The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology by Jurgen MoltmannMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sickness in the household has given me the time to complete Moltmann's masterwork. This is a stunning theological achievement. While dense it is eloquent and passionate and engaging.
It was a more thoroughly comprehensive and systematic work than I expected -- the penultimate chapter on Freud and the final chapter on how the church should be engaged politically.
I found myself agreeing throughout, rather than being persuaded, as this is one of those books that was so influential that it re-shaped subsequent theology. So, despite not having read it before, I already live and work within the world it shaped.
Despite wanting to read it for some time, I was finally compelled to as our adult education team wants me to teach a class on atonement later this year. Moltmann seems to lay the groundwork for the subsequent transitions in atonement theology and decades of critique and creativity which have lifted us beyond the traditional models from the middle ages. As I come to this work after having read works critical aspects of its approach, such as Proverbs of Ashes, I could not agree on all points. But the book can enter a lively conversation with those later works.
I have a few more books to read before I began to more seriously put together the curriculum for the class. I am very much looking forward to it.
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