God's Unfinished Future

Presentations from a theological conference last month in NYC, God's Unfinished Future, are available as MP3 files and streaming video at http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/education/?institute-2007&p=schedule&s=telecast. The featured presenter is Jurgen Moltmann. Most of the talks are available as both video and audio. Broadband internet access is needed for the video. The audio files are of the talks only and do not have the brief bios of the presenters prior to the talks. I haven't checked to see if the audios have the Q&A sessions at the end or not.
The first presentation by Barbara Rossing does a splendid job of linking the Book of Revelation with ecology and environmental issues. The site's blurb on her follows:

The Rev. Barbara R. Rossing, Th.D., professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, is the author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in The Book of Revelation.

I recommend skipping the first 13 minutes of that segment to avoid the usual conference introductions. Her talk is about an hour followed by 20 minutes of Q&A.

I watched the video of Bernice Johnson Reagon and it was a delight. The video lasts about an hour and is a wonderful combination of personal history, reflection and song. For those of you who don't know her, here is a brief introduction.

Bernice Johnson Reagon was the founding director of the ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. She will share her unique perspective of God's "ultimate visions" through performance, storytelling and song.

The first presentation by Jurgen Moltmann lasts about an hour and a half with Q&A. His talk is called "The Final Judgement: Sunrise of Christ's Liberating Justice". Among other things, he demythologizes all the bad (theologically at least) art portraying the Last Judgement. It is a remarkable talk which goes a long way toward undoing all our early conditioning about being judged by God. One interesting response by Moltmann in the Q&A is his reflection about the idea of purgatory (at about 1:11 in the video). This presentation is really worthwhile.

At first, Moltmann's 2nd presentation, which is about the Resurrection of Christ, seems out of synch with the previous one. After all, the book of Revelation comes after the Gospels. The title of the talk, which appears only briefly on the video, "The Presence of God's Future: The Risen Christ" clarifies that. He states that apocalyptic visions are, in fact, not Christian because they focus on the end the world. What is Christian is the account of a new beginning of life itself initiated by the Resurrection of Christ. He also emphasizes the importance in the Christian message of bodies over souls and a new earth over heaven. This is a very dense talk. I've seen it twice and haven't fully absorbed it.
One note about Moltmann's German accent: when he says what sounds like "livid" and "un-livid", he is really saying "lived" and "unlived".

The final presenter is the Rev. Prof. Peter J Gomes of The Memorial Church, Harvard. You may have heard him being interviewed by Bill Moyers several years ago about his book, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. I have listened to half of his presentation so far. It is enough to think that we might do well to have his book ($14 for a new paperback version) as a text for our Bible study group. Now, I'm going back to his talk. His primary themes are 1) the distinction between optimism and hope, and 2) pastorally, the future shouldn't be yielded to the Left Behind folks; it must be seen positively as the fulfillment of God's promises. He strongly recommends Barbara Rossing's book, The Rapture Exposed, and mentions that his church is using it as Lenten reading. The latter has been out in paperback since 2005 listing for $15, but there are used copies available. I think the bible study group studied the Book of Revelation before I joined it, but I don't know if you used any supplemental works.