Eschatology for the Oppressed: Millenarianism and Liberation in the Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann

Eschatology for the Oppressed: Millenarianism and Liberation in the

Eschatology of Jurgen MoltmannBrandon Lee Morgan

Baylor University, Waco TX 76798

IntroductionJürgen Moltmann’s The Coming o f God is his most thorough and perhaps most political discussion of Christian eschatology. He affirms the materiality of this world and prioritizes liberation o f the oppressed as an eschatological condition that actualizes the kingdom of God in the future. Conversely, Moltmann also sees the danger in the secularization of Christian eschatology for human purposes, which can lead to extreme utopianism and apocalypticism. To avoid these dangers, Moltmann affirms a mi llenarían and historicized aspect o f eschatology as a dialectical political prototype of the future liberation in God’s kingdom. My goal here is to analyze the role millenarianism plays in Moltmann’s eschatology, particularly in The Coming o f God, in order to affirm a political motivation as an interpretive lens for Moltmann’s eschatology. I will accomplish this by discussing Moltmann’s categories o f novelty and advent and show how this affects linear time and critiques realized eschatology. I will then show how Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism impacts political ethics in some of Moltmann’s more recent essays. Moltmann’s category of novelty provides a motivating hope for Christians to visualize political ethics toward oppression as eschatological and not simply historical. By distinguishing history and eschatology without disjoining them, Moltmann affirms the Christian’s proleptic effort of bringing about God’s future kingdom through novel restora- tion of the oppressed in the present.

Novum and AdventusMoltmann’s eschatological approach is grounded in the category he calls novum. He defines novum as an aspect of messianic religions that characterizes the “historical side of their eschatological openness to the future.”1 Miroslav Volf links novum to “completion,” which he claims is a more central, albeit problematic, foundation of Moltmann’s thought.2 Summed up in the category novum is the assumption that the world is not completed and thus still needs to be finished. If certain actions in this world conform to the vision of God’s coming kingdom then those “transformations of the world in history are

1Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming o f God: Christian Eschatology (Minneapolis: For- tress, 1996), 27.

2Miroslav Volf, “After Moltmann,” in God Will Be All in All: The Eschatology o f Jurgen Moltmann (ed. Richard Bauckham; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 245.

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anticipations of the eschatological completion of the old.”3 The novelty of the future does not mandate a return to the former state of the world, but necessitates a new creation that has yet to be established.4 The novelty of eschatology is therefore “wholly other, non-analogous, transcendently new.”5 Because of this novelty the new creation’s arrival cannot be accurately described or human- ly claimed as present, allowing for its potential to fill present life with a future hope. The best description that Moltmann gives to novum is a redemption that “transforms the people whom it touches.”6

He further elaborates on the novelty of God’s arrival through the dis■־ tinction between futurum and adventus. “Futurum means what will be; adventus means what is coming.”7 Futurum can be further described as linear time where the past and present provide the context for the future and are prolonged through present actualities.8 Time is therefore an evolutionary process that is somewhat deterministic about future potentialities. This understanding of eschatology offers “no special reason for hope, for the past predominates.” Thus, the future defined this way reduces novelty to predictability and possibility to de- terminism.

Conversely, Moltmann describes God’s coming as adventus. By recognizing that God comes as an advent into linear time, Moltmann places future possibilities ontologically above the actualized present.10 He sees the future as having the most solidarity with the coming of God and with a possible hope for liberation from the present. The advent o f God “throws open the time of history” n and allows for an alternative expectation grounded in the future, Moltmann sees God’s adventus as the proper understanding of novelty and the foundation for a truly hopeful eschatology. Viewing God through adventus instead of evolutionary future means that God is not the culmination of history, but “comes at every moment to those psychologically prepared to receive the

3Ibid., 245.4This changes Moltmann’s understanding o f original sin and death greatly. Be-

cause he does not believe creation was initially created as a finished product, he does not consign to a return to a pre-lapsarian status. This idea can be best summed up in Moltmann’s memorable phrases, “true eschatology is not about future history; it is about the future o f history.” See Moltmann, Coming o f God, 10. For Moltmann’s eschatological understanding o f individual death and its relationship with sin see ibid., 47-126.

5Richard Bauckham “Time and Eternity,” in God Will Be AU in All, 157.6Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 28.7Ibid., 25.8See Joseph A. Bracken, “Intersubjectivity and the Coming o f God,” JR 83 (2003):

381, who compares this idea o f linear time with the “natural sciences on the basis o f which one makes predictions about the repeatability o f various events.”

9Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 25. Though there are some similarities between process philosophy and Moltmann’s eschatology as Bracken, “Intersubjectivity and the Com- ing o f God,” 381, argues, his break from the evolutionary movement o f history and God is a vital difference.

10Ibid., 287. “If reality is real-ized potentiality, then potentiality must be higher ontologically than reality, i f out o f the future there is past, but out o f the past never again future, then the future must have pre-eminence among the modes o f time.”

