Theological Journal - July 13: Lee Camp: Scandalous Witness (2)

PROPOSITION 2 The End of History Has Already Begun

Camp’s first proposition is that history has a goal, a teleology, a future. Christian faith is an interpretation of this history with a future. This sets Christianity apart for some other philosophies, spiritualities, and religions, but not all (e.g., Marxism). What sets it apart from all others is Proposition two: the end of this history has already begun. If Christianity sees history going somewhere, it also believes that somewhere has already come forward to be present in the history that is moving toward it!

That a bit mind-binding, I know. That why it will be important to pay attention to Camp on this point. It  is Jesus and his resurrection that creates this new situation. And since this newness is a real change in our world it represents a new political possibility (neither right nor left).

Jesus’ resurrection “ushers in the end of history, vindicates the way of Christ, and inaugurates a new political possibility in the world.” (Kindle Loc.386) If your view of the resurrection does not include these elements it is a less than fully Christian view.

Thus Paul, for instance, may consistently claim both that salvation has already occurred and secured for us and yet we wait for it and move toward it at the same time. “A kingdom inaugurated but not yet consummated” is how Camp puts it. (Kindle Loc.410)

So What? This: To Live Proleptically

He introduces a new word (to many) at this point: proleptic. It means a future that is so certain that we speak of it and live from its reality even now in the present. This is how Christians live in our world in the light of Jesus’ resurrection. While Christians believe that the resurrection brings the reality of the end of history, that desirable future of new creation he promises, into our present, we live by that new reality (what the New Testament instructs us to do). All the while others may believe “that the brokenness of the world is most real. The political realist insists that interests must always be balanced by counterinterests, and coercive power must always be checked by countercoercive power, and when ‘necessary,’ that threats be checked by the threat of or actual employment of violence.” (Kindle Loc.427)

This new reality of resurrected life redefines what Christianity is about. “This new reality fundamentally reorders the ways of life and death, politics and power. The significance of this claim is hard to overstate. It makes all the difference in whether we Christians do, in fact, understand our own faith.” (Kindle Loc.432)

This is the freedom of the Christian, to live out this new reality amid the old, broken, reality and its powers that Christ has defeated on the cross and at the resurrection.

The Resurrection of the Dead

The resurrection is God’s mighty declaration that life has triumphed over al manner of death and it has done this through death and resurrection (like Jesus). Insistence on the reality (historicality) of Jesus’ resurrection and the change this has made to our world and experience in bedrock Christianity.

“To reduce Christianity to an afterlife religion, to reduce it to some spiritual escape from real life and history, this was to pervert Christianity and fundamentally misconstrue it.” (Kindle Loc.460) The same is true of any view of the resurrection that makes it a symbolic truth that impacts the consciousness of the believer but has not changed the world we live in.

Camp summarizes:

“To sum up then: Christianity is foremost a claim that the end of history has been inaugurated. And this historical claim entails a call to pledge allegiance to this new politic that has broken into human history. Christianity is, in other words, not so much a religion as it is an interpretation of history. Christianity is a claim regarding the meaning of history: that the direction and the end of history are all revealed in the suffering love of Christ, which has triumphed over all that which seeks to subvert the goodness of God.” (Kindle Loc.466)

In that the resurrection of Jesus brings a new, true, world to bear on the old broken one it establishes a new history in that old one. This is not simply something to discuss and debate but something that changes how the church lives it daily lives in ways those beholden to the old world neither understand, appreciate, or even approve of (in some cases).

The Evidence

Some will look out their windows and say “Nothing new going on out there. Same old same old! Where is the peace and justice of which you speak? I don’t see it.”

For the early church, the church itself was the evidence. “For these early Christians the political and historical shape of their common life was central to the claim that Jesus is Lord. Their apologetic, their defense of the claim that Jesus is Lord, was grounded in their new political way of being in the world.” (Kindle Loc.489)

That’s a risky claim, though. One we know all too well today in America. The church behaving badly provides quite plausible and for many persuasive evidence that its claims are not true. “Insufficient data may be found among Christians to confirm that Christianity is true, and consequently we Christians may be among the primary players responsible for the rapid rejection of Christian faith in the West, not the secularists, not the liberals, not the conservatives, not the Americans, not the communists.” (Kindle Loc.495)

Camp offers a nice diagnostic summary of how things got so bad here:

-We bought into the Western notion that religion is a private affair, unrelated to politics and history and sociology.

-But knowing that history and politics and social structures still matter a great deal, we cast about to find some bearer of historical meaning.

-Not finding it then (as we had already supposed) in Christianity, we yielded this role to the nation-state, as the primary player in the unfolding of history.

-Finally, convinced of the importance of being politically and socially relevant, we had to get on the side of the right (that is, “correct”) political partisan agenda, nation-state, or power-mongering entity. (Kindle Loc.501)

Each of the steps in this process surrenders something inherent and important to Christian faith.

Obviously there have been many exceptions and it would be churlish not to mention that. Each of us know such saints most of whom will never make the pages of a history book.

The good news in all this is that this story is not over yet. There are (many) chapters yet to be written. And it may be that even here in this country we can write some of them that tell a much better story. “In any case, to depict Christianity as a risky political claim begins our task of staking out, in bold terms, the potential threat—and immense service—which Christian faith poses, when rightly understood and practiced, to even the most American of dreams.” (Kindle Loc.529)