Christian T. Collins Winn. Jesus, Jubilee, and the Politics of God’s Reign

In Jesus, Jubilee, and the Politics of God’s Reign, Christian T. Collins Winn contributes a contemporary theological and ethical perspective to discussion surrounding the kingdom of God. The thesis of the book is that “Jesus is the kingdom of God enfleshed” (p. xiii, italics original) and the author, quite ambitiously, sets out to offer an exposition of the theological, biblical, and ethical implications of this statement. After a short introduction, the book proceeds in two parts, each consisting of three chapters, before a very brief conclusion. The first three chapters appeal to a broad category of biblical material (Psalms, prophets, and apocalyptic literature) with a few focal case studies, while the last three chapters are focused on Jesus. Insights are drawn throughout from figures such as Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, and representatives of more recent feminist, womanist, and postcolonial approaches.The introduction begins with “two key questions: What is the reign of God about which Jesus speaks? And, what, if anything, does the reign of God have to do with our social lives?” (p. 1, italics original). These two questions shape the approach of the chapters that follow, where the author begins with a consideration of the biblical data and subsequently integrates contemporary social concerns, which are grounded in the connections drawn between God’s reign, the Jubilee, and apocalyptic literature.The first three chapters consider the Psalms, the prophets, and apocalyptic literature, respectively. Chapter 1 (“‘YHWH Has Become King’”) focuses on the theme of God’s past royal activity and present reign. For Collins Winn, although human kings are connected to God’s kingship, God alone is king, and his faithful deliverance is demonstrated through his past actions, praised in the Psalms and consistent with the priorities of the Jubilee, which provide visions of the justice and righteousness of God’s reign. The praise of God’s just reign in the Psalms encourages “new and creative ways to live and act” (p. 32), which Collins Winn links to African and African American musical traditions. Chapters 2 (“The Hopes of the Prophets”) and 3 (“The Day of YHWH’s Apocalypse”) take up “prophetic eschatology,” which considers the problem of exile with “the twofold dynamic of judgment and new life” (p. 38) and the cosmic scale and two ages structure frequently found in apocalyptic literature. Collins Winn notes the necessity of divine action for redemption, with a recognition that figures who are presented as the human representatives of God’s reign—like the suffering servant, the Davidic messiah, and the Son of Man—are frequently included, and that “the prophetic tradition calls for a human response in the here and now” (p. 67). Chapter 3 concludes with examples of language drawn from apocalyptic literature and appeals to the Jubilee in several different accounts surrounding the end of slavery in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.The second part of the book contains three chapters on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As the book shifts its focus directly to the person of Jesus, several strands from the preceding chapters come together, notably the choice regarding which passages and themes related to God’s kingship are treated in the first three chapters. Chapter 4 (“‘The Kingdom of God Is in Your Midst’”) highlights the way that Jesus’s work provided release and reversal, following the pattern of the Jubilee, and promised a cosmic scope, like the vision of apocalyptic literature. Chapter 5 (“The Way of the Kingdom”) focuses on the conflict that defines Jesus’s ministry, with particular emphasis on the cosmic nature of the principalities and powers arrayed against Jesus and his defeat of said powers through suffering, following the pattern of the suffering servant. Collins Winn connects this cruciform confrontation of the powers to the contemporary African American experience in the United States, drawing on James Cone. Chapter 6 (“‘Thy Kingdom Come’”) outlines the resurrection as the vindication of Jesus’s life of Jubilee reversal and his apocalyptic confrontation of the principalities and powers. The continuing presence of the Spirit empowers the church to live a life of Jubilee justice and apocalyptic confrontation confident that, like Jesus, the resurrection will vindicate those who embody God’s reign. The death of George Floyd and the response in Minneapolis provide the final contemporary illustration in chapter 6 that continues in the two-page conclusion.The attempt to consider the biblical, theological, and ethical implications of the kingdom of God in an accessible volume is admirable. There are a few places where the pieces all come together quite well, like the exposition of the story of the woman with the flow of blood in Mark 5:21–43 on pages 127–30. The author’s background in theology (with a Barthian edge) and experience of pastoral ministry in Minneapolis are visible in the historical and contemporary social applications of the biblical material. However, the engagement with biblical scholarship often does not represent the complexity of the ongoing discussion about the kingdom of God. Collins Winn presents his own argument well, but mention of N. T. Wright, Scot McKnight (both conspicuously absent from the bibliography), and, more recently, the works of Patrick Schreiner and Nicholas Perrin would point the reader to the broader discussion in biblical scholarship. This book is an ideal catalyst for further thought and conversation about a topic that is, for many, overly familiar, though its limited engagement with other studies makes it less helpful as an introduction for either undergraduates or laypersons.