11Ibid., 26.

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divine presence and respond to it.” 12 God comes to transform history and time beginning with Christ.

For Moltmann, the initiating event of God’s novel arrival is the coming of Christ and his resurrection. He recognizes the inherent novelty of the resurrection by claiming that it “has no analogies in experienced history.’513 The future of Christ is not determined by the extension of the present into a predict- able future. Rather, Christ’s resurrection is an eschatological event that expresses the novelty of the new creation.14 Because of the risen Christ, “the future o f the new creation sheds its luster into the present of the old world.”15 By claiming that the Christ-event is an eschatological event and not simply an historical event, Moltmann connects the life and resurrection of Christ that occurred in the past to the parousia which will occur in the future. Thus, the incarnated Christ is a prototype of the ethic of his millennial age and the resurrection of Christ is a prototype of creation’s liberation and resurrection. Despite the sparse mentions of Christ in the Coming o f God, Moltmann’s assumptions as laid out in his introductory remarks sum up previously mentioned christological views in other works and provide a foundation for his discussion about messianic time and millenarianism.16

Future in the PastThe most evident description of Christ’s resurrection as an eschatological event involves Moltmann’s differentiation between linear time and messianic time. It is impossible to understand Moltmann’s hope for the present liberation of the oppressed without partially addressing his understanding of time. The Christ- event as an eschatological event means, for Moltmann, that “with the raising of the crucified Christ from the dead, the future o f the new creation of all things

17has already begun in the midst o f this dying and transitory world.” When the novel advent of Christ’s initial coming is connected as a prolepsis to the future advent of his millennial reign, there is a recognition that Christ’s life, ethic, and resurrection changed the nature of time itself. Essentially, Christ initiated

12Bracken, “Intersubjectivity and the Coming o f God,” 383. See also Timothy Harvie, “Living the Future: The Kingdom o f God in the Theologies o f Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenburg,” International Journal o f Systematic Theology 10 (2008): 158.

13Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 28.14Ibid., 69.15Ibid., 28.16Nathan D. Hieb, “The Eschatological Millenarianism o f Jurgen Moltmann,”

Koinonia 18 (2006): 67-68, raises criticism about Moltmann’s lack o f Christology in The Coming o f God compared to Theology o f Hope. However, I disagree with this criticism and follow Bauckham’s assessment in Richard Bauckham, “The Eschatology in The Coming o f God," in God Will Be All in All, 1, that this work “cannot be read adequately by itself.” Thus Moltmann’s introductory remarks in the Coming o f God pull from previously fleshed out Christological remarks in Theology o f Hope and The Way o f Jesus Christ. Bauckham also points out that the parousia in the Coming o f God more often refers to the kingdom o f Christ within history, which is a more central focus o f this work and implied through Moltmann’s discussion o f millenarianism. See Moltmann, Coming o f God, 194, for Moltmann’s Christo- logical foundations for eschatology.

17Ibid., 136.


messianic time into linear time in the incarnation and the resurrection. The resurrection and the return of Christ are connected despite their distinct separation in linear time.

Linear time can be connected to futurum, which evolves from the past and present and lacks both novelty and expected hope. This linear time is historical and does not provide an opportunity for change. Such a mode of transience is oppressive to those on the underside of history. Conversely, eschatological time connected to the adventus of God in Christ is constructed in Moltmann’s system as an eternal time that hinges on a priority of the future as the “source from which time springs.”18 Following Ernst Bloch, Moltmann says of time: “future is the sphere o f the possible, past the sphere o f the real, present the fron- tier on which the possible is either real-ized or not real-ized.” 19 Christ comes from the future and arrives in the present, causing the “aeonic time” of the heavenlv realms to be “bound up with the time of this visible world of the earth.”2 Christ’s coming transfigures time and allows the Christian community to be a conduit for real-izing the messianic time of Christ every day.

By recognizing the transfiguration of time in the Christ-event as a prototype of the future advent of Christ5 s return, it is possible to see the past event of Christ as an eschatological event instead of simply a historical one. Moltmann describes the interaction between linear time and eschatological time as Future in the Past21 The future that Christian eschatology is hoping for “has already begun with the coming of the Messiah Jesus. With the coming of the Messiah, the messianic time already begins.”22 This means that Jesus came into historical time and transfigured history into messianic time, which can adequately be described as a future event that took place in the historical past. Our recognition of the future-in-the־past inspires hope for the possibility that today’s historical events can inspire novel redemption and, therefore, foreshadows the messianic time of Christ’s millennium. Christian redemption is not simply historical because it is propagated by the eschatological life of Christ. Redemption

18Ibid., 287.19Ibid., 286. Bloch greatly influenced Moltmann, especially his understanding o f

eschatology. Bloch's utopian views can be construed as a secular eschatology that Moltmann has adapted, such as in Nicholas Adams, “Eschatology Sacred and Profane: The Effects o f Philosophy on Theology in Pannenburg, Rahner and Moltmann,” International Journal o f Systematic Theology 2 (2000): 298-303. However, I find it difficult strictly to divide the relationship between secular and sacred influences in eschatology. History tells us that secular eschatologies appropriate religious sentiments just as easily as sacred eschatologies appropriate secular and political sentiments. So I think that though Adams5 critical analysis is revealing, it provides too simplistic o f a distinction between sacred and secular as well as philosophy and theology.

