John M. Shields, An Eschatological Imagination: A Revisionist Christian Eschatology in the Light of David Tracy’s Theological Project (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), ix + 192 Pps., $67.95.
John M. Shields is Associate Professor of Education and Religious Studies at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting, Indiana, and Lecturer in Theology at Loyola University Chicago. Shields received a Ph.D. in constructive theology and a Ph.D. in educational administration and supervision from Loyola University, Chicago.
The rediscovery of the eschatological character of Jesus Christ in the twentieth century caused a proverbial re-ignition of the study of eschatology, the doctrine about the final reality, and eschatological themes. This rediscovery of eschatology was primed by the Common Sense Realism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and rather ironically, in no small part due to the explosion of Pentecostalism globally. In the twenty-first century, Christian theologians continue to wrestle with the claims of eschatology precisely because of the uncertainty of the future.
This title recognizes the problem of eschatology for Christian theology: that is, the tension between needing to speak eschatologically and the difficulty in doing so because of the future’s unavailability. Building on the work of the Roman Catholic theologian David Tracy, this text offers a new way of thinking – and living – eschatologically in the form of an eschatological imagination as a rhetoric of virtue, an exhortation to live in Christian hope in a postmodern world and into an objectively unavailable and uncertain future. Within such a rhetoric, hope becomes action that seeks to create a Christian eschatological future, and not mere sentimentality. This it does from a stance of ‘revisionist’ theology, a perspective that answers the criticism that traditional eschatology lacks credibility. It recognizes the problem of the future in an honest manner, and envisions the Christian tradition answering the criticisms of the past by offering an eschatology that encourages possible action for the future rather than positing ‘certain’ and concrete eschatological finalities.
The book is composed of five chapters, with an attendant bibliography and index. Chapter one selectively reviews twentieth century Christian eschatological thought in order to distill controlling themes of that discussion. Shields’ thesis is rather terse and pointed: a contemporary and revisionist eschatology, what he names an eschatological imagination, is best construed as a rhetoric of virtue, an exhortation to live in active Christian hope in the world (4). He notes that the term ‘rhetoric’ is chosen intentionally, as it connotes a genre of expression that exhorts action in a preferred direction and into the future (ibid.). This rhetoric of hope activates hope in the direction of generating a Christian eschatological future. Tracy’s insights are called into play because he repetitively any and all ‘mystifications’ of religion (6). Animated by the morality of scientific knowledge, Tracy’s theology contributes to a non-mystifying revisionist construction of eschatology in the form of a call to action, a call toward risking human existence as an eschatological existence.
Chapters two, three, and four examine Tracy’s three major texts: Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, and Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. He claims that in review of these three texts, one perceives that Tracy’s eschatology pictures God as the ‘final Reality’ (61) that is the ‘wholeness of Love’ (88), who is the ‘Other as Mystery’ (137). The concluding chapter offers a contemporary eschatology that is praxis-oriented, credible, and non-mystifying; it is an ‘eschatological imagination’ of hope-as-action. It recognizes the uncertainty of the future, but calls on Christians to work toward the ultimate liberation of humanity.
Interestingly, Barth, Pannenberg, Moltmann, and Rahner all find their way into the discussion of twentieth century eschatology, but no Pentecostal theologian does. This is rather strange since Pentecostalism, in all its variegated forms, so centrally highlights the import of eschatology. This omission, I assert (though not as a Pentecostal myself), weakens the book considerably. This notwithstanding, the book is nonetheless an intriguing read. Shields brings Tracy to life within this text, and if for no other reason than that, this title should be read by theologians who have interests in eschatology.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA