Jurgen Moltmann in Chicago Sept. 9-11

This has been a big summer for me! Not only did I get to spend a week with Eugene Peterson at a writer's workshop with 11 other participants (now friends), I am getting the chance to go to Chicago in September to participate in the "Moltmann Conversation" that Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones are putting on. It looks like a great opportunity to hear from someone I consider to be the greatest living theologian. When I was in seminary, I was very impressed with Spirit of Life, which I read as part of my Pneumatology class with Dr. Phillip Clayton. I have carried the notion of the Trinity as the "One Who Speaks, The Word, and The Breath" to the churches I have served, and it resonates with people. I appreciate it because it weaves the Holy Spirit as Breath concept I first encountered in Sallie McFague's Body of God into a whole Trinitarian concept. Moltmann explores this and other characterizations of the Holy Spirit in the book Spirit of Life. Here's the review from Amazon

Moltmann, "the foremost Protestant theologian in the world" (Church Times), brings his characteristic audacity to this traditional topic and cuts to the heart of the matter with a simple identification: What we experience every day as the spirit of life is the spirit of God. Such considerations give Moltmann’s treatment of the different aspects of life in the Spirit a verve and vitality that are concrete and existential.

Veteran readers will find here a rich and subtle extension of Moltmann’s trinitarian and christological works, even as he makes bold use of key insights from feminist and ecological theologies, from recent attention to embodiment, and from charismatic movements. Newcomers will find a fascinating entrée into the heart of his work: the transformative potential of the future.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:08 -0400)