction as the Centre of a Phenomenology of Religion, 1916–21

Wolfe Judith

in Heidegger's Eschatology: Theological Horizons in Martin Heidegger's Early Work

This chapter examines Heidegger’ssearch(1915-9) both for an alternative understanding of religious experience and for a philosophical-theological method adequate to describing it. It gives a critical ... More

This chapter examines Heidegger’ssearch(1915-9) both for an alternative understanding of religious experience and for a philosophical-theological method adequate to describing it. It gives a critical account of Heidegger’s continuing reading in Protestant theology and philosophy—particularly Luther and Schleiermacher—, and its creative impact on his developing understanding of Husserlian phenomenology. In addition, it argues that Heidegger’s developing Protestantism is itself inflected by his reading (and writing) of Romantic poetry, particularly Hölderlin. The result, for Heidegger,is a new conception of authentic religious experience as centrally defined by affliction. This conception culminates in Heidegger’s re-reading,in his 1920/1 lectures on the Phenomenology of Religion, of St Paul’s call to the Thessalonians to await the parousia.Less

The Jewish Messiah–​Christian Messiah Distinction

Matthew V. Novenson

in The Grammar of Messianism: An Ancient Jewish Political Idiom and Its Users

Gershom Scholem is perhaps its best-known modern proponent, but the essentializing distinction between the Jewish messiah (earthly, political, delivers from oppression) and the Christian messiah ... More

Gershom Scholem is perhaps its best-known modern proponent, but the essentializing distinction between the Jewish messiah (earthly, political, delivers from oppression) and the Christian messiah (heavenly, spiritual, delivers from sin) goes back as far as Justin Martyr. In this chapter it is argued that this familiar and influential distinction is fatally undermined by counterexamples on the one side as well as the other. Many Jewish messiah texts bend the messiah myth to accommodate contingent historical developments and persons, while many Christian messiah texts obstinately maintain utopian aspects of the messiah myth despite their nonfulfillment in the career of Jesus. It is argued, furthermore, that the enormous popularity of the Jewish messiah–Christian messiah distinction has always been a result, in large part, of its rhetorical utility for religious self-definition and interreligious dialogue.Less

‘The Old Has Gone, the New Has Come’: The Apocalyptic Character of the New Testament and its Relevance to Intellectual Humility

Grant Macaskill

in The New Testament and Intellectual Humility

This chapter considers in greater detail the personal disruption central to the New Testament accounts of Christian cognitive identity. It focuses on the authors’ conviction that they participate in ... More

This chapter considers in greater detail the personal disruption central to the New Testament accounts of Christian cognitive identity. It focuses on the authors’ conviction that they participate in a new eschatological reality that is centred on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This conviction acknowledges the necessary limits of the human potential to know God apart from his own deliberate and concrete self-disclosure in the person of Jesus. Such limits involve both earthly finitude and the distortive power of sin. The chapter involves a particularly close engagement with scholarship on the ‘apocalyptic Paul’, which has rightly identified these epistemic elements in the apostle’s thought, but has frequently failed to recognize the continuing importance of the Old Testament to Paul’s moral theology. The continuing significance of the Old Testament to Paul’s thought, particularly the wisdom literature, is important to Christian theologies of intellectual virtue.Less

Intellectual Humility and the Practices of Faith: Prayerful Patience and Gratitude

Grant Macaskill

in The New Testament and Intellectual Humility

This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that ... More

This chapter examines the practices with which intellectual humility is enmeshed in the Christian life: patience and gratitude, which are both manifested in prayer. The discussion recognizes that intellectual humility does not function in isolation, as a virtue in its own right, but is expressed through, and fed by, other practices within the life of faith, as the minds of believers are rightly ordered with respect to God. Patience and gratitude are not represented within the New Testament simply as dispositions, but as deliberate volitional activities, by which the lordship and the goodness of God are acknowledged and behaviours modified accordingly. The chapter traces the key ways in which faithful servants are represented as ‘waiting upon God’ and giving thanks to him, and considers the ways that that these practices are represented as bearing on the epistemic and volitional characteristics of those servants.Less

Introduction

Isaac W. Oliver

in Luke's Jewish Eschatology: The National Restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts

This chapter discusses the history of interpretation of Luke-Acts as it concerns Luke’s relationship to Judaism. The chapter critically assesses common opinions held in New Testament scholarship ... More

This chapter discusses the history of interpretation of Luke-Acts as it concerns Luke’s relationship to Judaism. The chapter critically assesses common opinions held in New Testament scholarship regarding the concepts of salvation, eschatology, Christian universalism, Jewish particularism, and nationalism. This critical evaluation of scholarship and key concepts lays the foundation for the rest of the investigation, proposing that Luke’s understanding of the eschatological restoration of Israel can be effectively understood in light of Jewish concepts from Luke’s time. In many ways, Luke’s eschatology corresponds to traditional Jewish expectations. The restoration of Israel remains at the center of Luke’s eschatological universe even if it expands to include the nations of the world.Less

Jerusalem and the Restoration of Israel in the Gospel of Luke

Isaac W. Oliver

in Luke's Jewish Eschatology: The National Restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts

Jerusalem occupies a central place throughout the Gospel of Luke. This chapter accordingly examines how Jerusalem fits into Luke’s wider eschatological program. In Luke, Jerusalem is the center of ... More

Jerusalem occupies a central place throughout the Gospel of Luke. This chapter accordingly examines how Jerusalem fits into Luke’s wider eschatological program. In Luke, Jerusalem is the center of Jesus’s eschatological activity. This theme emerges especially in the so-called travel narrative, which presents Jerusalem as the site where Jesus must fulfill his task of liberation—through his death, resurrection, ascension, and return—thereby tying the destiny of the messiah of Israel with his people. The major eschatological speech of the Third Gospel also deals with the fate of Jerusalem, including its destruction in 70, which is a source of grief for Luke’s Jesus. Tragedy, however, is not the end of Luke’s story of salvation on behalf of Israel. The Jewish people will be restored at Jesus’s return to Jerusalem.Less