The unfinished Reformation

From dispute to dialogue

In 1948 I was studying theology at the University of Göttingen, and at that time the generation of theologians in charge were leaders in the German church conflict under the Nazi dictatorship. Professors Hans-Joachim Iwand and Ernst Wolf represented this type of theology, and I was their enthusiastic disciple. We learned the conflict mode of theology found in the Barmen Theological Declaration (1934): “We confess” and “we reject.” There was no “dialogue” between the Confessing Church and the Nazi “German Christians.” Faithful to the Confessing Church, we young postwar students thought in “friend–foe categories” singing, “Yes or no, hot or cold, we shall never be lukewarm.” My teachers were strong in determination, but very poor in conversation. Any compromise seemed to them “tainted” and not the truth. They followed the dispute culture of the Reformation time. Iwand, however, was the first who sought contact with the Russian Orthodox Church, and was accepted because of his resistance against Hitler. Together with Joseph Hrodmadka he founded the Prague “Peace Conference” to promote Christian relationships between East and West in the Cold War.

Many of my own generation wanted to break out of this church-centered theology. We wanted a theology “with a face to the world” (Johann Baptist Metz). In this way, we developed the new “political theology” and entered into dispute with the ideologies of “the world.” Dialogue became necessary where a concrete necessity emerged.

This was the time in which the East–West division of the world, with its ideologies of socialism and “free-world” capitalism, was bitterly sharpened. In response, we began the Christian–Marxist dialogue in West Germany. The last event of this dialogue took place in 1967 in Marienbad in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Ernst Bloch and Karl Rahner, Milan Machovec and Roger Garaudy, Metz and I took part. Everyone agreed that this was a necessary dispute: “If we don’t speak with one another today, we may shoot each other tomorrow.” In August of 1968 Soviet tanks in Prague ended this Christian–Marxist dialogue; 21 years later the Soviet Union was finished.

The second disputation became necessary in Germany “after Auschwitz.” This was the “Christian–Jewish Dialogue” that is still being carried on. This dialogue continues to be necessary because of the age-old religious anti-Semitism in churches and Christian states. The dialogue resulted in Holocaust conferences and theological declarations from churches and a new German translation of the Bible. How pertinent this dialogue is could be seen recently when liberal theologians in Berlin asked the question, Is the Old Testament necessary for the Christian faith?

Today we have an inflation of “dialogue.” Whether it is necessary or not, we must enter dialogue with everybody. Theology must be “relational” or “communicative.” “God is in dialogue” and we “human beings are a dialogue,” to quote two titles of German theology. The subject we talk about can be anything. What is important is the relationship achieved by talking: The way is the goal, or the goal is the way. Communication serves community. There is no other goal. The dialogue serves not the truth but the community.

At the time of the Reformation there were theological disputations, and afterwards the magistrate of the city or the prince of the country decided for the new or the old faith, mostly for the new faith. In the world’s parliaments, there are discussions, and then afterwards the members vote and decide. But in modern talk shows everybody talks and nobody listens. Talking goes on and on, and mutual understanding does not seem to be the goal.

There is a bad joke about the modern philosophy of communication: A traveler is in a foreign town. He asks another man, “Which way is the railway station?” The other answers, “I don’t know either, but how nice it is that we got into a conversation.”

No wonder we have become silent about theology in public. The age of dialogue is not very interesting. I still remember the heated disputes in the 1960s on “demythologization” or on “secularization” or on “political theology” or on “hope” in the Protestant camp alone. Important popular media such as Time magazine or Der Spiegel reported on these inner-theological disputes and took part in them. Today there are no public disputes in the churches and theology faculties. Theologians left their places in the churches, and the public takes no notice of “scholarly theology.” Dogmatic theology has morphed into philosophy of religion or general metaphysics.

In earlier times people complained about the quarrelsomeness of theologians, the rabies theologorum. Today theologians are peaceful and tolerant. Theology has become a harmless business. Is this not a good thing? No! We must learn to say Yes and No again. A dispute can reveal more of the truth than a tolerant dialogue. In a court trial, more justice comes to light than in a “Schlichtung,” a mediation or a compromise. What we need is a culture of dispute, a cultivated dispute with determination and respect. Why? Because of the truth!

