ABSTRACT
Why does it matter to talk about the future and the end of times? Can images and thoughts about the last things cast light on mastering the present, or will they rather confuse and distort it? The introductory chapter of the book assumes that reflecting on the final things, the eschata, makes sense, and explains why reflecting about images of the end matters.
The author elaborates four good reasons for this assumption, without claiming to be comprehensive. He explores what he regards as three common but distorting “dead-end-roads” in the theological discourse about the eschata. The chapter suggests to turn around at these roads and move from apocalypse to political messianism, from reductionist time to the eschaton as space, and from ignorance of the past to the future in the past.
After a short experiment where climate change serves as a test case for eschatology, the content of the chapters is portrayed and some ideas behind the book’s title are indicated. Reflecting about the images of the end might in such a way open a path from despair to hope, from fear to empathy and from paralyzation to conversion.
