When I first encountered the thought of Jürgen Moltmann I did so with great enthusiasm. By the time I had completed a PhD on him I was aware of his faults and weary of his elusiveness. This book rekindled my enthusiasm and made me aware of the extent to which Moltmann has influenced my thinking.

Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz, a former pupil of Moltmann, has written a good introduction to his thought. It is described as an ‘aid to reading’ and is, for the most part, a summary of Moltmann’s major works book by book, sometimes chapter by chapter. Yet it remains engagingly written throughout. A summary can easily dull the rhetorical force of the original, but Müller-Fahrenholz has managed to retain much of the energy of Moltmann’s writing while providing an accurate account of his thought. The early chapters are more powerful, but this, in the opinion of this reviewer, reflects the development of Moltmann’s own work.

Described as a ‘theology’, it is also part biography. A feature of Moltmann’s development has been the extent to which he has engaged with contemporary issues and one of the strengths of this introduction is the links it makes between Moltmann’s life and thought. Müller-Fahrenholz writes powerfully about Moltmann’s post-war imprisonment, his encounters with liberation theology, his interaction with the civil rights movement, feminism, and ecological issues. He shows how this personal history has impacted Moltmann’s thinking and includes a helpful chapter in which he gathers together the various fragments of Moltmann’s ethical writings.

Müller-Fahrenholz offers some critique of Moltmann, but this is not a strength of the book. He fails to highlight the important emphasis in Moltmann’s early thought on God’s future as adventus (a coming reality in contradiction to the present) rather than futurum (an extension of the present)—an emphasis which becomes problematic when Moltmann develops his doctrine of creation. At a number of points throughout the book Müller-Fahrenholz wonders whether we should regard Moltmann as a mystical writer. This is a suggestive idea, but its reprise in the final chapter is disappointing.

Müller-Fahrenholz is at his best when summarising Moltmann’s work and has produced a good introduction to Moltmann for those new to his thought. It made this reviewer to want to reread Theology of Hope and The Crucified God.

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