This book is a series of meditations on the theology of the Holy Spirit, and the life of the Christian community. It starts with very moving and memorable autobiographical notes of Moltmann's experience as a prisoner of war after WWII. What follows is a collection of articles, talks and meditations. This was the first book by Moltmann that i read in its entirety, and i liked it a lot.
Quotes:
What cannot be said simply does not need to be said at all.
It is as if there were no time. The pains and the blessing are still in us, for they go with us wherever we turn.
Knowledge doesn't mean power any longer. Knowledge means powerlessness: 'after all, there's nothing we can do about it'.
Where Jesus is, there is life. That is what the Synoptic Gospels tell us. Where Jesus is, sick people are healed, sad people are comforted, marginalized people are accepted, and the demons of death are driven out.
Jesus didn't bring a new religion into the world. What he brought was new life.
instead of spreading a Christian civilization or the values of the Western world we have to build up a universal `culture of life' and resist `the barbarism of death' wherever we are
It was modern industrial society which for the first time viewed the earth simply as matter, and no longer as holy. It is time for us to respect the holiness of God's earth once more, before the catastrophes descend on us.
liked to use the image of the family, `since the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our true Father and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is our true Mother, because the Son of the living God is our true Brother'
Here the reflection of the triune God is a community of women and men without privileges, a community of free and equal people, sisters and brothers.
We learn to love when we say yes to life. So we learn to hope when we say yes to the future.
We are acting out of an inner necessity, in the way that roses flower. The roses don't ask why either, or what for - they simply bloom. The same is true of life lived out of true hope.
We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God's first love. We are God's dream for his world and his image on the earth he loves. God is waiting for his human beings to become truly human. That is why in us, too, there is a longing to be true human beings.
Harmony with God is called sanctification. Harmony with ourselves as God's image and his children is called happiness.
Trust in God, respect for our own lives and the lives of others, as well as reverence for everything living, in which God is present: these are the things which characterize and determine the sanctification of life.
I believe that today sanctification first of all means rediscovering the holiness of life and the divine mystery in all created things, and defending it against the arbitrary manipulations of life and the destruction of the earth through personal and institutionalized acts of violence.
Congregations without disabled members are - to put it bluntly - disabled congregations.
the church is not represented by theologians. It is represented by Christians in different jobs. Even if these people are called the laity in the context of the church's worship (though that is wrong in itself), where Christianity in the world is concerned they are the experts in their professions, not the theologians.
If Christianity is to become aware of what it is, we must abandon the pastoral church which takes care of people, which is the usual form of the Western church. Instead, we have to call to life a Christian community church.
when birds of a feather flock together, that is not yet a fellowship in the Spirit of God, which spans time. Fellowship in Christ begins first with the acceptance of other people, and interested participation in life that is different from our own.
A community of trust cannot aim to be a conflict-free community.
The ordination of women is not a matter of adaptation to changed social conditions. It has to do with new fife from the beginnings of the Christian church: life out of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
There is enough for everyone! That is the incredible message of this story. We are not being told some historical tale about `the golden age' of the first Christians long ago. This is the disclosure of real, possible ways of living for us today. We can have this experience ourselves: the experience of the community of the Holy Spirit.
Anyone who has found the assurance of eternal life no longer needs the ambiguous security that possessions give him.
The opposite of poverty isn't property. The opposite of both poverty and property is community. For in community we become rich: rich in friends, in neighbours, in colleagues, in comrades, in brothers and sisters.
How can the body be a `temple of the Holy Spirit' if it is frozen into rigidity and is not permitted to move any more? People who are moved by God's Spirit move themselves, and people who experience grace move gracefully.
The world is full of praise, for God is in this world.
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