A review of "To Change the World. Christology and Cultural Criticism" by Rosemary Radford Ruether

Abstract

This is a collection of five essays which were originally read at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1980. The opening essay, 'Jesus and the R?volu tionaries: Political Theology and Biblical Hermeneutics', provides the premises for the arguments in the subsequent lectures. The key to her whole approach occurs in a statement on page 14: T would suggest that Jesus' vision of the kingdom was essentially this-worldly, social and political, and not eschatological ... his sayings suggest that his view of the kingdom remains primarily in the prophetic tradition, a vision of a this-worldly era of peace and justice.' This one-sided understanding of the kingdom inevitably flaws her remaining chapters which discuss Latin American Liberation Theology. Jewish Christian Relations, Feminism and Ecology. She continues to over emphasize the human potential for establishing the conditions of the kingdom of God.