What is the church? It seems that for many it is the place we go to in order to flee from the world and all the mess that’s a part of it; a place where we can escape to because it is separate from the world. Moltmann gives a very different answer. The church, he says, is ‘not “the not-world”; it is the world which is now already turning anew to the future of God because it follows the call of freedom’ (page 83).

In this powerful statement Moltmann is embracing the biblical truth about a new heaven and a new earth and that in Jesus and his resurrection this process of restoring creation has begun. He compares the journey of the church to the Exodus journey out of Egyptian slavery into freedom in a new land. The church is ‘the beginning of liberation of the whole enslaved creation for its consummation in glory’ (83) as it journeys away from death and decay.

If this is true then the church can no longer be a place within which we hide from the world, rather it must be a place where the world finds its freedom and transformation. Just like Jesus, therefore, our place is in the world proclaiming the good news about God’s plans for creation.

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