20Ibid., 290. “Aeonic time” is another term Moltmann uses to refer to eschatological time, eternal time, and messianic time. Moltmann uses these terms interchangeably to refer to both the millennium and to the new creation. Though the millennium and the new creation are distinctly different periods in Moltmann’s eschatology, the nature o f time within both is similarly different than the calendar time o f present history.

21Ibid., 289.22Jurgen Moltmann, “Liberation o f the Future and Its Anticipations in History,” in

God Will Be All in All, 265-66. See also Bauckham, “Eschatology in the Coming o f God," 2.


seems to pass away historically, but it continues toward the end as a novel and eschatological reality.

Moltmann says that the expectation of the future millennium is “essentially an anticipation through the medium of imagination.”23 The Christian community should search for imaginative ways to throw open historical time and provide novel redemption to those who see their future completely closed off to change. Providing a hope through the openness o f the future necessitates a present ethic that plays a significant role in constituting the millennium of Christ and the redemption of all things. Moltmann links these future events that happen in the present with the eschatological category of novum. Thus he claims that eschatological events repeat themselves in the future “in such a way that the beginning is gathered up into the end, and the consummation brings back everything that had ever been before.”24 Present redemption is really a future redemption that will be seen again—though in a radically new way.

Moltmann recognizes that despite the temporality o f history it is im- portant to provide a description of hope that is grounded in the material world. There is then an opportunity for history to transcend itself in the wake of Christ’s redemptive and eschatological life. Moltmann wants to provide real liberation to real people in real history. This is the reason he believes in the millennium. Now that we see how novelty manifests itself in the Christ-event and in eschatological time, we will apply the previous discussion to Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism to draw out his emphasis on liberating the oppressed from the power of history,

Millenarian EschatologyMoltmann concludes his discussion of millenarianism in the Coming o f God with this statement: “Christian eschatology—eschatology that is, which is messianic, healing and saving— is millenarian eschatology.” 5 By millenarianism he means the “special, this worldly-side o f eschatology, the side turned toward experienced history.” Millenarianism looks “toward future history, the history of the end.” Eschatology alone is a more general description of history that is focused on what is beyond history itself. It tells the “future o/history, the end of history.” These two sides of Christian eschatology work together in Moltmann’s system to qualify “history’s consummation and its rupture.”26 Though this is a subtle difference in definition, the separation of one from the other leads to the

23Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 140. See Trevor Hart, “Imagination for the Kingdom o f God,” in God Will Be All in All, 56-62, for a discussion about the language o f hope in Moltmann and its connection to Bloch and George Steiner. He rightly notes that imagination and novum does not constitute fantasy, but are linked ontologically to real possibilities and not fantastic ones. Thus it is impossible to criticize Moltmann for giving liberation an other-worldly or overly spiritualized dimension.

24Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 265. As previously mentioned, this does not mean the return to a “perfect past” by gathering up the past as past itself and simply restoring it in the future. Moltmann here means that every eschatological event that has occurred in the past from the beginning are gathered up in the future so that they can be reconstituted and reinterpreted in a new and fuller way.

25Ibid., 202.26Ibid., 197 (emphasis original).


polarization of eschatology to a realized end or a destructive end. The millenni- urn acts as a transitional period between the history o f this world and the eternal time of the new creation. An eschatology rooted in millenarian history provides a hope for the newness of the coming future and liberates the oppressed from the “fairytales of the modern world.” 7 Moltmann is seeking an alternative to the realized eschatology o f modernity and the apocalypticism of ecological dis- aster and the nuclear age. Moreover, he believes that without this “millenarian hope, the Christian ethic of resistance and the consistent discipleship of Christ lose their most powerful motivation.”28

Some critiques have been leveled against the transitional aspect of Moltmann’s millenarian eschatology and its distinction from the new creation. It will help to briefly outline a couple of these, specifically from Richard Bauckham and Miroslav Volf, in order to reaffirm, contrary to their criticisms, the necessary role millenarianism plays in Moltmann’s eschatology. First, Rich- ard Bauckham’s astute reading of Moltmann’s eschatology describes correctly its “processive” character and its multiple phases. He outlines Moltmann’s eschatological process of universal resurrection in a series of stages: “first the resurrection o f Jesus Christ, then at his parousia those who belong to Christ, then the resurrection of the rest of the dead and the annihilation of death itself.”29 Bauckham is correct to situate the rule o f Christ in Moltmann’smillenarianism as a transitional phase between the resurrection of Christ and thenew creation of all things, which occurs when the Son hands over the kingdom to the Father. To quote from Bauckham on Moltmann’s transitional eschatolo-gy>

