Augsburg Fortress

For a time of peril, world-renowned theologian Jürgen Moltmann offers an ethical framework for the future.

Long distinguished as the architect of political theology and father of the theology of hope, Moltmann has shown how hope in the future decisively reconfigures the present and shapes our understanding of central Christian convictions, from creation to New Creation.

Now, in an era of unprecedented scientific advances alongside unparalleled global dangers, Moltmann has formulated his long-awaited Ethics of Hope. Building on his conviction that Christian existence and social matters are inextricably tied together in the political sphere, Moltmann unfolds his ethics in light of eschatology, clearly distinguishing it from prior and competing visions of Christian ethics. He then specifies his vision with an ethic of life (against the dominant ethic of death), an ethic of earth (against today’s utilitarian ethic), and an ethic of justice (against today’s social injustice and global conflicts). In the process, he applies this framework to concrete issues of medical ethics, ecological ethics, and just-war ethics.

A creative and programmatic work, Ethics of Hope is a realistic assessment of the human prospect, as well as its imperatives, from one who stakes everything on God’s promise to rescue life from the jaws of death.