Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View by Hans Küng

Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View Reviews

• 
  Gregory

  I've just read this book for the second time. It is a little uneven in places (maybe not surprising given that much of the material was originally published in journal articles) and by no means are all the arguments Küng puts forth equally compelling. But I believe this an important work and, frankly, I found it quite engaging. In a nutshell, this book tries to provide a framework for truly ecumenical theology. Throughout the bulk of the work, this means ecumenical in the context of Christianity (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox), though he does have some interesting, and tantalizing, comments about world religions. I wish they had been developed more fully.
  
  The idea of paradigm shift in the sense of Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is central to the development, and a theme to which Küng returns again and again is an emerging ecumenical post-modern paradigm. I think most readers today will find his concept of post-modernity a bit idiosyncratic, but rather than argue over terminology, I think it is best to accept the book on its own terms. Clearly, the book is meant to be an exploration of ideas, and an attempt to grapple with the question of how to do theology in an intellectually and historico-critically honest fashion.
  
  Some readers may be dissuaded from picking up this book because they are not Catholic. The author, of course is a Catholic theologian, though he lost his license to teach over various disagreements with Rome, notably papal infallibility. It is interesting that the university (I believe this was Tübingen) created a chair in ecumenical theology, allowing him to continue to teach! The author writes as a committed Catholic, but perhaps paradoxically as astringent supporter (and friend) of the famous Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Frankly, I'm not sufficiently familiar with Barth's theology to really appreciate the final section of this book which is devoted to Barth. But is interesting and thought provoking, and I'm sure I will return to it. This a book that warrants being read more than once.