It is not yet the kingdom o f glory, which comes when Christ hands back the kingdom to the Father. It is a transitional kingdom corresponding, in the process o f resurrection, to the transitional period between the resurrection o f Christians and Israel from the dead and the resurrection o f all the dead in the new creation itself. The idea that the new creation arrives in a process o f transition, through various different phases, is part o fMoltmann’s argument fo r the necessity o f millenarianism in Christianeschatology.3°

Bauckham, thus, reads correctly Moltmann’s impetus toward the theological necessity o f millenarianism; namely, that the rule of Christ, as the pivotal instance o f a dialectic between history and eschatology, simultaneously funds resistance through hope and tapers the historicization or secularization of eschatology, which inevitably leads to oppression. The transitional aspect provides a via media that reinforces the historical without sacrificing the eschatological, which in turn provides “the eschatological motivation and direc- tion o f Christian praxis in the present.”31 Bauckham’s reading, therefore,

27Ibid., 135.28Ibid., 201.29Bauckham, “Eschatology in The Coming o f God," 20-21.30Ibid., 22. (emphasis mine)31Richard Bauckham, “Millennium,” in God Will Be All in All, 135. It should also

be noted here that Bauckham has qualms with Moltmann's lack o f distinction between


recognizes the process o f transition as a necessary theological move in order to distance historical progress from the altogether new forms that the kingdom of God will take in the new creation. Bauckham, expectedly, reads Moltmann’s eschatology correctly. It is, however, M01tmann,s claim regarding the theological necessity of millenarianism for Christian praxis in the present that Bauckham doubts. The question is, “What theological function does the millennium fulfill which the new creation cannot?”32

Upon his correct reading of Moltmann, Bauckham nevertheless sees Moltmann’s millenarianism as theologically over-determined in order to fulfill the role of motivating Christians in the present in a way that the doctrine of the new creation already performs. Bauckham’s concern here is the creational transition from old to new creation, which Moltmann’s political lens, Bauckham claims, invariably drops out. This is affirmed when Bauckham says, “plac[ing] his discussion of the millennium within the political context of historical eschatology perhaps prevented [Moltmann] from drawing out its possible cosmic significance.33״

It is telling then that in light of such a concern about Moltmann’s polit- icization of eschatology, Bauckham would continue to criticize the theological necessity of millenarianism by claiming that such ground is already covered by the doctrine o f new creation. Bauckham is unconvinced that the millennium is necessary in order to provide this-worldy motivation and hope. If the new creation is seen as the fulfillment of this world, then why cannot the millennium simply drop out as a theological motivating factor for political liberation? Moltmann keeps millenarianism, embodied in the rule of Christ, as theologically necessary because he does not think the goal, new creation, can adequately supply historical and political motivation given that it exists beyond history. As I have already said, the millenarian aspect of Moltmann’s eschatology demon- strates historical and political significance for the coming kingdom, which refers to a more specifically social description than the often-amorphous con- cept of the new creation. History must have a goal within history without being wholly consumed by the perfection of nature. Bauckham asks again why the doctrine of new creation cannot supply a politically motivating impetus. Bauckham fails to be convinced that it is necessary to follow “the millenarian tradition in its temporal distinction between the new creation in eternity and a this-worldly kingdom of Christ which precedes it.34״ He complains that Moltmann over-politicizes the millennium and, therefore, obscures the theological effects of the newly created future of nature. Yet it is to Moltmann’s credit

pre- and post-millenarian forms o f eschatology. He claims that Moltmann’s lack o f distinction here forces his hand to conflate historical or secular eschatologies with traditional definitions o f post-millenarianism, which never claim, according to Bauckham, to have built the kingdom from the tools o f history. This seems to perhaps miss Moltmann’s reason for distancing himself from postmillenarianism. One main reason is that postmillenarianism has the tendency to secularize itself via a conflation with Enlightenment forms o f cultural progress and dominance over nature, which supports the formation o f historical millenarianisms while surreptitiously supplying the eventual tools for historical apocalypticism.

Ibid., 135-36.33Bauckham, “Eschatology in The Coming o f God," 23,34Bauckham, “Millennium,” 142.


that he was one o f the first theologians to see the connection between modem forms of political progress and the inevitable destruction such political forms have on nature. Moltmann preserves the theological veracity of eschatological millenarianism in the form of a transitional rule of Christ because it is at the level of the political that nature has been plundered. Dropping out the political in the name of nature presupposes that the new creation arrives apolitically.

