Steffen Lösel

Unapocalyptic Theology: History and Eschatology in Balthasar's Theo-Drama

In this essay, I evaluate the claim that Hans Urs von Balthasars interpretation of trinitarian doctrine undermines the importance of history for the Christian God. Where other critics argue that the very distinction between immanent and economic Trinity robs the economy of salvation of theological significance, I contend that the underlying problem lies in how Balthasar restricts the theo-drama to an event between heaven and earth on the cross of Golgotha. Through this limitation of Gods active involvement in history to a single event, Balthasars theo-drama becomes an “unapocalyptic theology”, which devalues Gods salvific history with the world and the biblical expectation of an eschatological end of history. Furthermore, Balthasar underplays the messianic-political dimension of the Christian concept of salvation and thereby cements the status quo of a yet unredeemed world.

“May Such Great Effort Not Be in Vain”: Mozart on Divine Love, Judgment, and Retribution*

“La ci darem la mano,” Don Giovanni promises the peasant girl Zerlina in act 1 of Mozart’s second opera written in collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. With this false promise of marriage, he lures her away from her betrothed on the very day of her wedding. One more time on this day, the “rake”—as the subtitle of the opera calls him— offers his hand to a match of sorts. This time around, the match has truly been made in heaven, although—admittedly—it ends up in hell. In the penultimate scene, a stone statue comes in from a churchyard to Don Giovanni’s dining hall and invites him to join it at the heavenly banquet table. Now it is for the Don to offer his hand in pledge, and so he does amid self-assurances that his “heart is firm within me.” Yet, when the statue spells out to him the conditions with which this invitation to the divine dining comes—repentance for his sins, as we might expect—the rake reconsiders, and all hell sets loose. The spectacle of doom that follows might well be read as a dramatic rendering of the threats of damnation in the Catholic liturgy of the dead, which Mozart set to music in 1791, four years after the composition of Don Giovanni: excruciating pains of body and soul seize the sinner, and a chilling chorus of hollow-sounding voices announces that “No doom is too great

What sacred symbols say about strangers and strawberries : Gordon W. Lathrop's liturgical theology in review

In his recent trilogy Holy Things, Holy People, and Holy Ground, Gordon W. Lathrop, one of the foremost representatives of liturgical studies in the contemporary theological scene, has offered his readers a socially relevant reading of the church’s liturgy. Not only for the liturgical neophyte but also for the seasoned liturgist, Lathrop’s opus magnum holds many surprises. Whether he discusses the liturgy’s relationship to those standing at the margins or the implications of the liturgy’s local character for living in harmony with the environment, Lathrop renders the order of Christian worship refreshingly relevant for a postmodern and ever more global culture. This relevance is rooted in the self-reforming character that the author ascribes to the liturgy’s capacity to incorporate its own critique. Undoubtedly, this Protestant reading of the liturgy counts as one of Lathrop’s most important contributions to the growing field of liturgical theology. It might also prove to be its Achilles’ heel. But I am rushing ahead. It is the purpose of this essay to introduce, interpret, and critically question Lathrop’s program of liturgical theology. In a first section, I address Lathrop’s methodology, as articulated in his three foundational concepts of ordo, juxtaposition, and broken symbol. I turn in a second section to how Lathrop’s liturgical approach to Christian theology plays itself out when applied to the nature and purpose of liturgy, church, and world. Here, I focus particularly on how symbolically strong liturgies tend to create expert insiders and alienated outsiders and show how Lathrop attempts to overcome this liturgical liability. In a third and final section, I evaluate how Lathrop ad-

In Need of God: Mozart, Faith, and Così fan tutte

This article offers readers a theological entrée to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s comic opera, Così fan tutte, written in collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte in 1789. It engages the opera as a means of social and theological criticism. The opera presents Mozart’s understanding of love through a critical engagement with the late Enlightenment and French materialism. While da Ponte’s libretto may well endorse materialism’s attack on the church and on Christian anthropology, Mozart’s music is more ambiguous: on the one hand, it demonstrates the weakness of Baroque Catholicism to withstand the rationalist criticism of the Enlightenment; on the other hand, it exposes the sobering reality which such rationalist materialism itself produces—a reality marked by strained and ultimately impoverished human relationships.