Martin Luther cultivated an uncultivated culture of dispute. He derided and mocked his opponents and pounded on a table top for emphasis. For him the theological truth was more important than friendship and respect.

Theological truth is worth a heated conflict, especially among friends. Theology without determination, without Yes and No, becomes useless. Tolerance is good, but to be only tolerated is bad. I don’t want to be tolerated, I want to be accepted and acknowledged or rejected. I want to be embraced or excluded, but I’m not interested in a life reduced by tolerance.

Unity and Catholicity of the church of Christ

An Italian journalist told me that Pope Francis will visit Sweden in the year of the Reformation Jubilee, 2016–17. The Lutheran Church of Sweden has been a state church since the Reformation. The pope is not only the head of the Roman Catholic Church but also head of the Vatican church-state and is represented in the nations by bishops and nuncios. When the Pope visits Sweden, a Protestant state church and a Catholic church-state will have a meeting. The function of the papacy is the “service of unity of the church.” How can state churches and a church-state come together in the unity of Christ?

The churches of the Reformation became state churches. Luther burned his excommunication document outside of Wittenberg. The German princes and magistrates were understood as Notbischöfe, emergency bishops, in order to reform their churches. Under the slogan cujus regio—ejus religio the Protestant churches became the state religion of their countries. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden became Lutheran state religions: Every born Norwegian was a born Lutheran. The Deutsche Evangelische Kirche (DEK) changed its name to Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) in 1945. Germany is now simply the place where the church exists. The state is no longer presupposed in its name. This is a great step towards a church independent of the state.

Where is the service of unity in our churches? Do we still really believe in the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” (Nicene Creed)? Unity is a gift and a task of every church in the name of the triune God. Since Martin Luther Protestant theologians have taught the “universal priesthood of all believers”: “What crept out of baptism is consecrated priest, bishop, and pope,” declared Luther. It is high time, it seems to me, to speak of the universal papacy of all believers: the service of unity is a gift and task of all believers. This is the priestly prayer of Christ: “That they may be one.” Protestant churches are the one, catholic church. We believe it, but we don’t act upon it. The Reformation was intended to be a renewal of the whole, the one, the catholic church. It was a Catholic Reformation not a Protestant one. The ecumenical movement reminds us of this catholic character of the Reformation.

The political side of the Roman papacy belongs to the “service of the unity” of the church of Christ only historically, not essentially. Not only Protestants but also Catholics should want the return to the papacy as understood in pre-Constantinian times. Under these conditions also Protestant churches can acknowledge the bishop of Rome’s service of unity. This would be a service of unity “from above.” But, on the other hand, the Roman Catholic Church is also an “evangelische Kirche,” a church of the gospel. We need the common service of unity of all believers, sisters and brothers of Christ. We need also the service of unity “from below”: “We are the church.” How does it work?

“The nearer we come to Christ, the nearer we come together.” How are the unity and the catholicity of the church related to each other? Are they the same? Not really. They are different qualities of the church if we follow the common creed. I dare to make a proposal: When we speak of the “unity of the church” the internal community of the church is meant, while speaking of the “catholicity of the church” brings the external universal horizon of the church into sight.

The word for “catholic” (kath’ holon) means “all-embracing.” All-embracing is in truth a quality of the kingdom of God, not of the church of Christ. Christ is, however, not only the head of the church, but also the head of the reconciled cosmos. According to the church’s self-understanding, the church is an anticipation of the kingdom of God in this world. Catholicity is a derivative quality of the church. The church of the nations respects Israel as the first anticipation of God’s kingdom on earth. Kol-Israel is not called to be a people of the church but a people of the kingdom. We share the same promise and are partners in hope. “Church and cosmos” has a second meaning today: The catholicity of the church is the Christian ecology: “as a plan [economy] for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him [in One, in Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10, NRSV).

Reformation by faith alone: The Anabaptists

Who were the “Anabaptists” and why were they persecuted so cruelly by Catholics and Protestants? Martin Luther called them Schwärmer, fanatics; historians speak of “the left wing of the Reformation.” I think they were the only Reformation movement “by faith alone” (sola fide).

