Comments on: Evangelical Anxieties 5: The End of the World http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world ...dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:48:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Jeremiah Lawson http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13647 Jeremiah Lawson Thu, 15 Feb 2007 07:07:28 +0000 http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13647 Wow, this brings back memories. I remember reading Revelation when I was six years old and it freaked me out. I was scared of the images and monsters. I think perhaps when I finally talked to my parents about it they said that you're blessed if you hear the book and it shows that Jesus wins. Still, in the church culture I grew up in I was so scared that I might be the antichrist that one night I couldn't sleep and went and added up the numeric values of the letters in my full name to find out if I was the antichrist. Of course my full name is kind of long and I got tired and don't remember if I figured it out. I think I wasn't but it wasn't until at least a decade later that I learned that the number of the beast is based on the numeric values of GREEK letters. Why do pastors ever talk about the number of the beast and fail to mention this point? To make a long and slow story short I went from being a premillenial pretribulation secret rapture futurist to being an amillenial partial preterist leaning toward elements of allegory. When people pressed me on this or freaked out I said that we know Jesus is coming back from Acts 1 even if we have no clue how to interpret Revelation. A helpful youth pastor at an Assemblies of God church said the only honest approach to Revelation is to admit we could all be wrong and Jesus is still coming back one day to rule and reign. That minimalist eschatology with the humility to admit that we don't know for sure what God may not have done yet has been a guidepost for me. ' I used to worry that Jesus would come back and destroy the world before I had a chance to do anything with my life. Would I get any good at the guitar? Would I ever even have a girlfriend? Would I ever get married and have kids? Did anything I did even matter? I didn't have any real hope that what I could do would amount to anything. I agree with the theory that eschatology tends to be front loaded with our fears or expectations. As First Things wryly noted, American evangelicals thought they were going to hand the world to Jesus on a silver platter in the 19th century and then after World War 1 switched over to desperate premillenialism. I feel like Christians are great at coming up with "good moral law" based on one eschatological paradigm, like child labor laws or prohibition or public education; and then as times change and unforeseen side effects of prohibition or other laws lead to "teen culture" and organized crime Christians seem to have changed paradigms and decry the consequences of the very laws they once lobbied for as a "Christian nation". What happens when Christians in a nation remold the law of the land into their idea of what Jesus should want and then the Lord alters the land? It seems like Christians create their own stew and don't want to eat it and change their eschatology to hide from the reality that Jesus is greater than what we expect of Him. Wow, this brings back memories. I remember reading Revelation when I was six years old and it freaked me out. I was scared of the images and monsters. I think perhaps when I finally talked to my parents about it they said that you’re blessed if you hear the book and it shows that Jesus wins. Still, in the church culture I grew up in I was so scared that I might be the antichrist that one night I couldn’t sleep and went and added up the numeric values of the letters in my full name to find out if I was the antichrist. Of course my full name is kind of long and I got tired and don’t remember if I figured it out. I think I wasn’t but it wasn’t until at least a decade later that I learned that the number of the beast is based on the numeric values of GREEK letters. Why do pastors ever talk about the number of the beast and fail to mention this point?

To make a long and slow story short I went from being a premillenial pretribulation secret rapture futurist to being an amillenial partial preterist leaning toward elements of allegory. When people pressed me on this or freaked out I said that we know Jesus is coming back from Acts 1 even if we have no clue how to interpret Revelation. A helpful youth pastor at an Assemblies of God church said the only honest approach to Revelation is to admit we could all be wrong and Jesus is still coming back one day to rule and reign. That minimalist eschatology with the humility to admit that we don’t know for sure what God may not have done yet has been a guidepost for me. ‘

I used to worry that Jesus would come back and destroy the world before I had a chance to do anything with my life. Would I get any good at the guitar? Would I ever even have a girlfriend? Would I ever get married and have kids? Did anything I did even matter? I didn’t have any real hope that what I could do would amount to anything.

I agree with the theory that eschatology tends to be front loaded with our fears or expectations. As First Things wryly noted, American evangelicals thought they were going to hand the world to Jesus on a silver platter in the 19th century and then after World War 1 switched over to desperate premillenialism.

I feel like Christians are great at coming up with “good moral law” based on one eschatological paradigm, like child labor laws or prohibition or public education; and then as times change and unforeseen side effects of prohibition or other laws lead to “teen culture” and organized crime Christians seem to have changed paradigms and decry the consequences of the very laws they once lobbied for as a “Christian nation”.

What happens when Christians in a nation remold the law of the land into their idea of what Jesus should want and then the Lord alters the land? It seems like Christians create their own stew and don’t want to eat it and change their eschatology to hide from the reality that Jesus is greater than what we expect of Him.

