Accueil
| Titre : | The Christian Hope : The Presence and the Parousia |
| Auteurs : | J. E. Fison, Auteur |
| Type de document : | texte imprimé |
| Editeur : | London; New York; Bombay : Longmans, Green and Co, 1954 |
| Format : | xi + 268 p. |
| Langues: | Anglais |
| Index. décimale : | EA/B (Eschatologie: approche générale) |
| Résumé : |
In short supply today are Faith, Hope and Charity ‘ these three but in shortest supply of all is Hope—at least in the Christian Church.
Marxists are full of hope : the revolution is going on and the new age is just round the corner. Africans and Asians have a new hope : they are throwing off the shackles of colonial imperialism ; for them a new age is dawning. In this situation the author is convinced that the Christian Church must either rediscover an even more inspiring hope based on truer and firmer foundations, or else admit its bankruptcy in face of the real and deepest needs of men today. The primitive Church had such a hope, and its essence was not in immortality or even resurrection or any vague consummation of the existing order either in Christ or in the Kingdom of God, but rather in the Parousia or Coming of the Lord. This is in fact the doctrine which, even if distorted, is the chief inspiration of many Christian sects today, and the Church as a whole needs to rediscover its secret as the key to all other elements in the Christian hope for the future. The writer sets out to show how this may be done and to relate the present presence of our Lord, e.g. in the eucharist, to His future coming, maintaining that the one without the other is either idolatry or fantasy. In the course of the argument it becomes clear that the essence of the sober but thrilling Christian hope is simply that ‘journeys end in lovers meeting’. The key even to earthly life here and now is found in such meeting, and so it will be in the end. The Christian’s hope, however, is not to meet the Lord at the end of a long pilgrimage to Him, but to be met by Him at its beginning, and this book places renewed emphasis on the distinctive Christian doctrine of the prevenience of God’s grace. It shows what are the present tragic results of allowing the consummation either of the soul’s individual pilgrimage or of the whole movement of history towards God to obscure the movement of God towards both the individual soul and the course of history as a whole. Modern theologians were recently castigated by Dr. Casserley for ‘substituting scholarship for thought’. Here now is a work in which both are admirably combined. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a passionate book. Written with real insight and conviction, it truly brings theology alive, for Canon Fison uses his theme to give a new illumination to present day living and thinking, and develops it to strike with explosive impact on urgent present day problems such as racial conflict and Christian reunion. |
| Note de contenu : |
- I. THE NEED OF THE WORLD: The revelation of love / the challenge of communism / the ethical touchstone (the middle wall of partition) / the doctrinal issue (a living hope) / Russian and Marxist messianism / Jewish and Christian eschatology. - II. THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIBLE: The tension of hope / the meaning of history / the life of meeting / the materialism of the Bible / the dependence of eschatology upon theology / the eschatology of the gospel / the contrasting eschatologies of the church / ecclesiastical selfishness / the centrality of the parousia / the last judgment / the resurrection of the body / lovers’ meeting. - III. THE THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH: The eschatological issue / Continental eschatology / British eschatology / Catholic in-carnationists / eschatology and (a) ethics (b) worship (c) missionary work (d) evangelism (e) justification by faith (f) reunion (g) history (i) Christology. - IV. THE DAY OF THE LORD: Palestine and Egypt / prophetic and popular eschatology / the prophetic day of Yahweh / Yahweh and the Baals / the prophetic day: (a) impartial (b) imminent (c) on earth (d) beyond earth / the apocalyptic vision / Jesus’ fulfilment of the prophetic day. - V. THE PAROUSIA OF OUR LORD: Jesus’ fulfilment a surprise / John the Baptist the link / the prophetic day confirmed and transformed / imminence in terms of lovers’ time / judgment central and a surprise / doomsday transformed into a wedding day / our Lord’s own indefinable hope / New Testament eschatology (a) outside the Synoptic Gospels generally (b) in Revelation ; the parousia the key (c) in St Paul (d) in St John. - VI. THE PATTERN OF DEVELOPMENT: Realized, futurist, mystical patterns / Old Testament pneumatology / New Testament pneumatology / Old Testament eschatology / New Testament eschatology: (a) Pentecostal (b) Synoptic (c) Pauline (d) Johannine / summary of development / eschatology and mysticism. - Note: Von Hügel’s ‘luminous’ texts. - VII. THE SECRET OF MYSTICISM: The New Testament focus / its distortion / the cross the eschatological clue / justification by faith / the presence and the parousia / romantic love / the divine initiative / in Christ = in love / monastery and kibbuz / the purging of memory into hope / the Marxist parallel / eschatology and mysticism. - VIII. THE SHAPE OF ESCHATOLOGY: Eschatology as a whole / six patterns of individual behaviour / six patterns of organized Christian society / six elements in a whole eschatology: (a) immortality and beatific vision (b) the last judgment (c) the resurrection of the body (d) the parousia of our Lord (e) the proximate judgment (f) the millennium and the ‘second coming’ / ‘journeys end in lover: meeting’. - SCRIPTURAL INDEX / GENERAL INDEX |
Exemplaires (1)
| Code-barres | Cote | Support | Localisation | Section | Disponibilité |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EA/B 027 | EA/B 027 | Livre | Bibliothèque principale | Ouvrages de référence | Prêt possible Disponible |