After Reformed biblical sermons were preached and the people consented, the magistrate of a town or the prince of a country carried out the reformation of churches and schools. The Reformation took place within the laws and institutions of the corpus christianum, that is, “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.” Constantine and the Byzantine Caesars who followed him made Christianity into their imperial state religion and their empire into the “kingdom of Christ,” the millennium of Christ. The Reformers remained true to the possibilities of this corpus christianum, but the Anabaptists rejected the foundation of the Christian state religion. They replaced infant baptism, by which every child becomes automatically a Christian citizen, with “believer’s baptism.” They refused the service of the sword: “Jesus forbids the violence of the sword.” They rejected giving an oath: “Jesus forbids his followers taking an oath.” They took no part in government, because “it is not a Christian task, to be government.” These references to Jesus (and his Sermon on the Mount) are to be found in the Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession (Schleitheimer Bekenntnis, 1527) written by Michael Sattler.

What the Anabaptists did politically was to reject the Christian empire and the Christian state religion. Therefore, they were persecuted on the grounds of imperial law. They were enemies of the Holy Empire and heretics of the state religion. During the inquisition at Rottenburg, Michael Sattler said, “When the Turks are coming, do not resist, because it is written: You shall not kill,” and thus the danger presented by the Anabaptists became public. The Anabaptists were a threat to the survival of the Christian empire, and they had great resonance among the people. Michael Sattler’s execution 1527 in Rottenburg was therefore cruel: They cut his tongue out of his mouth; they nailed him onto a wagon, and burned him outside of the town. His wife Margaretha refused any attempt of rescue. They drowned her in the Neckar River.

Michael Sattler had been the prior of the well-known monastery, St. Peter in the Black Forest. He was a theologian and humanist. In 1525 he was with the rebellious peasants in Memmingen. The same year he joined the Anabaptists in Zürich and preached in the villages around Tübingen and Rottenburg and baptized many in the Neckar River. His message was, “Christians are completely calm. They trust their Father in heaven. They live without worldly armament.”

Like Sattler, Anabaptists were ready for martyrdom. One of their hymns begins, “Wie lieblich ist der Heil’gen Tod …” “How lovely is the death of the saints …” In view of the Anabaptists I would like to make three remarks. First, a few years ago the Lutheran World Federation asked African Mennonites for forgiveness for the damnation and persecution of peaceful Anabaptists during the Reformation period. In my opinion this action must have consequences, namely, the revision of the Augsburg Confession of 1530, or a commentary in the “Book of Concord” (Konkordienbuch) stating that Lutherans today no longer condemn Mennonite peace-making. Otherwise how can a Lutheran candidate be ordained according to the Augsburg Confession today? “Actions must follow gestures!” We no longer condemn Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren as fanatics or heretics, but appreciate them as “historical peace churches.”

Second, in the peace of the Lord, all nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4, NRSV). This leaves us with three Christian options: to turn swords into Christian swords, to leave the swords aside and retire to plowshares, or to beat the swords into plowshares.

Under the Christian Holy Empire, the option was to turn swords into “Christian swords” in order to fight “just wars.” “The sword is a divine order outside the perfection of Christ,” said the Anabaptists and retired to their plowshares. Whereas Anabaptists were in danger of leaving the world silently and without criticism, the Protestants were in danger of obediently and without criticism going along with the given orders of this world. Today we must work together turning swords into plowshares and military-industrial complexes into peace industries. It is not enough to be a peaceful church; we must be peace-making churches.

Third, the signature of the 21st century is terrorism. Terrorism emerges in the hearts and heads of human beings, and must be overcome in the hearts and heads of the people. Only the language of life in peace is successful. But we are told, “The terrorists understand only the ‘language of violence.’” But our practice of the “language of violence” raised the number of terrorists from a few hundred in the time of Osama bin Laden to tens of thousands today in the time of ISIS and Boko Haram. I recommend the policy of the two hands: Stop terrorists with one hand, and with the other hand offer them life in peace. But our nations spend millions of dollars for the first hand, and leave the other hand to private or religious organizations. This one-sided policy doesn’t work.

The justification of the victims of sin

The justification of the people who commit sin must go together with the justification of the victims of that sin if God’s righteousness and justice are to be spread on earth. The gospel for the sinners is clear, but is there a gospel for the victims too? In the tradition of Roman culture, we are oriented toward the perpetrator in a one-sided way. We fight evil by punishing the evildoers. And where are the victims? God doesn’t forget the victims of evil, for Christ himself was the victim of evil’s godless forces.

