Karl Barth and Parousia in Comparative Messianism

Kurt Richardson compares similar eschatological perspectives in Barth and in Shi’a Islam. He discusses Barth’s complex understanding of Christ’s parousia as both present and future, and he suggests that there is a parallel understanding in Shi’a Islam, with the first and second occultations of the Twelfth Imam and the expected return of Jesus and the Mahdi at the end of time. Richardson attends to both the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of the God-world relation, in which the synchronic refers to the role of the Mahdi and the risen Christ now, while the diachronic refers to the eschatological expectation of their return. He notices striking parallels between the two formulations, both of which have a cosmos filled with the hidden presence of a saving figure who comes from the future to rectify all things. Considering the personal presence of the hidden holy one in both Barth and Shi’a theology, Richardson suggests that community life in the here and now is determined by presence and expectation.