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The Kingdom Anticipated: The Church and Eschatology
Author(s) -
MOSTERT CHRISTIAAN
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of systematic theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1468-2400
pISSN - 1463-1652
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2400.2010.00509.x
Subject(s) - eschatology , reign , eucharist , ecclesiology , anticipation (artificial intelligence) , relation (database) , kingdom , philosophy , character (mathematics) , theology , sign (mathematics) , statement (logic) , abandonment (legal) , politics , epistemology , law , political science , biology , paleontology , mathematical analysis , geometry , mathematics , database , artificial intelligence , computer science
The idea that the church is an eschatological community, closely connected to the kingdom or reign of God, has not been prominent in ecclesiology. This article argues that the early Christian community understood its own existence in eschatological terms, as the ‘vestibule’ of God's reign (Bultmann). With the help of the concept of ‘anticipation’, it is argued that the church is an anticipatory sign of the kingdom, but that the relation between them requires nuanced statement. Central among the ways in which the church's eschatological character is instantiated is the Eucharist. However, such a view of the church also has pastoral, missiological and political implications.