Yet even the apostle Paul was oriented toward the perpetrators and forgot the victims. So, in his Letter to the Romans he confessed self-critically and honestly, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom 7:19–20, NRSV). Here he declared that sin is a transpersonal power and that he himself is its slave. He lamented his slavery in sin and extoled Christ, who freed him of this slavery. That is right, but why is he concerned only about himself, and not also about the victims, the people whom he has wronged, and to whom he has failed to do good? What emerges here is a great gap in Christianity’s doctrine of grace, from Paul to Luther.

If we compare what Paul said about the “sin which dwells within me,” and whose slave he is, with the Jesus of the Gospels, we notice that Jesus’ first glance was directed to the poor, the sick, and the outcasts among his people, and that he “had compassion” on them (Matt 9:36, NRSV). He doesn’t look at the slaves of sin, but at the victims, and he brings them the liberating message about the kingdom of God.

If we turn to Israel’s psalms, we find that God’s righteousness is a righteousness that creates justice for the victims of “injustice and violence.” He works “justice for all who are oppressed” (Ps 103, NRSV; cf. Ps 146). God’s righteousness is not merely a righteousness that lays down what is good and what is evil, nor is it a righteousness that repays good with good, and evil with evil; it is a creative righteousness that brings about justice, a righteousness that puts things right. This is what the Protestant Reformers meant by “justification”: justitia justificans.

Let us now ask about the justification of the victims of sin. The victims of injustice and violence are not the determining subjects of their actions; they are made the objects of the action of other people outside them. They don’t act in accordance with their own wills but are at the mercy of the evil wills of other people. Their souls are wounded by action from outside. They are exposed to humiliation, insults, violation, torture, and the destruction of their self-respect. In their minds, they are not “superior to” the evildoers who inflict violence on them; they are delivered over to these people. Their souls are traumatized by what is done to them against their will. How are victims of sin to become free from the godless power and the sin that destroys their humanity? How does God bring about justice for those who suffer violence? Are they redeemed from their humiliation by Christ?

God is love, and the spirit of love is sympathy. A stronger word for divine sympathy is God’s com-passion, his feeling with us and his suffering with us. God is not an apathetic, indifferent God. Israel’s God is full of passion; God is angry and loves, and shares the fate of God’s people. What Israel experiences, Israel’s God experiences too.

The God of Jesus Christ is full of passionate love. The story of Christ’s passion is also the story of the passion of the Father of Jesus Christ. The fellowship, the community, of the soul with God is a unio sympathetica, a fellowship of those united in suffering. God dwells in heaven and with those who are of a broken heart (Ps 34:18; Isa 57:15). God is the God of the gods and brings about justice for widows and orphans. God is exalted and looks upon the lowest of the low. God carries men and women with their pains and their sins. “And when human hearts are breaking under sorrow’s iron rod, then there is the self-same aching deep within the heart of God.” And God goes where Christ goes. God himself was in Christ. Along the path of his passion, Jesus brings God to the victims, who are as humiliated, tormented, and forsaken as he himself. And the victims of injustice and violence can recognize in Christ their divine brother in their distress. The assailed, dying Christ becomes the comfort for assailed and dying men and women. Through his surrendering of himself to his God-forsaken death, Christ brings God to the God-forsaken people.

That is the christology of consoling solidarity that has long been overlooked in our traditions. It is the other side of christological reconciliation. Through faith the injured, humiliated, forsaken soul is united with the injured, humiliated, and forsaken Christ, and Christ takes the tormented soul in his arms and takes its pain on himself in order to lead it into his resurrection freedom and to make it blessed in the fullness of life.

What are the practical consequences? For the perpetrators of sin, we have the sacrament of penance and the forgiveness of sins, the confession of sin, contrition, and satisfaction. For the victims of the sins of injustice and violence we have nothing comparable. I should like to make a suggestion, drawn from my own experience.