Miroslav Volf goes further than Bauckham in saying that Moltmann’s transitional millenarianism is “detrimental.”35 According to Volf the image of eschatological millenarianism is altogether too unilateral and too historically uni-directional. “History” and “fulfillment” are monolithic terms that Moltmann has taken from modernity despite his critique of modem progress. In Volfs words,

With such singularization and homogenization of historical spaces as its presupposition, it is not clear how “eschatological millenarianism”—understood as transition and functioning as motivation for concrete historical action— can avoid slippage into “historical millenarianism” whose oppressive character Moltmann has sought to expose, i f “eschatological millenni- urn” is the goal o f the history and if it lays moral claim on us in the form of a concrete social project, it will share the basic flaw of all historical millenarianisms because it will be inher- ently oppressive.36

V olfs criticism is similar to Bauckham’s, though one should wonder if Bauckham’s strong image of new creation would not also fall under V olfs con- cems regarding oppression. Volf would prefer a view of the new creation that “avoids the reemergence o f the imposition o f singularity and unidirectionality upon multiple histories, but at the same time does not leave multiple histories behind by taking a flight into timeless eternity.”37 Of course, these are exactly Moltmann’s concerns when he attempts to describe the novel character of the coming of God and the new creation of all things as a politically charged trans- formation of nature.

Nevertheless, it is perhaps ad hoc to assume that Moltmann has described a definite “social project” vital enough to become oppressive in the way Volf so readily fears. It is perhaps that very tendency that Moltmann’s political generalities and austerity regarding specific political movements is attempting to avoid. Even more of a concern is perhaps how any eschatology could function under V olfs criteria without succumbing to some “imposition” of personal subjectivity. Volf attempts to solve this problem of a return to historical millenarianism that he sees inevitable in Moltmann by suggesting that “eschatological redemption” is more theologically and soteriologically apt than Moltmann’s view of “eschatological completion.”38 Completion, according to

35Volf, “After Moltmann,” 243.36Ibid.37Ibid., 245.38Ibid., 248.


Volf, suggests the inevitable conclusion that “creation is good but not yet quite s purposes. . . [whereas] redemption rests י an adequate expression of the Creator

on the assumption that creation, though remaining basically good, has been spoiled by humanity’s evil ways.”39 Though this transition in terminology may be germane in its ability to avoid the dangers of the imposition o f monolithic views o f history and the language of modernity, his concern that Moltmann falls into the trap of creating an oppressive and historical social project does not fully account for the ways in which Moltmann’s millenarianism claims to avoid this very problem. Neither does it adequately interpret the ways Moltmann views historical completion as an issue of soteriology, and thus also an issue of “es-

Moreover, redemption is an historical and political .״chatological redemption reality that cannot be depoliticized for the sake of the pluralization of histories. Moltmann presumes that some histories are simply false from a Christian point of view, which does not require a uniquely modem dependence on the closure of “completion.” On the contrary, it is at the point of historical fulfillment thatMoltmann’s eschatology attempts to be most biblical.

These critiques unfortunately neglect the political dimension of Moltmann’s eschatology, which is a deeply motivating factor. Politically, it is more detrimental for Moltmann not to include millenarianism into his eschatol-

ogy because it would fail to supply a theologically centered history by which social redemption is granted religious meaning. Thus, political and ethical moti-

vation would loose its historical grounding and influence altogether because motivation would find its only source in a unilateral new creation that does not gain traction within historical change. Because his motivations are both political and eschatological, Moltmann creates a necessary dialectic of history and escha-

tology that prevents historical millenarianism from ever occurring in the manner Volf fears. The following analysis will attempt to describe the political impetus of Moltmann’s millenarianism in order to substantiate his claim that such is the-ologically necessary for Christian eschatology.

I have previously discussed the novel redemption of the Christ event and the ability for messianic time to interrupt historical time with the novel re-

demption of the oppressed. In light of this discussion it is evident that a millenarian eschatology provides a historically grounded hope in the possibility for a future novum to manifest itself in this world o f the present. Redemption from history first requires redemption in history. And though this redemption occurs within history, it is not constituted by history but by the eschatological future o f Christ’s earthly kingdom. By looking through the eyes of the op-

pressed and into the eyes of the oppressed, the value o f an eschatology that can take root in historical social orders is a liberating alternative to a unilateral transition from this creation to a new one. Thus Moltmann’s political lens may help in justifying the value of his millenarian eschatology and provide a more novelethic in everyday action.

As already claimed, Moltmann’s interests in his millenarian eschatology are not simply philosophical or transitional, but political. “Politically speaking, history is always a struggle for power and for domination over other

39Ibid., 248.


people and over nature.”40 This history has often appropriated the religious no- tion of eschatology and adapted it for a specific historical situation. Moltmann defines these secular or worldly appropriations as “historical millenarianism.” The most obvious example o f this is the Enlightenment project and its proclamation of an eschatology found in the progress of humanity and the evolution of culture.41 By relegating eschatology to an evolutionary culmination of human history, the Enlightenment promoted (and still promotes) an historical millenarianism defined by “endlessness and its lack of an alternative.”42 The millennium was already present within the establishment of a political or ecclesiastical aspect and constituted a universal mode of life and justice. But what is the view from the underside of history—the view of the oppressed?