The unfinished Reformation

In this article Jürgen Moltmann offers a clarion call to the whole church at the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation to be semper reformanda. Moltmann discusses five major points: the theological implications of the contemporary move from a culture of dispute to a culture of dialogue; the unity of the Christian church under what he terms “the papacy of all believers”; the only true “reformation by faith alone” initiated by the Anabaptists; the ecumenical importance of celebrating the Lord’s Supper together; and, finally, the idea that a reformation of hope needs to follow a reformation of faith.

Sun of Righteousness, Arise! The Freedom of a Christian—Then and Now—for the Perpetrators and for the Victims of Sin

The following is a lecture, which Prof. Dr. Jürgen Moltmann gave for the Reformation Day Celebration at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. It has an ecumenical direction, beginning with Martin Luther and ending with Charles Wesley’s verse “Sun of Righteousness, Arise!” The lecture moves from Martin Luther in the sixteenth century and his treatise on “The Freedom of a Christian” to Martin Luther King Jr. in the twentieth century, and the inscription on his grave: “Free at last. At last free!”

The Kirchenkampf of the Gountercultural Colony: A Critical Response

This article offers a critical response to the contemporary renaissance of Anabaptist ecclesiology among mainline theologians such as Hauerwas, Cavanaugh, and the proponents of the Missional Church. I focus on their claim that through its ecclesial practices the church must become a countercultural colony in society. I contend that the notion of the church as countercultural colony is problematic on three counts: First, it obfuscates the solidarity in sin between church and world, leads to ecclesial triumphalism, and ignores how interwoven churches are with their social surroundings. Second, it can lead to blindness toward the sufferings of the world beyond the confines of the church. Third, through an undue domination of ecclesiology by the metaphors of exodus and martyrdom, it creates the impression that Gods people are always under siege, thus ignoring the struggles of Gods people at other times in history to build a society according to Gods law.

Fighting for Human Dignity: A Christian Vision for Punishment Reform

Abstract This essay provides a theological rationale for punishment reform in America. I argue that amid a contemporary culture of harsh punishment, the churchs calling is to advocate for mildness in punishment. I develop my argument in two successive steps. First, I develop the theological norms, which should guide a punishment reform in consonance with Christian principles. Here I revisit one of the earliest Christian advocates of a punishment reform, Augustine of Hippo. I analyze the principles, which guide his judicial vision, draw out the concrete implications, which these principles have for punishment practices, and investigate the scriptural warrants, which Augustine presents for his position. Second, I analyze the churchs ecclesiological options to influence the political culture around it on the question of punishment reform. Under the headings proclamation, prayer, prolepsis, and practice, I suggest four distinctly ecclesial ways for the church to become a political force in society.

Prayer, Pain, and Priestly Privilege: Claude Langlois’s New Perspective on Thérèse of Lisieux*

In recent decades, scholars of religion have devoted much attention to the gender-specific nature of women’s spirituality. While much of this research has focused on the Middle Ages, there has been considerably less theological attention to date on Catholic women’s spirituality in the nineteenth century. This oversight might stem from the perceived lack of depth and originality of nineteenth-century Catholic spirituality, which has often been described as kitschy or, as Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar even more harshly characterizes it, “the great lie.” Nineteenth-century Catholicism indeed pales when compared to the towering achievements of medieval piety or even of the Catholic Reformation; nevertheless, the later era offers promising ground for the theological study of women’s spirituality, especially since this period saw great social transitions for women in church and society that still affect the church today. Recently, Richard D. E. Burton has begun to remedy this neglect by offering a sustained analysis of the spirituality of eleven nineteenthand twentieth-century Catholic women in France—the self-declared fille ainee de l’eglise (oldest daughter of the church). His study focuses on the effects of the secularization or “dechristianization” of French soci-