Charismata and Stigmata: Ernst Kasemann's Apocalyptic Theology of Liberation

Ernst Kasemann famously claimed that "apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology." This study unpacks the historical and theological insights contained in this claim with an eye toward their ongoing theological significance in the twenty-first-century. The question that animates the study is the following: What theological difference does it make within the context of the contemporary theological situation to (re)claim early Christian apocalyptic as the mother to which Christian theology today must return? The central argument is that Kasemann's constructive retrieval of apocalyptic theology offers a necessary corrective to the "ecclesial turn" in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century postliberal theology, while simultaneously opening up onto a richly constructive apocalyptic theology of liberation that is often overlooked by recent apocalyptic interpretations of Paul.;The study argues that post-Barthian theology has developed in a strongly ecclesiocentric direction by way of a drastic repudiation of the apocalyptic element of the dialectical theology movement. It is argued that this has led to a form of ecclesiological fundamentalism in Protestant theology in which white masculine nostalgia for Western Christendom displaces Christology. The study situates Kasemann within the context of a broader current of apocalyptic "ruptures" in modern German thought, specifically in relation to dialectical theology and Jewish messianism. It is argued that Kasemann's variation of apocalyptic theology, while significantly indebted to Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, substantially revises and develops dialectical theology in a polemical direction by setting Pauline apocalyptic against ecclesiocentrism. It is also argued that Kasemann's apocalyptic theology contains an important critique of white masculine nostalgia for Western Christendom by prioritizing a Christology that is defined by God's solidarity with the oppressed in the crucifixion of Christ and an eschatology that opens up toward an abolitionist political theology of liberation.