One key feature of any historical millenarianism is a lack of toleration for a future hope for liberation. “People who think that they are living in an already fulfilled hope cannot tolerate any still open hope for the future.”43 For someone on the underside of this Enlightenment proclamation that the end has arrived, there is little hope for redemption.

“The powerless and the oppressed, those disparaged and the wronged, have no interest in the continuation of their history of suffering, but only in its quick end and in an alternative future.”44 The novum previously discussed specifically critiques this form of historical eschatology because it is grounded in futurum that spawns from the evolution of the past. Moltmann constructs a millenarian hope in a historically rooted liberation that finds its motivation in an eschatological adventus, which comes from the future and not the past. Histori- cal millenarianism inevitably leads to denying novelty and thus a suppression of possible redemption. But eschatological millenarianism “enables resistance to the power of history, anticipates a different future, alternative to that which the trends o f past and present project, and in this way proves redemptive already.”45 It is therefore necessary to provide an alternative millenarianism, one that is already creating something new, in order to constitute a real ethic toward real liberation. Though historical eschatology has always been the suppression of the future by the powerful, “eschatological millenarianism is a form of resistance to the powers of this world.”46 By looking through the eyes of the oppressed the millenarian aspect of Moltmann’s eschatology is a radical alternative to the status quo. It also upholds the opportunity for redemption to break into historical

40Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 134.41The other overarching examples that Moltmann uses for historical millenarianism

is the imperial theology o f the Constantinian Empire. This played a large role in the political and ecclesiastical interpretations o f eschatology during the Holy Roman Empire as well as in the Catholic Church for centuries. For Moltmann’s discussion o f this see Moltmann, Coming o f God, 161-68. For a similar discussion about the political millenarianism o f America see Moltmann, Coming o f God, 168-78. For a criticism o f Moltmann’s lack o f discussion about pre-Constantinian eschatology see Bauckham, “The Millennium,” 129-30.

42Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 135.43Ibid., 154.44Jurgen Moltmann, “The End as Beginning,” W W 22 (2002): 222.45Bauckham, “Eschatology in the Coming o f God,” 20.46Bauckham, “The Millennium,” 128.


time and transfigure it into an eschatological event consistent with Moltmann’s category o f novum.

Millenarian ApocalypseThe weakness of historical millenarianisms is that they uphold a “millenarian hope, neglecting the apocalyptic.”47 By apocalyptic Moltmann means the possibility that something will be destroyed or cast aside for the sake of something new. In Moltmann’s view, Christian eschatology must provide a via media between historical millenarianism and secularized apocalypticism. The secularized appropriation of the apocalyptic is a modem reaction to the devastations of the twentieth century.48 Moltmann distinguishes between secular and biblical apocalyptics by stating that the former keeps “only the catastrophe, no longer hope. They talk about an end without a beginning, and about judgment without a kingdom.”49 This apocalypticism is dependent on the rupture of history and a complete discontinuity with the past. Despite its negativity, apocalypticism of this sort still functions with the same deterministic futurum as utopian historical millenarianisms. The future is a prolongation o f the past, which suppresses the possibility for novelty and redemption.

Moltmann refers to these polarities elsewhere as the conservative syndrome and the progressive syndrome. The conservative syndrome blocks the future because changes of the future are immediately identified with the world’s downfall. The progressive syndrome represses future alternatives because all future is a prolongation of the present.5 Moltmann transcends these polariza- tions in favor of a biblical understanding of apocalypse. “The biblical apocalypses are filled with hope,” which are in contrast to the worldly appropriation of apocalypse that “accuses God of things for which humans are responsible.”51 Moltmann keeps the apocalyptic images of change in order to preserve the perspective of the oppressed, who need newness and redemption. Moltmann can then make the claim that “[t]here is, indeed, apocalyptic without messianism; but there is no messianism without apocalyptic.”52 The oppressed view the apocalypse not as the destruction of everything old but the possibility of the novum of the Christ event that redeems everything old. Nevertheless, this does means that certain things, such as death, violence, pain and injustice, will be destroyed in the wake of God’s future. Just as there is future in the past through our mimetic action of the eschatological Christ event, “so there could

47Bauckham, “Eschatology in the Coming o f God,19 ״ .48It can be argued that it is these secularized eschatologies that have been hijacked

by religious fundamental ism and used to describe the destruction o f the world by way o f God’s Judgment. Moltmann condemns this understanding o f the final judgment and reinter- prêts it in a universalisée manner.

49Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 267. See also Moltmann, “The End as Begin- ning,” 225. Moltmann is mostly referring to ecological devastation and nuclear warfare as the possibility for destroying creation. This aspect o f the apocalyptic falls outside o f the range o f our discussion, but plays a vital role in Moltmann’s eschatology o f the cosmos.

