The theme of Moltmann's book In the End – the Beginning, is not a new one for him; indeed the title is reminiscent of a section in his The Coming of God (1996) and is actually taken from T. S. Eliot's poem East Coker. Eschatology is an area of theology with which Moltmann is readily associated and in this short book he aims to bring together his thoughts on the subject for a wider audience than academic theologians. Consequently the book is not heavily footnoted and although he does engage a few academic conversation partners he does not at any point enter into detailed discussion of their position. Much of the discussion is based around personal experience and there is a clear pastoral emphasis throughout the book. In the Introduction, the author summarises the purpose of the book: ‘In this little doctrine of hope, I am concentrating on the personal experiences of life in which we search for new beginnings and find them’ (p. x).

The book is divided into three parts. Part One is entitled ‘There Is a Magic in Every Beginning’. The two chapters in this section offer some reflections on childhood. Moltmann reminds us that Christ came as a child, but more significant, he suggests, is Jesus's own attitude towards children which challenged that of his contemporaries represented by the disciples' reluctance to allow the children to go near Jesus (p. 12). Moltmann appears to be conscious that it would be easy to offer a naïve account of the innocence of children, and so, rather than explaining how children are innocent, he describes how they seem so to us. He writes ‘This imagined childlike innocence, this image of the pure beginning, this world of unlimited possibilities – all this makes childhood the image of hope’ (p. 10). For one normally so globally and politically aware, this is perhaps a rather restricted perception of childhood. He does not consider, for example, that when it is a struggle just to survive childhood, our first thought may not be of a world of possibilities or an image of hope.

Part two, ‘In My End Is My Beginning’, considers the way in which endings bring about something new. Moltmann makes the point that new beginnings do not come out of devastation caused by humans. The types of destruction that we are responsible for do not warrant being described as apocalypse: ‘The biblical apocalypses and catastrophe theologies have nothing to do with the fantasies of global annihilation conceived by the modern prophets of disaster and the terrorists’ (pp. 51–2). These are only about fear, and not also about hope. In chapter 4, Moltmann discusses issues of justice. His understanding of God's justice, which he returns to in the final section, is the foundation of his understanding of the End. It is because of his belief in restorative/creative justice that the new beginning he envisages can include all people but exclude all wrong-doing. ‘The God of Israel does not lay down what is right and wrong in order to repay good with good and evil with evil. He brings about what is right and just, where there is wrong and injustice’ (p. 61, his italics).

Part Three, ‘O Beginning Without Ending’, raises some of the theological issues related to the Last Times. Some of the questions posed here have already been implicitly answered in the book. For example the title of chapter 7, ‘Is there a Life after Death’, seems to come rather late in a doctrine of hope; if Moltmann was to answer this question in the negative the whole purpose of the book would be frustrated. In chapter 8, ‘Mourning and Consoling’, the author introduces Freud's distinction between mourning and melancholia but does not offer much discussion of Freud. This section has a strong pastoral flavour and focuses on offering advice to the bereaved. Moltmann certainly does not want to undermine the importance of mourning, but insists that it should be seen in the context of resurrection hope. ‘If death is the side of the transformation to eternal life that is turned towards us, then our grief is transformed from mere lament over the loss into a new fellowship with the dead. If we believe that the dead experience resurrection, then this hope leads us out of the abyss of fear and makes us free’ (p. 128).

Only in the last chapter does Moltmann deal specifically with the ‘last things’. He comments that the traditional understanding of God as the great judge ‘who judges in wrath has caused a great deal of spiritual damage’ (p. 140). He notes that in much modern theology this view has been replaced by the idea that we send ourselves to hell. Although God meets everyone in love, God respects our free decision if we choose to reject this offer of love. Moltmann concludes that ‘nothing Christian can be detected in these ideas’ (p. 141). Throughout the book he identifies sources for beliefs that he suggests stem from other than Christian cultures, and demonstrates how, although they may have been incorporated into Christian teaching, they are not in fact Christian. He favours a ‘Christianised’ account of the Last Judgement where the judge will be recognisably the Christ who was put to death on a cross and who lived in fellowship with sinners and the sick. Further, ‘The justice which Christ will bring about for all and everything is not the justice that establishes what is good and evil, and the retributive justice which rewards the good and punishes the wicked. It is God's creative justice, which brings the victims justice and puts the perpetrators right’ (p. 143).

This book would be a useful introduction to some of the discussions about Christian eschatology and to Moltmann's own position on the subject. Given the style of the book, the target audience presumably are those who are not well versed in this area. For those already familiar with the field, and Moltmann's contribution to it, this book may not further the debate. He clearly intends to offer a doctrine of hope, which reflects on some of the most difficult situations we encounter in life and affirms that not just despite them, but through them, we can be confident in the Christian hope. Here, as he often does in other works, Moltmann quotes what must be a favourite passage which succinctly summarises his doctrine of hope: ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev 21:5; pp. 143, 150).