Gregory J.Liston, <i>Kingdom Come: An Eschatological Third Article Ecclesiology</i>. London: T&amp;T Clark, 2022, 218pp. $35.95

How does the future state of the Church shape its present manifestation in real time? Gregory Liston has written a bold and insightful book engaging with this question at the intersection of ecclesiology, pneumatology and eschatology. Pivoting frequently between static (Barth)and idealistic (Hütter) accounts of the present Church, Liston engages the eschatological tension pneumatologically, whereby the characteristics of the realised kingdom are gradually manifest in the Church through Christ's kingly presence: ‘the proleptic anticipation of the coming kingdom’ (p. 1). Prolepsis connotes the representation of a thing before its manifestation; thus, the present Church grows into its perfection over time through inaugurated eschatological hope. For Liston, the Church is a ‘sequel’ to the incarnation (pp. 10, 51), not merely continuing but building from it towards a new, pneumatologically distinctive work. To maintain this pneumatological angle, Liston carefully avoids slipping into opposing ditches of under – or over – emphasising the relationships between Christ, the Spirit and the Church. He notes, for example, that the community of the Church ‘has an intrinsically sacramental nature’ as Christ is pneumatologically ‘personed’ among fellow congregants in fellowship (p. 14). Liston rightly asserts the mysteriously incomplete nature of eschatology; it is ‘intrinsically preliminary’ and yet essential, lest the Church be rendered (literally) ‘purposeless’ (pp. 15–17). Yet he critiques popular ‘now-but-not-yet’ eschatological terminology as inadequate because it underplays the impact of the incarnation and resurrection upon time, drawing on Barth's insight that Christ united time and eternity together. Leaning on T. F. Torrance's delineations of ‘fallen time’ and ‘redeemed time’, Liston highlights a time indwelt by the risen and ascended Christ which runs parallel to ‘our’ time (pp. 27–8). In contrast to Barth's ‘static’ ecclesiology (where, according to von Balthasar, ‘nothing really happens…because everything has already taken place in eternity’ [p. 34]), Liston highlights Hütter's perspective, influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy, accentuating the pneumatological power of regular church practices, which guide and shape the Church towards her ultimate end (pp. 38–9). Whilst this affords the Spirit more than a vague omnipresence in ecclesial formation, it potentially ascribes too much control to church practices as the work of the Spirit, minimising (if not obliterating) the Spirit's role through individual members to challenge and/or reform said ecclesial practices and authorities. As Liston is aware, Hütter's conception certainly risks ‘institutionalizing the Spirit’ (p. 41). Liston invokes the munus triplex as a vital schema for understanding Christ's temporal relationship to the Church. Between the emphases of Barth (Christ's prophetic forthtelling) and Torrance (Christ's priestly mediation), Liston highlights the telic dimension of Christ's kingly reign (p. 49). The Spirit not only points to this reign but guides the Church towards it teleologically, such as through ‘cruciform’ suffering (p. 54). Referring to the Church's ‘fundamental and final self-giving, cruciform reality’, however, potentially undermines necessary resurrectional triumph (p. 56). Is Christ's call to take up one's cross (Matt. 16:24–26) better applied not to the corporate Church (inviting a perennially pessimistic eschatology) but to individual discipleship, where fellow body members each lose (but gain) their life, irrespective of relative moments of public ecclesial flourishing? One of the key purposes in the book is to identify and explore key characteristics of the coming kingdom, which should characterise the present Church through the Spirit: life, truth, justice and love. Exploring ‘truth’, for example, Liston spotlights the heavenly city in Revelation 21–22: ‘The captivating descriptions…paint a picture where every remnant of falsehood and darkness has been swept away by God's all-encompassing truth and light’ (p. 72). This somewhat sanitised interpretation, however, minimises the particularity of judgement. Whilst Liston notes that ‘the unalloyed presence of truth and righteousness necessarily means the holy removal of error and evil’ (p. 72), it is unclear whether Liston means that God simply washes all error/evil away ‘conceptually’ or whether God does in fact remove evildoers (cf. Rev. 21:8), those Paul lists as not inheriting the kingdom (1Cor. 6:9). The latter may today be less politically correct but is likely more exegetically correct. Liston imagines the Church as ‘vice-regents’ of the