Marginal Christianity

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5) The Conflict We meet the darkness again. Yes, that darkness we met in Advent. The darkness God calls his people to engage to prepare themselves to serve in the new movement God is about initiate to reclaim and restore his hijacked creation to its proper Lord and proper ends. In Christmas we acknowledge and celebrate the beginning of this movement. Into the darkness the light we glimpsed through God’s call in Advent comes. Up close and in person. Ready to do hand-to-hand combat with its defenses and forces. The verse from John cited above makes this clear. From the time God began this reclamation and restoration movement with Abraham and Sarah and promised to give them a people whom he would bless and protect and through whom he would bless the world (Gen.12:1-3), he’s been aiming for this moment. “ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son” (Gal.4:4). Though humanity ha...

  Posted on 4.27.2015 Last week I wrote about preterism and the work of N.T. Wright . Specifically, we discussed how when Jesus speaks about a coming judgment, especially in his Olivet Discourse (Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 21), he wasn't talking about an otherworldly hell but about the destruction of Jerusalem. As N.T. Wright has observed, "in those famous passages in the Gospels, Jesus is talking not about the end of the world but about the fall of Jerusalem ." In a comment to that post a reader asked the following question: "If Jesus was simply telling people not to rebel against Rome, how is that relevant to us today? Or should we not try to find personal relevance in the words of Jesus?" That's a great question, one I wrote about last year: Again, as scholars like N.T. Wright have pointed out Jesus seemed acutely aware that his people were on a lethal collision course with Rome. If Israel did not repent, if Israel did not lis...

  March 23, 2015 posted by Mason Slater Leave a Comment Today we are pleased to share the latest post in our new weekly series, Beyond the Book . This month J. Richard Middleton will be discussing interesting things he learned about eschatology while working on A New Heaven and a New Earth .   Also, as part of this series we are giving away three copies of A New Heaven and a New Earth . The winners will be announced at the end of the month, and you can enter here . ——– “ Despite vivid apocalyptic imagery of stars falling from heaven, the Bible never imagines the literal destruction of the cosmos in the eschaton . ” – J. Richard Middleton Among the issues I addressed in A New Heaven and a New Earth were “problem texts” in the New Testament that seemed to suggest the destruction of the cosmos when Christ returns.   I was already convinced that that the main thrust of New Testament eschatology is the redemption of creation —God wants to restore t...

Christians work toward a future. This is true of humans generally, who go about their business with some sort of telos in mind, possessed by (or searching for) some kind of hope. It is differently true for believers, who live in the light of divine ends. By the Holy Spirit they hope for God’s future in Jesus Christ. They move forward, stretching toward the coming kingdom. When Christians go about their work as welders, as property managers, as actuaries, as network technicians, as mayors, as retail clerks, they do so as end-time laborers. The present series can be understood as a response to Tom Nelson’s pastoral plea: “If we are going to do God-honoring work, if we are going to be a faithful presence in our workplaces, then we must grasp in a compelling way that our present work fits into the future that awaits us” ( Work Matters , 77). The following offers a constructive framework for the members of the Church to understand their work. It pursues the theme of eschatological b...

We live between the good news of the past (Jesus’ death and resurrection) and the good news of the future (Jesus’ return and new creation). And that has tremendous implications for the value and urgency of embracing this good news for the present.   This is paradigm Wright has set up for us in the first two chapters (Part 1 of this review).   Chs.3 and 4 (Part 2) explored the good news of the past – Jesus, the good news of his life, death, and resurrection and influences that have distorted that good news through the centuries. His next two chapters take up the good news of the future and various distortions that have bedeviled it. We live between history and hope. These give our present meaning.   Or they should. However, the default gospel Wright outlines in the first two chapters often leave the present vacant and of seemingly little value by its twin convictions that the purpose of Jesus’ saving us and our ultimate destination is heaven where we will dwell w...

Aug 13, 2014 by Stanley Hauerwas            http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2014-07/untamed-jesus          Distinguished New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink and his brother, Norbert Lohfink, a Jesuit and an Old Testament scholar, are members of the Catholic Integrated Community in Germany. The community was founded in 1945 by Catholics who thought that Nazi rule in Germany was not some freak event but an indication that a deep moral failing was at the very heart of German life. Members of the Integrated Community believe that if Germany is to have a moral future, a fundamental reconstruction of German life is demanded. That project, they believe, requires a people committed to living as an alternative community. The Catholic Integrated Community now has over a thousand members. That Lohfink and his brother are members of the Integrated Comm...

          Did you know the “end times” has already begun?   Check out 1 Corinthians 10:11 or Hebrews 1:2.   And that’s what really important about eschatology, teaching about the end times.   Though most us tend to be more interested in various schemes purporting to explain how the history of the world will end, there is no “one” scheme the Bible attests and its interest in the end times is far more about how it impacts the present than when or how it will occur.            Creation itself is the “beginning of the End.”   That is, creation looks forward to its completion in the Kingdom of God (see Rev.21-22).   The End is the End of the beginning.   That is, the completion of creation.   And Christianity claims that with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead the End has begun, even though it will be fully consummated until his return!    ...

September 12, 2012 By peteenns 2 Comments http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/09/dear-christian-if-the-thought-of-either-romney-or-obama-getting-elected-makes-you-fearful-angry-or-depressed-you-have-what-we-call-a-theological-problem/ Before we get going here, let’s be clear on what I.am.saying. and what I.am.not.saying. This is not a cynical, “I’m above it all,” anti-political rant. I am not telling you both candidates are the same. I am not telling you not to vote. I am not telling you to stop arguing about politics and coming to strong convictions. Have at it. I am saying that if you get so worked up about it that you become really angry, or you actually “fear for our country,” or are thinking of moving to Greenland or freezing yourself if “that guy” gets elected, you may need to step back and think about what’s happening inside of you. You can and should be genuinely concerned about health care, our economy, and many other issues–there are issues of justi...

Karl Barth gives beautiful expression to the “already/not yet” eschatological dynamic that pervades and structures the New Testament and Christian existence. “The war is at an end – even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless...

Karl Barth gives beautiful expression to the “already/not yet” eschatological dynamic that pervades and structures the New Testament and Christian existence. “The war is at an end – even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless...

          We noticed last time how the New Testament’s view of “the End” restructures the way we understand the flow of history and our place and role in it as God’s people.   We live between the D-Day of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the V-Day of his return as God’s subversive counter-revolutionary people.   In this post I want to spell out the implications of this a bit further.           Since the “end times” or the “last days” began with Jesus (especially his death and resurrection) and span the period of time till he returns to establish God’s kingdom fully and finally forever, we live between the ”already” of God’s kingdom inaugurated and achieved by Jesus and the “not yet” of its universal reality and acceptance.   This tension of living between the “already” and the “not yet” constitutes the context in which we live out our faith.       ...