50Moltmann, “Liberation o f the Future and Its Anticipations in History,” 278.51Moltmann, “The End as Beginning,” 225.52Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 150.


also be past in the future. Can we not by way of scenarios describe what in the future will pass away?”53

Moltmann dialectically preserves a historically grounded millenarianism without reducing eschatology to history.54 He also preserves a biblically grounded apocalypse without reducing resistance to complete destruction. It is evident by looking through Moltmann’s political lens that “the millenarian hope is a hope for martyrs. The praxis of this hope is resistance in the godless king- doms of the world, and the refusal to conform to their idol worship and cults of power.”55 This refusal is spurred on by an eschatological millenarianism that finds roots within history without closing off the redemptive potential for the novelty of the future. Moltmann’s millenarianism, when seen through the eyes of the oppressed, provides a possibility for historical time and historical situations to transcend themselves into eschatological moments o f liberation that foreshadow the reign o f Christ. These moments reinforce Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism because they instill the possibility for the future to happen proleptically within history without that history being concretized or spiritualized away. Moltmann’s attention towards liberation also bears weight on contemporary ethics and politics.

Eschatological EthicsBy looking into the eyes of the oppressed, Moltmann’s millenarian eschatology bears specific weight on ethical moves toward liberation from oppression in everyday events that can propagate the transfiguration of historical time into eschatological time. The Christian eschatology that has been described above is the premise for Christian ethics and is “the response to it in [the] context o f this world’s conditions.”56 Prioritizing the position of those in oppressive history and their need to concretize the adventus of Christ’s future reign “opens up for the people touched by it not just a new future, but the way into that future too.”57 It also opens up a mandatory call for people to make every effort to step into that future by looking into oppressive situations and cultivating a hopeful and liberating ethic.

Moltmann describes ethics by once again recognizing the dialectic of history and eschatology. Eschatology is the transfiguration and redemption of history and of those who are forced to succumb to the power o f history. In light o f this vital definition, our present ethic should anticipate the future justice and righteousness o f the coming kingdom within the present moment.58 This novel

53Ibid., 140.54See Moltmann, “Liberation o f the Future and its Anticipations in H is t o r y 289,

where Moltmann refers to anticipation o f the future, which provides a space for the “difference between history and eschatology.” It would seem that the two are often mutually exclusive in Moltmann’s thought. However, I argue that they are radically and dialectically combined in order to substantiate the eschatological possibility within history.

55Moltmann, The Coming o f God, 152.56Moltmann, ,‘Liberation o f the Future and its Anticipations in History,” 266.57Ibid.58Ibid., 278. The category o f anticipation that Moltmann uses here seems to be

analogous, if not referential, to his idea o f novum and the possibility for the kingdom to


future “is at hand and ‘will reveal itself; and in so far it thrusts us forward to do what is right, and towards the actions that correspond to God’s future in this present world, which is otherwise in contradiction to that future.”59 Our look into oppressive situations provides an opportunity to manifest the adventus of God’s future time into the present time by way of everyday ethics. And when- ever the future o f God happens in history, God is giving “his future of the kingdom in advance.”60

Moltmann can therefore make the claim that “Christian ethics are eschatological ethics.”61 They are eschatological because they d^rupt the futurum of progressive history and its dominant position over society. They are eschatological because Christians can promulgate a liberating event that corresponds to a future event, which, according to linear time, happens in the past. In this way, everyday ethics toward liberation from oppression are connected to the novelty of the Christ event as well as the novelty of Christ’s millennial reign in history. Christian ethics, therefore, are no longer a positivistic act o f philanthropy; nor are they denied through the coming doom of apocalypticism. By way of a millenarian eschatology, Christian liberationist ethics are eschatological because they can occur within history but are not constituted by history. Moltmann’s political lens is thus perhaps the most influential and hopeful way to interpret his systematic analysis of eschatology and give us a powerful sense of his entire theological and political trajectory.

Millenarian PoliticsAs I have shown, Moltmann substantiates his millenarian eschatology by using it for political motivation. Moltmann tends to protect himself from aligning his eschatological ethics with any current economical or political agenda. However, it is possible through his more recent responses about politics to unveil some socio-political priorities and goals that anticipate the future reign of Christ in an historical and eschatological sense. An effective question that Moltmann asks when addressing political goals is: “Whom do they benefit?”62 His answer is undoubtedly that they should benefit anyone suffering systemic oppression.

Moltmann recognizes that if political change is not addressing oppressed groups in society it is likely due to an overemphasized secular interpretation of millenarianism and religious privatization. Secular millenarianism is characterized by the modern globalization of Western world development. This story of globalization has been successful—“but only for us, not for all people.”63 A modem globalized society closes its ears to the underside of modern progress and advocates for a conclusive history that forces oppressed classes into a dominant historical narrative. The sound of poverty is

substantiate novelty through liberation ethics. I am discussing anticipation based on this presupposition, though Moltmann does overtly mention this connection o f similar ideas.

