Jesus Christ For Today’s World is based off of a series of lectures delivered by Jürgen Moltmann, forming a succinct, lay-level overview of Moltmann’s Christology. Each of the eight chapters attempt to answer the key question, “who is Christ for us today?” Each chapter is divided into three sections: first, Moltmann looks at the biblical texts that relate to the topic at hand, then he provides some theological reflection, and lastly he offers some practical guidelines for Christian praxis (he calls this methodology “see-judge-act”). For Moltmann, theology (in this case, Christology) is intricately connected with Christian practice because “what we know and what we do belong together.” He also notes that Christology is deeply personal, and cannot be spoken of in generalities, and so introduces the book telling a little bit about context of his life, and of how he came to know Christ, through his experience of being held prisoner in a Nazi internment camp during World War II.

In chapter one, Moltmann looks at the Kingdom of God and argues that Jesus is the Kingdom of God in person. Chapter two is an examination of the passion of Christ, with an emphasis on the suffering of Christ, and the suffering of God, asking the following questions: why was Christ abandoned on the cross? Why did God suffer with Christ? Can God suffer? Chapter three looks at the idea of Christ being forsaken, what forsakenness means, and the anxiety that it causes. Chapter four is an examination of humanity’s motives for using torture as a means of punishment, and how Christ’s endurance of torture makes him both a brother with those who are tortured, and the judge of those who torture others. Chapter five looks at the resurrection of Christ as the foundation for all hope. In chapter six, Moltmann considers the cosmic implications of Christ’s death and resurrection, arguing that a cosmic Christology must replace the more historical Christology for which modern theologians have advocated. Chapter seven looks at the implications of Christology for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Where Christology has mainly been anti-Jewish, it is now time to consider Jewish perspectives in our understanding of who Christ is. In chapter eight, Moltmann emphasizes the eschatological nature of his theology of hope, and suggests ways to both evangelize and invite humanity to participate in God’s future.

There are a few questions that are raised by Moltmann’s ideas. First, he argues that Jesus learns about the kingdom of God as he experienced it, and discovers God’s kingdom at work in the lives of the poor. Indeed, Moltmann goes as far as to say that “the poor show him [Jesus] God’s kingdom.” These observations are made in the biblical text portion of his argument, but does the biblical text actually demonstrate that Jesus is learning about God’s kingdom in a progressive fashion? While Moltmann is correct that there are times when Jesus is unable to perform miracles (e.g., healing) because of the crowds’ lack of faith, this does not necessarily mean that Jesus is dependent on the world for knowing what God’s kingdom is. This emphasis on learning and discovering demonstrates that Moltmann is one of the influences on, and dialogue partners with, Open Theism and Process Theology.

A second question that is raised is whether Moltmann fails to distinguish between the persons of the Trinity. As he discusses the suffering of Christ, he says that God also suffers when Christ suffers. And, while he does suggest that there are two different kinds of suffering occurring, namely that Christ suffers death on the cross while God the father suffers the death of Jesus , he repeatedly states that God “was in Christ” to the point that God himself becomes the “victim among victims.” Moltmann is correct to reject the doctrine of impassibility, and to advocate that love and the openness to hurt and change are tied together, the question of to what extent this occurs is still left open. Indeed, it appears that Moltmann is suggesting that the death of Christ on the cross affected not only humanity, but also God himself. The question that would need to be explored through a more thorough reading of Moltmann’s works is: does his embrace of perichoresis put an imbalanced emphasis on the immanence of God, and is there any room for transcendence in his theology of God?

Moltmann’s emphasis on the suffering of Christ, that Jesus is our brother in suffering, who sides with the poor and the oppressed, has a Liberation Theology bent to it. But, in contrast to James Cone, for example, Moltmann argues that Christ’s identification with the poor and the oppressed means salvation for the oppressors as well, because it offers liberation from self-complacency. Given his personal and historical context of being a concentration camp survivor, and given that it was the suffering Christ that gave him hope, it is understandable that Moltmann emphasizes the suffering of Jesus. The question, though, becomes: does Moltmann adequately balance the suffering and death of Christ with the resurrection hope? In this particular work, it would appear that the emphasis is on the suffering, torture and anxiety of Christ, and perhaps that imbalance is due to the brevity of this particular work.

There are several times when Moltmann makes a statement that he does not then flesh out and examine, and the reader is left to try to interpret the statement with no clarifications. Part of this may be due to the nature of the volume, based largely off of lectures and designed for a general audience, but it may also be the result of translation issues. For example, the statement, “the possession of wealth makes the have-nots poor, and the possession of the good makes the bad people bad” is awkward and unclear. Is this the result of a poor translation from the German, or is it indeed an under-developed thought?

While Jesus Christ for Today’s World serves as a general-level introduction to Moltmann’s theological thought, the format of this work could lead lay readers (or Bible college students) to misunderstand and misrepresent Moltmann’s Christology. On the other hand, the vagueness of Moltmann’s ideas and assertions in this lecture format without footnotes and other references is not solely related to that. Indeed, it is entirely possible that the questions that are raised from reading this book are not actually addressed satisfactorily in his larger, more academic volumes on the topic. What this book succeeds at is being an example of a Christology that is too contextualized. It is entirely dependent on Moltmann’s experiences and culture. The question will be: what impact will his Christology have in other contexts? Will Moltmann’s Christology stand the test of time, transcending cultures and contexts, and provide a valuable tool for the Church to continue to ask, “Who is Jesus Christ?”