Only the truth can make victims free. The victims of injustice and violence must emerge not just from the suffering that has been inflicted on them, but from their humiliation as well. In the case of the victims of sexual abuse, shame over the violation they have suffered is added. That often seals their lips for life. They first of all need recognition of their personal dignity, and recognition of the injustice under which they suffer. They need a protective space of love in order to become aware of what really has been done to them. Self-hate and self-pity are no help. It is only regained self-respect that lets the victims rise above what they have suffered and liberates their personality. The perpetrator’s admission of guilt can help. But the victims must not wait for this because they must become free from fixation on the perpetrators, and must take their lives into their own hands. They must not go on being “victims” forever.

After they have been raised from the depths of humiliation into the wide space of the affirmation of life, the next step will lead to a surmounting of the evil that has thrust itself into life contrary to their own will. Everyone who suffers injustice has dreams of revenge and retaliation: perpetrators must suffer the same pain as their victims. Then we can quit. But we also know that retaliation against evil with evil only increases the evil suffered, “which must unceasingly bring forth evil,” as Goethe said. “Do not be overcome by evil,” counsels Paul (Rom 12:21, NRSV). So do not requite evil with evil. Anyone who kills the person who has murdered is also someone who commits murder.

“Overcome evil with good,” Paul goes on. It is not a matter of the perpetrators, but of the evil to which they were enslaved, and that evil can only be combated with good. If we do that, we not only help the person enslaved by evil to free themselves from that evil, but we do something good for ourselves as well. We liberate our souls from shame and disgrace, hate and revenge, and all the evil dreams that torment us.

The forgiveness of guilt is the sovereign royal right of the victims. It raises them above the perpetrators and makes them free lords over all things and subject to none! “Son of Righteousness, arise! Triumph o’er the shades of night. Dayspring from on high, be near, Daystar, in my heart appear.”

To celebrate the Lord’s Supper together—together come to the communion

The Reformation of the 16th century was intended to be a Reformation of the one church and was indeed intentionally a catholic Reformation. That is why the Reformation is still imperfect and unfinished as long as the separation of Protestant churches and the Catholic Church endures. Because separation of churches originates out of excommunications from the Eucharist, communion at the table of the Lord Jesus Christ is the goal of the Reformation and of all ecumenical endeavors.

The community of faith emerges when people hear the invitation of Christ and come together to the altar, where Christ is waiting for them. I see over bread and wine the outstretched arms of the Crucified One, and I hear the voice of the praying Christ: “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20, NRSV). Whether we are Catholics and speak of the “Eucharist” or we are Protestants and speak of the “Abendmahl” or ecumenists and speak of the “Lord’s Supper,” the only important thing is what happens there: “Christ’s blood shed for you” and “Christ’s body given for you.”

We don’t celebrate in our own name nor in the name of our church, but in the name of Jesus Christ. It is not the meal of our church but the meal of Jesus Christ. And even if we understand our church as the body of Christ, what happens in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper belongs nevertheless together with what happened on the cross of Christ on Golgotha, where the sacrifice of Christ for us and for the many and for the whole world was accomplished. Therefore, at this holy place Catholics are not separated from Protestants and divorced people are not separated from married ones: Here sinners are forgiven, victims find their rights, the sorrowful are comforted and the desperate find new hope. How can we maintain our separations from one another when we are face to face with the One crucified for us and for many? How can we excommunicate people Christ has invited? We celebrate the Ursakrament, the original sacrament, Jesus Christ, who embraced us all and the whole world.

My proposal: After the communion, we should remain seated and together discuss what happened to us in the Eucharist. The understanding comes after the experience. And in this case practice comes first and theology second. Whoever demands a common theory first before we follow the invitation of Christ doesn’t want to hear the divine invitation. It is like in everyday life: After eating and drinking together we are relaxed and more ready for a dialogue or a dispute than before the meal with hungry souls and thirsty hearts.

A personal remark at the end: I follow the invitation of Christ whenever I hear his voice, no matter in which church, and I was never refused in any church! I am waiting for a eucharistic movement of the people and by the people. The Reformation of the one church is finished only in the eucharistic fellowship and friendship: The closer we come to Christ, the more we come together.

