A Trinitarian Theology of the CrossThe Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. Jürgen Moltmann

Abstract

About a decade ago Jiirgen Moltmann leaped from obscurity to the head of the line of newsworthy theology. Now he is making headlines with the appearance of his new book, The Crucified God. What are its prospects as compared with his Theology of Hope (London, 1965)? It comes at a time of high interest in the Latin American theology of liberation. What is likely to happen is that just as Moltmann's theology of hope helped to get the theology of liberation started in the first place, so now his theology of the cross will deepen liberation theology by grounding its Marxist ideological analysis of society in the historical event of the cross of Christ. There are only faint shadows of a theologia crucis in Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1972). That is perhaps due to the fact that the chief sources from which he drew, including Moltmann's own theology of hope, offered him no penetrating analysis of the relevance of the cross to a theology of history, a critical theory of society, and a liberating praxis in real life. Moltmann admits that readers might have missed the theology of the cross in his former book, especially those who liked it, but he claims that it was the guiding light of his theology all along. In turning to the theology of the cross, he is not turning back, he is not reversing himself; rather, he is turning to the other side of his theology of hope. Hope is not without memory. With Pannenberg at that time he based hope on the resurrection of the crucified Christ; now with Metz he is invoking the memory of the cross of the risen Christ, his suffering and death. Moltmann sees the theology of hope becoming more concrete in this theology of the cross.