]]> By: bookdragon http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13553 bookdragon Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:49:13 +0000 http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13553 > Reminds me of a joke I read in a book on the sociology of humor. In the part on Jewish humor, it noted how for millenia Jews, persecuted and confined to ghettos, eagerly awaited the coming of the Messiah and being brought home to Israel. However in the midst of American freedom and prosperity that was changing. The effect was summed up nicely in the following joke: A man comes running to his wife saying 'Honey! I just heard the Messiah is coming tomorrow and we'll all be gathered up and taken to Israel!' But his wife isn't so excited. She says, 'Oh No! But we just finished remodeling the house and they're supposed to set up the jacuzzi tomorrow. And we finally got into the Club and the David was just accepted at Harvard! This is will ruin everything!' As this realization sinks in, the man nevertheless pulls himself together. He says to her, 'Look, we Jews survived the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusades. We survived the pogroms, we survived even the Nazis. Somehow we'll get through the coming of the Messiah.' >

Reminds me of a joke I read in a book on the sociology of humor. In the part on Jewish humor, it noted how for millenia Jews, persecuted and confined to ghettos, eagerly awaited the coming of the Messiah and being brought home to Israel. However in the midst of American freedom and prosperity that was changing. The effect was summed up nicely in the following joke:

A man comes running to his wife saying ‘Honey! I just heard the Messiah is coming tomorrow and we’ll all be gathered up and taken to Israel!’

But his wife isn’t so excited. She says, ‘Oh No! But we just finished remodeling the house and they’re supposed to set up the jacuzzi tomorrow. And we finally got into the Club and the David was just accepted at Harvard! This is will ruin everything!’

As this realization sinks in, the man nevertheless pulls himself together. He says to her, ‘Look, we Jews survived the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusades. We survived the pogroms, we survived even the Nazis. Somehow we’ll get through the coming of the Messiah.’

]]> By: steve yates http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13536 steve yates Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:13:14 +0000 http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13536 i know brian mcclaren often raises hell on more than one occasion (hehe i made a pun...wow its too early in the morning), but he once made a statement that has really shaped my view of the end of the world: "the question is not what will we do if Christ comes back tomorrow, the question is what will we do if He doesn't come back for 1000 years?" comnig judgement has not been a great motivator for my own growth in Christ and passion for others, but perhaps loving people is. besides, my friends and i always joke that knowing me, Jesus will come back either in the middle of the super bowl or on my wedding night...just my luck. for glory... steve i know brian mcclaren often raises hell on more than one occasion (hehe i made a pun…wow its too early in the morning), but he once made a statement that has really shaped my view of the end of the world: “the question is not what will we do if Christ comes back tomorrow, the question is what will we do if He doesn’t come back for 1000 years?” comnig judgement has not been a great motivator for my own growth in Christ and passion for others, but perhaps loving people is. besides, my friends and i always joke that knowing me, Jesus will come back either in the middle of the super bowl or on my wedding night…just my luck.

for glory…
steve

]]> By: jmanning http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13483 jmanning Tue, 13 Feb 2007 03:20:37 +0000 http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13483 Every generation has taken a very selfish view of eschatology. It has been the hand-maiden of the times. The optimistic Puritans, seeing the fruit of civilization sometimes as an extension of the Gospel, were hoping for an earthly (postmillenial) paradise...the war-weary 20th century has continued to await an airlift before the Tribulation...and people who are by nature unimaginative and bored have commonly held an amillenialist position (its a joke) Eschatology is used in two ways by Jesus in the Gospels: motivation and accountability for Believers Parable of the talents is an eschatological parable that teaches motivation for service as a Christian. Right in front of it, is the parable of the virgins which stresses watchfulness (accountability=God will catch you napping) Paul, meanwhile, uses it as a motivator to hope in our future rather than loathe over our present trials. IMO: We've got to have contextual warrant for using eschatology in other ways than that primarily. I don't think it was used as an evangelistic scare tactic... Every generation has taken a very selfish view of eschatology. It has been the hand-maiden of the times. The optimistic Puritans, seeing the fruit of civilization sometimes as an extension of the Gospel, were hoping for an earthly (postmillenial) paradise…the war-weary 20th century has continued to await an airlift before the Tribulation…and people who are by nature unimaginative and bored have commonly held an amillenialist position (its a joke)

Eschatology is used in two ways by Jesus in the Gospels: motivation and accountability for Believers

Parable of the talents is an eschatological parable that teaches motivation for service as a Christian. Right in front of it, is the parable of the virgins which stresses watchfulness (accountability=God will catch you napping)

Paul, meanwhile, uses it as a motivator to hope in our future rather than loathe over our present trials.

IMO: We’ve got to have contextual warrant for using eschatology in other ways than that primarily. I don’t think it was used as an evangelistic scare tactic…

]]> By: rustyhinges http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13472 rustyhinges Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:30:52 +0000 http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/evangelical-anxieties-5-the-end-of-the-world#comment-13472 Your thoughts are right on Michael. I have come to believe that there is a culture of fear (as you described in a recent post) within the church. Christian leadership doesn't trust the power of the Holy Spirit anymore so we (leaders) feel the need to intimidate people into certain thoughts/actions/believes for "their own good." Because of our undue emphasis on right doctrine we have neglected living a life that is full of truth. Because we aren't living in the joy of knowing we will one day be with the Lord we feel the need to guilt people into the reality of eternity. Pontificating and fear-mongering blog writers are worse than anyone in this department. Your thoughts are right on Michael. I have come to believe that there is a culture of fear (as you described in a recent post) within the church. Christian leadership doesn’t trust the power of the Holy Spirit anymore so we (leaders) feel the need to intimidate people into certain thoughts/actions/believes for “their own good.”

Because of our undue emphasis on right doctrine we have neglected living a life that is full of truth. Because we aren’t living in the joy of knowing we will one day be with the Lord we feel the need to guilt people into the reality of eternity.

Pontificating and fear-mongering blog writers are worse than anyone in this department.

]]>