Pentecost, Hospitality, and Transfiguration: Toward a Spirit-inspired Vision of Social Transformation

Arising from the context of post-communist Eastern Europe, the present monograph highlights the socio-transformative work of the Holy Spirit while reflecting on the need for a prophetic re-envisioning of historical ends and cultivation of a hopeful political imagination toward building a functional global civil society. Bringing together insights from philosophy, sociology of religion, economics, and political science, the text charts the way toward constructing a theology of social transformation. The argument draws its inspiration from the event of Pentecost as offering a rapturing vision for the cosmopolitan future of the world. This vision highlights the radical hospitality of God towards the other, incarnated in the community of faith via the agency of the Holy Spirit and forecasts the redemption of humanity's multiculturalism transfiguring the global village into the city of God. The text finds its point of departure in examining the ecclesiological significance of Pentecost, establishing the church as a living icon of the Trinitarian communal life on earth. It emphasizes the Christoforming work of the Spirit, translating within the ecclesia the beauty of divine hospitality as distributive justice for the other. The work contrasts the realities of global economic neoliberalism with the communal economics of the Spirit within the household of God, cultivating a eucharistic consciousness of reverent consumption that prioritizes the well-being of the other and transforms the globe into a home for all.