59Ibid., 289.60Ibid., 279.61Ibid., 289.62Moltmann, “The End as Beginning,223 ״ .63Ibid., 226.


muted by the noise o f global privatized capitalism and the power of the op־ pressed is thwarted by the power o f wealthy state economics. Moltmann states,

Millions o f homeless and out-of-work people wander around knocking on the doors o f rich nations. The losers in the modem process o f global i- zation cry out for their right to life and their freedom. We must begin a new and different kind o f global ization, this time a global action to over- come hunger, illness, and infant mortality, to win freedom from oppression and marginalization, and to provide global respect to other cultural identities. 64

A new globalization must not depend on the progressive outlook of modem historical goals of wealth and development. Such goals are characteris- tic of the realized eschatology Moltmann seeks to undermine. Millenarian eschatology speaks directly to the “vile ditch between the first and third worlds”65 because it forces religious justice to occur within political structures in order to ground social change as proleptic efforts toward Christ’s future kingdom. Millenarianism forces religion to answer to social oppression by claiming that religious actions are not empty gestures o f social philanthropy, but eschatological events that possibilize the coming Christ. Thus, “religion is no longer a private matter. . . . Every retreat into the private surrenders public life to the demons.”66 A millenarian politics infuses social change with religious eschatological value, against poverty, racism and marginalization. Without the possibility for political action to bear theological freight, religion gives itself up to privatization or apathy toward social change. Conversely to Bauckham, the new creation is not enough to provide substantial ethical motivation without millenarian politics. The new creation by itself privatizes Christianity and dulls its political edge. Millenarian eschatology, on the other hand, grounds social change within a christocentric theological reality in the historical present, which possibilizes Christ’s arrival. New creation does not occur without Christ’s coming, and Christ’s coming does not occur without political involvement in liberating the oppressed.

So what are some specific political issues that Moltmann says Chris- tians should advocate within history? Moltmann points to three conditions that the social order should uphold as it moves toward a liberating globalization. Today’s world must respect “the separation o f church and state (or of religious community and civil community), the recognition of individual religious freedom, and the recognition of the dignity and human rights o f women.”67 These egalitarian values are meant to compete against any skewed form of eschatological fundamentalism, whether destructive or utopian. Fighting for equality is the

64Ibid.65Ibid.66Ibid., 223.67Ibid., 227. Moltmann’s recognition o f women’s rights in this portion o f the article

is in reference to social values after the September 11 terrorist attack in the U.S. Though women’s rights is a specific issue that gets more attention when referencing Islamic fundamental ism, I think it has a broader application that can easily find traction in Moltmann’s millenarian politics.


first step that religious adherents must take toward a millenarian politics. Be- cause any historical millenarianism leads to the subversion of oppressed voices in a very political sense, it is essential to fight against history’s deaf ear to oppression by opening up that history through an eschatologically oriented millenarian politics. The political subversion of equality is not abolished by nul- lifying millenarianism altogether, as Volf and Bauckham want to do, but by defining millenarianism as a dialectic between history and eschatology. Reli- gious action should not be reduced to politics, but neither should it be depoliticized. Contrary to V olfs claim that Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism inevitably leads to historical millenarianism, it is precisely Moltmann’s ability to hold in tension both history and eschatology, both political action and divine arrival, that protects millenarianism from ever being reduced to history as such. The moment Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism is removed due to a fear of becoming completely historicized, religion becomes privatized and the cries of the oppressed are drowned by the roar of an apathetic and de-politicized Christianity. This is the political motivation that fuels Moltmann’s eschatology and it is detrimental to his entire theological project if this political lens is for- gotten.

ConclusionI have discussed the category of novum and its inherent connection with the

Christ-event as well as the coming of Christ’s millennial reign. Novelty is perhaps the most foundational quality of Moltmann’s political lens and prioritizes the possibility of the future over the actuality of the present. In this way, Moltmann affirms through his millenarian eschatology that history cannot be either valorized or destroyed, but must be redeemed and liberated toward a future—the liberation o f the future from the power of history.

This can also be interpreted as the liberation o f history from the power of the past. In linear time it is the past that returns in the present and actualizes the future. However, in Moltmann’s eschatological time, it is the future that constitutes all time and the possibility for the transfiguration o f time. Nowhere does this transfiguration of time and history find more traction than by seeing the world through oppressed eyes. In this way, the eschatological hope for the future can be manifested proleptically in the present by gravitating toward a liberating ethic for the oppressed in concrete and perhaps radical ways. Eschato- logical ethics in individual situations give way to a broader millenarian politics of equality. Moltmann’s eschatological millenarianism refutes any effort to wholly privatize or politicize religion. Moltmann’s political lens requires a dialectic of history and eschatology. It requires liberation that occurs within history and politics, but is constituted by the future arrival of a coming Christ. In this way, Moltmann preserves a sharp millenarian politics grounded in Christ and manifested in “compassion for the wounded and suffering peoples o f this earth.”68

68Ibid.

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Eschatology for the Oppressed: Millenarianism and Liberation in the Eschatology of Jurgen Moltmann

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