On a Reformation of hope

It is important to see the limits of the Reformation in the 16th century in order to go beyond its limits. I will mention four limitations of the Reformation: First, the Reformation happened only in the Latin churches of the West. The Orthodox churches of the East were totally untouched by Reformation ideas. Second, the Reformation happened only inside the conditions and traditions of the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.” Since the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 by the pope in Rome, there has been a split in the Holy Roman Empire between two Caesars, one in Byzantium, the other in Franconia. Third, the “Constantinian turn” of affairs had changed the Christian church into the state religion of the Holy Empire, and the Holy Empire into the kingdom of Christ, the millennium. The Reformers Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin remained inside this corpus christianum; only the Anabaptists, whom we call today “historic peace churches,” crossed over these limits and were persecuted because of imperial laws (Reichenrecht). Fourth, the 16th-century Reformation was, as the name implies, related to an already existing church and state, not to a Christianity of the future. It was a re-formation of faith, not of hope. It was a re-formation, not a formation of the mission of the church in the world.

And, finally, we can ask what were the future expectations in Luther and Melanchthon’s time in Wittenberg? We have a very clear picture in Martin Luther’s last book, the Supputatio anorum mundi (Counting the Years of the World) of 1545. Because the Wittenberg Reformers remained in the Holy Empire and accepted its laws, they also agreed on the place in the world chronicle and the apocalyptic outlook of this Empire. World history reveals the salvation plan of God. This master plan becomes evident if you translate the seven days of creation into the seven ages of world history. Remarkably enough this is not a Christian idea but an idea of the Jewish Talmud. In the school of Elia, the teaching is: “6000 years the world will exist: 2000 years chaos; 2000 years Torah; 2000 years the Messiah; but because of our sins, many of these years have already disappeared.”

Luther prefaced his book on “the years of the world” with this sentence. Melanchthon also used this sentence. But the “world chronicle” of the Wittenberg doctor Johannes Carion, the Cronicon Carionis, became even more widely known. Carion translated the sentence from the Talmud into Lutheran theology: “2000 years before the law; 2000 years under the law; and 2000 years under grace.” After that comes the end of the world. Melanchthon saw in the eminent threat of the Turks to the Holy Empire a reflection of the biblical people of “Gog and Magog.” Revelation 20:8 says: After the thousand-year kingdom of Christ, Satan will be released and anti-Christian people will attack the Christian Empire and the Holy City (Jerusalem). Important here, however, is not the apocalyptic end-time battle of Gog and Magog, but the identification of the “Holy Empire of the German Nation” with the millennium of Christ. Whoever thinks that he lives at the end of this Christian kingdom can see only the end of the world before him and the final judgment.

Now that we see some of the limitations of the Reformation, I want to pose this question: Why did Martin Luther not see world history and the end of this world in the light of the resurrection of Christ, as did the apostle Paul? One reason may be found in his doctrine of the two kingdoms and his Augustinian reduction of all theology to “God and the soul.” Another reason may be the theological emphasis on the incarnation in the Western church and Luther’s radicalization in his theology of the cross. The Eastern Orthodox Church observes Easter as the central celebration of the year.

If we shift now to the question of how a Reformation of hope can inspire the churches of the Reformation, we can say that any Christian theology of hope must begin with the resurrection of Christ, which is the eschatological event in this world and in this world history. The resurrection of Christ is the beginning (Col 1:18), the beginning of the new world of God in the midst of this old world, the beginning of new and eternal life in the shadows of this mortal life, and the beginning of the new creation of heaven and earth.

The category of apocalyptic thinking is the “growing old” and the “ending” of all things. The category of hopeful thinking is the category of the new: The new heart and the new spirit, the new creature who is being born anew, the new song and the new dance, the new joy of God and of everything. This is so because the end is precisely this: “See, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5, NRSV). To believe is not only, as the Reformers said, “grace alone—faith alone”: sola gratia—sola fide, but also to be born anew “into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, NRSV).

The messianic kingdom of Christ is not the church nor the Christian empire, not the Christian civilization, and neither the American “new world order” (novus ordo seclorum) nor the European Neuzeit (spirit of modern times); but Christ’s kingdom is the future of the church and the future of humankind and the future of the earth, and not only the future of the church but of kol-Israel as well (cf. Rom 11:15 and Rev 20:5–6). In Christ heaven and earth are already “reconciled” and have become materialized promises of the new creation in glory.

A Reformation of hope must follow the Reformation of faith and inspire the churches for the future of humankind and of this earth: reformatio ecclesiae—reformatio mundi (Amos Comenius).