God's Patience and Our Work: Hans Frei, Generous Orthodoxy and the Ethics of Hope

Abstract

This book offers a new interpretation of Hans Frei's theology and ethics, their development, coherence in context and their relevance to contemporary Christian political theology and ethics. On this reading, Frei offered a subtle, flexible account of the essence of Christianity, a Christology which grounds Christ's living presence and enduring solidarity with the poor and marginalised and to history and the church in his particular identity. I show that he sought to recover the conditions for an ethics of responsibility and to articulate the terms of the publicness of Christian theology and ethics. His vision of Christian discipleship, shaped by Christ's identity, emphasises generous, reconciliatory love and practices of penultimate reconciliation amidst the structural divisions engendered by social sin. Above all, he outlined a theology of God's patience and providence to frame a hopefully realistic, contextually pragmatic, progressive engagement of Christian communities with politics and society.