LITMIR.BIZ

       Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

      Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part One: Theological Matters

The End Is in the Beginning: Creation and Apocalyptic

The End of Sacrifice: An Apocalyptic Politics

Witness

       Part Two: Church and Politics

       Church Matters: On Faith and Politics

       The End of Protestantism

       Which Church? What Unity? or, An Attempt to Say What I May Think about the Future of Christian Unity

       War and Peace

       Part Three: Life and Death

       Bearing Reality

       Habit Matters: The Bodily Character of the Virtues

       Suffering Presence: Twenty-­five Years Later

       Cloning the Human Body

       Doing Nothing Gallantly

       Disability: An Attempt to Think With

       Index

Preface

      I have been teaching for forty­five years. That is what I understand myself to be — a teacher. I suspect that is not how those external to Notre Dame and Duke think of me. I suspect I am thought of as a person who “writes a lot” and/or holds views about what it means to be a Christian that are not widely shared. Given my track record, that I am so regarded by many is quite understandable, but I hope that is not who I am. I hope I am first and foremost a teacher.

      I am soon to retire. If I have any regret about retirement it is that I will miss interaction with graduate students. I am not sure how many dissertations I have directed. I am sure I do not want to know how many dissertations I have directed. To know how many would only make me tired. What I do know is that the trust students have put in me has been a gift. I have learned from every dissertation I have directed. It would, I suspect, be a fascinating investigation to show the difference students have made for how I think and what I have written over time.

      To teach means you must be taught. I have never liked sentiments that suggest teachers learn more from their students than students learn from their teachers. Of course, everything depends on what you think you are “learning.” I think teachers should know more than students about the subject they are teaching. The “more” they should know is not necessarily “information,” but rather judgments that depend on years of close reading. Teachers can and certainly do learn from students, but that does not mean they cease being teachers.

      That I will soon retire, moreover, does not mean I will stop being a teacher. As I think my students will testify, I have never limited my teaching to giving lectures, leading seminars, or directing dissertations. A teacher understands that every interaction with students in one way or another involves exchanges that are formative. This is particularly true when the interactions are about baseball. After all, baseball is a game with clear eschatological significance because it is a game that is never “over.”

      All of this is but an attempt to say “thank you” to all the good people who have made me a teacher. I am particularly grateful to those who have entrusted me to direct their dissertations. To all who claim me to be their teacher I dedicate this book.

Introduction

The title, Approaching the End, is deliberately ambiguous in order to reflect the different but interrelated subjects I address in this book. Any reference to the “end” in a book on theology usually indicates that the eschatological character of the Christian faith will be a central consideration. I hope Approaching the End meets that expectation. To the best of my ability I try to show the significance of eschatology for understanding how Christians are to negotiate the world. By doing so I hope to make clear why I have maintained that the church does not have a social ethic but is a social ethic.1

Accordingly this is also a book about the church and, in particular, the end of the church. In The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God I suggested there are two questions you cannot ask about the contemporary university.2 Those questions are, “What is it for?” and “Who does it serve?” You cannot ask those questions because many of us who count ourselves among those who represent the university know we do not know how to answer those questions or we do not like the answers we know we should give. The same questions need to be asked about the church. But they have not been asked for reasons I suspect are very similar to why they are not asked about universities.

It may be, however, that these questions are not asked about the church because many assume that the church is in a survival mode. The end that the church is approaching, or at least some churches may be approaching, is quite literally death. So the end to which the church is moving is not a purposive end that gives order to the practices that make the church the church. Rather, the end some churches

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