The Apocalypse of God in Christ
A Theology of Theology
- Theology
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2026
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Publisher's Description
Doctrinal theology in the tradition of Luther urgently seeks in this book an overhaul and relaunch in an epoch of total propaganda wherein theology has lost both audience and theme. The postmodern insight into the nature of doctrine as the community of faith’s regulation of its speech and action by the external word announcing and reiterating its originating event can revitalize Lutheran theology if that insight is resituated in the “apocalyptic turn of contemporary theology.” Here it can draw afresh upon Luther’s identification of our imperiled humanity suspended “between God and the devil” to reframe its work. Not the end of time, but the time of God’s end for righteousness, life, and peace breaks into the strong man’s house and binds him in order to rescue his captives by the sanctifying Spirit’s proclamation of the resurrection-vindication of the crucified Jesus. The community that gathers around this word of God in faith confesses in word and deed the liberating Lordship of the Crucified, producing truth-telling martyr-witnesses defying the seductions and enthrallments of the propaganda machine to live boldly in “hope against hope.” So confessors are enabled to assess, debate, and engage the perils of our times in the terms of the originative event even as these perils put to the test the theological adequacy of inherited doctrinal forms.
Endorsements (2)
“This account of the nature of Christian doctrine—a ‘theology of theology’—represents a consummate articulation of Paul Hinlicky’s vision of the church’s theological task, its nature, focus, and practice. At its heart is the Spirit-enabled labor of hearing, discerning, and thinking the gospel in a world awash in propaganda. Hinlicky reminds us that what is at stake in the struggle to confess Christian teaching from the trenches of embattled faith is the very identity of Christ and the meaning of the word ‘God’ in our mouths. His wide-ranging, erudite, and energetic study issues its decisive challenge not only to Lutheran theology but to any Christian dogmatics keyed to the apocalypse of God in Christ.”
“Some today decry—and others welcome—a propaganda-filled world they call ‘post-truth.’ In this penetrating and profound book, Paul Hinlicky confronts the relativization of truth with the Revelation of Truth. This ‘apocalyptic’ appearance of God in time, however, does not somehow settle every question. Instead, it unsettles every person who considers its force. But it is not only a book about theology—in showing us how theology is inadequate to the Truth it proclaims, it becomes also a book about God Emmanuel. A remarkable achievement by one of our finest theologians.”
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