Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University. He is the author of Lament for a Son (1987).

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Hearing the Call

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

Preface...............................................................................................................................ixThe Grace That Shaped My Life.........................................................................................................1Trumpets, Ashes, and Tears............................................................................................................19The Tragedy of Liturgy in Protestantism...............................................................................................29Justice as a Condition of Authentic Liturgy...........................................................................................39Liturgy, Justice, and Holiness........................................................................................................59If God Is Good and Sovereign, Why Lament?.............................................................................................80Why Care about Justice?...............................................................................................................95For Justice in Shalom.................................................................................................................109The Wounds of God: Calvin's Theology of Social Injustice..............................................................................114Lest Your Brother Be Degraded in Your Sight...........................................................................................133An Evening in Amman...................................................................................................................136Death in Gaza.........................................................................................................................140The Troubled Relationship between Christians and Human Rights.........................................................................148Six Days in South Africa..............................................................................................................155Seeking Justice in Hope...............................................................................................................170Hondurans Seek Justice................................................................................................................188"When Did We See Thee?"...............................................................................................................199The Bible and Women: Another Look at the "Conservative" Position......................................................................202Hearing the Cry.......................................................................................................................210Letter to a Young Theologian..........................................................................................................218The Theological Significance of Going to Church and Leaving and the Architectural Expression of That Significance.....................228The Light of God's Love...............................................................................................................241Thinking about Church Architecture....................................................................................................245Thinking about Church Music...........................................................................................................254Playing with Snakes: A Word to Seminary Graduates.....................................................................................268Can a Calvinist Be Progressive?.......................................................................................................275The Moral Significance of Poverty.....................................................................................................287Love it or Leave It...................................................................................................................297Reflections on Patriotism.............................................................................................................299Contemporary Christian Views of the State: Some Major Issues..........................................................................308The Political Ethic of the Reformers..................................................................................................328Theological Foundations for an Evangelical Political Philosophy.......................................................................346Has the Cloak Become a Cage? Love, Justice, and Economic Activity.....................................................................372Justice, Not Charity: Social Work through the Eyes of Faith...........................................................................395An Interview with Nicholas Wolterstorff...............................................................................................413It's Tied Together by Shalom..........................................................................................................423How My Mind Has Changed: The Way to Justice...........................................................................................430Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................439

Chapter One

Every Sunday morning for almost 2,000 years now we Christians have left our beds, our tables, our fireplaces, and gone out onto the paths and roads and streets of our world, by foot, by horse, by bicycle, by car, from the dispersion of our daily existence to our liturgical assemblies. Then, after our divine service is finished, we go back again over the paths and roads and streets to our homes and places of work and recreation. Christian existence has from its beginnings followed this pattern of gathering and dispersing, this systolic-diastolic beat of contracting and expanding, assembling and scattering. The pattern is familiar to all. But what does it mean?

Also from the very beginnings of Christian existence this heartbeat of gathering and dispersing has followed the temporal one-plus-six rhythm of Sunday plus Monday-through-Saturday. Into the otherwise uniform flow of time has been introduced a septuple cadence, rather as the train traveller finds herself introducing into the uniform meter of the click of the wheels rolling over the joints in the track a rhythm of strong and weak. A systolic-diastolic heartbeat in a septuple cadence of one plus six — this from age to age has characterized the Christian way of being in the world. In my book Until Justice and Peace Embrace I inquired into the meaning of the septuple rhythm. Here I want to look into the meaning of the heartbeat. Specifically, what do the parts of the beat — the gathering and the dispersing — have to do with each other?

One can readily discern standard patterns of Christian thought on the matter. Some regard these two phases as not having anything at all to do with each other. They see them as jointly essential to the full Christian life but functioning side by side, not serving or conditioning or fulfilling or interpenetrating each other. The point has been made in various ways. Some say that the active life is jointly indispensable with the contemplative life for the full Christian existence. Others prefer to say...