I’m so excited that the new Emergent Village blog is up and running over at Patheos! It is called the Emergent Village Voice, and there is a fantastically diverse list of contributors. I’ll be posting there every other week. My first post went up today, so go give it a read! And go add it to your RSS feed. There are already a ton of really great posts up.
Happy third week of Advent! This morning’s Moltmann Monday quote comes from Sun of Righteousness, Arise!. This is a great book for people new to Moltmann, and it’s written in a more conversational style than some of his other more theological works. The quote below comes at the beginning of a section on the Shekinah of God, which is one of Moltmann’s favorite concepts:
I should like to talk about both these things: about the Merciful One who shares our suffering, and about the Holy One who goes ahead of us and leads us to the eternal home of identity. But the presupposition for both these experiences of God is the descent and self-lowering of the Eternal One into our earthly and transitory world–the immanence of the transcendent God. Or in the words of the prophet Isaiah (57:15): ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit.’ It is not just for us that it is important to experience the nearness of God in what happens to us. It is important for God, too, for God wants to live among us and on this earth for ever and ever.”
Here’s something I love about Professor Moltmann- he doesn’t forget about God. That may sound strange to say, but I get the sense that many theologians get to talking so much about God-the-concept or God-the-idea or, heaven forbid, me-the-smart-theologian-talking-about-the-complexity-of-God-the-idea, that GOD actually gets lost in the shuffle. Moltmann has made great contributions to theology because he doesn’t forget to ask the question, “What does this mean for GOD?”
In Advent, we spend most of our time talking about what it means for us that God became human and lived among us. And that is right and good, because it is mind-boggling and beautiful and the biggest and strangest gift we could imagine. As we enter these last two weeks of Advent, I wonder if we could also remember to consider what this means for God. I like to think that God becoming immanent even in God’s transcendence is something God has anticipated eagerly because it brings to fruition something intrinsic about who God IS. And at Christmas, this immanence of God becomes known to us in a way that it wasn’t before. That’s good news for us–but let’s not forget it’s good news for God, too.
In case you missed it, the reading list for the upcoming Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been posted! We’ve also added some more conversation partners to the mix including Monica Coleman. As you know, space is limited for this event each year, so don’t delay in getting registered!
Find out all the information and a link to registration here.
We’re immersed in Advent as we enter the mid-point of the season and the light of our hope slowly grows brighter. Some words from Moltmann this morning from Theology of Hope p.164-165:
God is not somewhere in the Beyond, but he is coming and as the coming One he is present. He promises a new world of all-embracing life, of righteousness and truth, and with this promise he constantly calls this world into question- not because to the eye of hope it is as nothing, but because to the eye of hope it is not yet what it has the prospect of being. When the world and the human nature bound up with it are called in question in this way, then they become ‘historic’, for they are staked upon, and submitted to the crisis of, the promised future. Where the new begins, the old becomes manifest. Where the new is promised, the old becomes transient and surpassable. Where the new is hoped for and expected, the old can be left behind. Thus ‘history’ arises in the light of its end, in the things which happen because of, and become perceptible through, the promise that lights up the way ahead. Eschatology does not disappear in the quicksands of history, but it keeps history moving by its criticism and hope; it is itself something like a sort of quicksand of history from afar.
Such beautiful imagery in here- the picture of the world being “staked upon” the coming promised future of God, the perception of movement in the form of quicksand, and the most lovely Advent image of the “promise that lights up the way ahead.” I’ll not comment further and just let the picture stand.
The new December issues of Christianity Today is out, and this month’s question in the “Under Discussion” column is “Should churches copyright their name?” I give my two cents in a few brief sentences. Go grab one and see what you think!
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