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“There are signs of hope”: Abbot Dr. Johannes Eckert on the apocalypse of the Bible and the urgent questions of the time

2022-12-20T14:17:21.386Z


“There are signs of hope”: Abbot Dr. Johannes Eckert on the apocalypse of the Bible and the urgent questions of the time Created: 2022-12-20 15:03 By: Peter Schiebel Abbot Dr. Johannes Eckert in the courtyard of Andechs Monastery: his recently published book about the apocalypse is the tenth book that the 53-year-old has written by now. © Andrea Jaksch Abbot Dr. In an interview with Starnberge


“There are signs of hope”: Abbot Dr.

Johannes Eckert on the apocalypse of the Bible and the urgent questions of the time

Created: 2022-12-20 15:03

By: Peter Schiebel

Abbot Dr.

Johannes Eckert in the courtyard of Andechs Monastery: his recently published book about the apocalypse is the tenth book that the 53-year-old has written by now.

© Andrea Jaksch

Abbot Dr.

In an interview with Starnberger Merkur, Johannes Eckert talks about the apocalypse of the Bible and the pressing issues of the time.

Andechs – The Apocalypse, also called "The Revelation of John", is not just the last book of the Bible.

It is also one of the most visually stunning parts of Holy Scripture, with destruction and the end of the world, but also with hope and new beginnings.

It's about a turning point that was often described this year politically as a result of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

dr

Johannes Eckert (53), Abbot of St. Bonifaz and Andechs since 2003, deals with exactly this topic in his new book.

It is entitled "Apocalypse - Images of Horror, Images of Hope: Visions for Today." The Starnberger Merkur spoke to him at Andechs Monastery about the reading, his work and his view of current world events.

Abbot Johannes, had the title and subject of your new book been decided before February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine?

Yes.

I started the topic two years ago and handed in the manuscript on January 31st.

But I was able to incorporate the war against Ukraine at least a little later.

How did that come about then?

I had previously dealt with the four gospels, so they were finished.

The idea for the apocalypse came from my circle of acquaintances.

I then started to study the text intensively – and was on the verge of putting the book down several times.

Why?

It's a confused book.

Sometimes you look at the sky, sometimes you look into the abyss.

It's a constant change.

The author, John, a prophet from the first century AD, thinks so much in black and white that I don't like it that much.

But of course they are powerful images.

It's about war, about epidemics, about death.

That almost sounds like a description of our time.

As I said: I started to deal with it during the pandemic.

The war in Ukraine, climate change, abuse in the church - these are abysses that concern me too.

Something breaks down there too.

And that ultimately drove me to continue working on the book.

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What conclusion did you come to?

That there are catastrophes, that there are wars, but that in the end there is not doom, but the new heaven, the new city, the new Jerusalem, as the apocalypse says.

The statement of faith is: behind everything God directs and leads us into a good future.

In the very first sentence you write that the word "apocalypse" is currently on everyone's lips to describe horror scenarios: refugee crisis, pandemic, climate change and of course the war in Ukraine.

What goes through your mind when you see these pictures?

It seems to me that we've been sitting in some kind of sleeper car since the early 1990s and now we've been woken up.

We were doing well after the end of the Cold War, prosperity continued to grow.

We didn't perceive many other things that way, or maybe we couldn't perceive them that way either.

Many things only became clearer to people when the first large influx of refugees began in 2015.

And now it's about questions like: What do we stand for?

What is important to us?

Or with a view to the citizens of the Reich: What are our democratic values ​​worth to us?

When I think about climate change, it is absolutely clear to me that we cannot deal with creation in this way.

But there are signs of hope.

Which?

How many people, also from Ukraine, are accepted by us.

How many people volunteer for refugees or in other places.

For me, these are positive signs.

But also that we Europeans, despite all the tough struggles, manage to endure sanctions against Russia.

These are signs of hope that we should not downplay.

The apocalypse is about a turning point, Chancellor Scholz also spoke of a turning point this year.

Does the term apply to our time?

I wouldn't speak directly of a turning point, but rather of the fact that an epoch has come to an end, and not just since the Ukraine war.

The pandemic has shown us the consequences of globalization.

And it certainly wasn't a punishment from God.

We must learn to live in a global village.

We have to learn to deal with each other, which problems we can solve together.

It's a tough struggle.

Development aid, for example, is not a luxury but a necessity in order to create a stable world situation.

And that is for peace.

Just as the EU confederation of states serves peace, which is a very important good.

The path to the future cannot lie in us sealing ourselves off like the Roman Empire once did, which built the Limes for this purpose.

What particularly moved you while reading the Apocalypse?

That John prophesied that the Roman Empire would fall.

And that despite all the torment, there is one encouragement for us Christians: Don't be afraid.

Life is stronger than death.

Speaking from faith: God directs, and it leads to a great goal, which is not called destruction, but renewal.

We are not indifferent to God.

The Bible begins with the story of creation, which we must read as myth, not account.

And at the end there is the vision of the new Jerusalem.

Every human life moves in this arc of tension.

In relation to the war, this can mean that Mariupol will be rebuilt and emerge as a new city.

Or that Russians and Ukrainians understand each other again.

When looking at death and misery, including in Ukraine, one is nevertheless quick to question God.

How can God allow something like this?

What is your answer to this question?

God is absolutely questionable in every suffering that occurs.

Doubts about God are perfectly understandable.

And that's why there has to be an answer to this question in the end: Look, I'm doing everything new.

God has a message and it is life.

How does a believer like you feel about supplying arms to Ukraine?

There are not only bad compromises, but also good compromises.

That's why I currently see arms deliveries as the lesser evil.

But we mustn't make it too easy for ourselves.

We also need the pacifists who will critically question these decisions and make us face these questions.

We talked about your difficulties at the beginning of your work.

The book is now available.

How is your balance sheet?

I also write books for myself. Working intensively on a topic helps me to say in all the imponderables in which we live: I'm staying.

The book is not a prognosis, but a critical examination of the present from the point of view of faith.

I'm glad I made it.

The book "Apocalypse - Pictures of Horror, Pictures of Hope: Visions for Today" has been published by Verlag Herder and is available in bookstores (176 pages, 16 euros).

Source: merkur

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