IV.

Current Attitudes

Liberal Christian thought has emphasized the soul and the kingdom of God, more often seeing it as coming on earth in each individual (evidenced by what was believed to be the steady upward progress of humankind) than as an apocalyptic event at the end of time. Twentieth-century theological thought has tended to repudiate what many scholars have felt to be an identification of Christian eschatology with the values of Western civilization. In the second half of the 20th century, eschatology was equated by some theologians with the doctrine of Christian hope, including not only the events of the end of time but also the hope itself and its revolutionizing influence on life in the world. The most eloquent exponent of this eschatology is the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann.

In modern Judaism the return of Israel to its land, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, and everlasting retribution are still expected by the Orthodox, but the more liberal base the religious mission of Israel upon the regeneration of the human race and upon hope for immortal life independent of the resurrection of the body.