Jurgen Moltmann

I had the opportunity last week to take a trip up to Chicago with some friends to hear Jurgen Moltmann speak. I had such a good time hearing one of the most significant theologians to come around in the last 40 years. In a fun moment during the interview Moltmann was subject to a lightning round in which a number of names were mentioned to which he was supposed to give a quick comment. I was able to get most of what he said.

• John Paul II - He was a good Pope.
• Wolfhart Panneberg - Dear friend and opponent.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Died too early.
• Alfred North Whitehead - Complicated to read.
• Jacques Derrida - Postmodernity is just another form of modernity. We have universal dangers that we can meet only united. We cannot split up our narratives and be okay with it. We live under teh threat of extinction (terroism, atomic bombs). I don't see why we have to give up universals.
• Stanley Hauerwas - The New Testament does not speak about a peaceable kingdom but about a peacemaking kingdom.
• Eberhard Jungel - He is good friend now.
• Augustine - Ask his wife about him.
• Sigmund Freud - (A long period of silence) ... There was a colleague of mine who said you can understand him only if you know Austrians. (apparently Viennen soldiers are all about sex).
• Karl Marx - (He likes the early Marx, the one influence by romantic philosophy and ideas about the natural organization of human beings and nature. Thinks the Communist Manifesto is a great 19th century document).
• Nicholas Cuso - (He said he must have missed class the day they talked about Cuso).
• Miroslav Volf - He is a dear friend and gifted theologian.
• Pelagius - He is the saint of American Christians.