king, seeking ‘to speak public truth, to liberate those who are oppressed, to unite people and draw them together in love’ (p. 74). Yet this ambassadorial role avoids more challenging aspects of kingly authority. Highlighting ‘the winsomeness to persuade’ (p. 75) seems more akin to the modern diplomat than the ancient herald, ignoring characteristics of the kingdom arguably more prominent among Christ and His apostles, such as the prophetic offence of light exposing darkness. The chapter on the Eucharist (pp. 77–105) is one of the strongest parts of the book, lucidly reimagining communion not merely as past remembrance and present unity, but also as the site of ecclesial transformation in anticipation of the wedding supper of the lamb (p. 81). Thus, the Eucharist should be characterised not only by solemnity, but by longing and joy, with the Spirit ever reminding the Church of its future hope which the Church practices in real time (pp. 83, 86). There is a danger, naturally, of over-systematising – perhaps even romanticising – the Eucharist here. Indeed, it is unclear precisely how such pneumatological transformation may be impeded by improper Eucharistic practice. Liston says this may occur wherever there is injustice and inequality, using contemporary examples like racial and gender inequalities (pp. 179–80). Yet given how much diversity of opinion there is on how to evaluate such fractious issues today, these applications risk undermining Liston's larger Eucharistic view by invoking an acutely intersectional lens for justice/equality without due critique. Liston moves from the Eucharist to analyses of other Church practices (prayer, praise, proclamation) which shape the Church into who she will become (pp. 111–25). On the transformative role of the Word upon the Church, he again leans on Barth and Hütter, as well as Luther (though, oddly, no mention of Bonhoeffer – the most obvious interlocutor here). Showcasing his methodological range, Liston then offers a chapter-length theological interpretation of 1 Corinthians, showing how Paul's eschatological vision animated his call to ecclesial holiness and unity. For Paul, ‘morality and eschatology are intrinsically intertwined’ (p. 147). These are insightful observations, but notably Liston largely ignores Paul's expressions of male/female creational distinction as part of that moral eschatological vision. The passage on head coverings, for example, is passed over as essentially irrelevant despite forming a strange albeit tenable link with Paul's taxonomical thought elsewhere in 1 Corinthians (p. 150). This includes his curiously ‘cosmic’ reasoning (‘because of the angels’ [1Cor. 11:10]) which might have been tentatively explored in light of the aforementioned celestial panorama of Revelation 21–22. Moving seamlessly from theological exegesis to missiological analysis, Liston shows how the Church is shaped by and for its mission, breathing in/out God's trinitarian life (p. 170). He critiques popular conceptions of ‘missional ecclesiology’ as overly pragmatic and insufficiently pneumatological. His alternative, however, somewhat over-elevates pneumatology as the ‘fundamental level’ for ecclesial missiology, instead of christology (pp. 163–4). Given that Christ builds (Matt. 16), commissions (Matt. 28), and perpetually reaffirms the Church's christological foundation (Acts 4:11), Liston's expression that ‘the Spirit wields the Church’ (172) sounds askew, even with a ‘spirit-christological’ intention. The book's methodological range is certainly impressive, synthesising conceptual systematic work alongside biblical-theological, missiological and ethical analysis. Liston is admirably aware of ‘the practical and concrete implications of [eschatology] for church life’ (p. 79). However, his attempt to concretise this in a New Zealand context of racial reconciliation raises more questions about the scope of his eschatological vision than it resolves (pp. 176–7). Talk of ‘churches taking seriously their culpability for past atrocities and negligence’ means different things in different contexts (p. 180). This cruciform concept of giving up our rights to self-determination, and of deliberately and intentionally choosing a path that includes our own mini-deaths with hope for a coming resurrection, is especially pertinent to the issue of race relations, particularly in terms of the attitude that the majority culture adopts to minorities. (p. 179) Even in these deficient attempts to describe the reconciliatory work of the coming kingdom through a contextual lens, Liston still emphasises very well the fundamental theological significance of ecclesial gathering, where Christ dwells – through the Spirit – as present redeemer and reconciler, calling the Church into her ever-unfolding future.