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(2012) Eschatology and space, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Re(li)gion

the struggle between space and time

Vítor Westhelle

pp. 1-20

Eschatological discourse and the practices it elicits and reflects upon have been ensnared by a paradigm dominant in the Christian West since at least the time of Augustine. Such paradigm is determined by the prevalence of time and history to the exclusion of concerns with space and geography. Change, progress, and praxis operate as functions of a linear conception of time. If eschatology is the thinking, teaching, and theorizing about ta eschata, the last things, it is assumed that it has to do with some sort of an end of time, as a date to be speculated about in a near or distant future, something that has already taken place in the past, or it is time suspended in an existential now. Any combination of these options abound as well, as for instance in the celebrated formula "already-and-not-yet." But in any case, it is about abstract time, time that can be conceived and discussed apart and independent from the contexts that envelop it.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1057/9781137108272_1

Full citation:

Westhelle, V. (2012). Re(li)gion: the struggle between space and time, in Eschatology and space, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-20.

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