McLaren On Eschatology

Brian McLaren: I think that many of us from Evangelical backgrounds grew up with a sense of hopelessness about human history. We were taught to expect the return of Christ very soon, which entailed the destruction of the earth as we know it, with some new beginning on the other side, a new beginning characterized by radical discontinuity with this history. To care about earth's long-range future, then, became an act of unfaithfulness to God and the Bible. To invest in the earth's long-term survival seemed like a "humanist" thing to do. Thankfully, some Christians found ways to counteract this attitude of abandonment toward the earth and its history even within the "left behind" interpretive framework, but others of us still weren't satisfied.

By getting a fresh look at what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God - not an escape from this world, but the inbreaking of God's will into this world, not the abandonment of earth, but a radical, self-sacrificing commitment to it - we find ourselves being able to gratify desires - Spirit-inspired desires, I believe - to care about God's creation and its future.

Along with a fresh look at the kingdom, a number of people (from a variety of camps, many of which wouldn't agree with each other on many points) are realizing that many of the so-called apocalyptic passages in the gospels and the New Testament as a whole seem to find fulfillment in three related realities: a) the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 67-70, which included the end of the Temple and priestly sacrificial systems, and the continuity of a multi-cultural, Spirit-filled, globally-concerned community of faith.

Andrew Perriman finds fascinating connections to the phrase "Son of Man" from Daniel. Taken together, these insights suggest that the New Testament writers looked forward to something that we can look back on ... which, I think, motivates us to get on with the work of mission in a full and integrated sense, so that evangelism and social justice and ecology and the creation of good art and serving the poor and forgotten are deeply integrated facets of our mission. This, for me, adds sacredness and purpose to all of life, and further breaks down the old sacred-secular dualism.

All of this helps us reconnect to a more healthy and robust theology of creation too. Since it doesn't anticipate God discarding creation like a candy-wrapper, it gives us permission to love and cherish God's world - all facets of it - forests, economies, wild animals, weather, history, art, language, architecture, and soil.

The above is from an interview with Brian McLaren who is probably the most prominent "emergent" Christian leader. I like him because he challenges my cherished thinking. And that is precisely why many in the church don't like him.

Eschatology is a big word that means, basically, "the study of the last days." I have always been interested in this, but approached it from a fairly narrow view. We don't know there are other ways of looking at things until someone challenges us. This is especially hard for us when our views have become hardened and comfortable. Which is most of us.

When it comes to interpreting scripture, though, I have tried to simplify it. For the difficult passages we have to try to determine whether God is saying something literal or whether it is symbolic. Symbolic stuff is hard to process for those who approach scripture literally ~ that is, fundamentally or at face-value.

The other problem with prophecies of both the Old and New Testaments has to do with the time-frame the prophecy suggests. So those who study these things wind up defending their positions which are either past, present, or future.

Past and present tend to blend together and we usually call these interpreters historical in their perspective. Those who think the prophecies are yet future are, it follows, futurist in their orientation. The battle ensues. In this corner we have the challenger....

Let me recap on this:

Two ways to interpret scripture verses:
1) literal and
2) symbolic (or as metaphor).
It is usually pretty obvious if a verse is literal. Prophetic verses are less obvious. We want to avoid making something literal that is metaphorical, and vice-versa.

Two ways to interpret prophecies about "the end" or "the last days" or "the Second Coming." That is, you believe they either already happened or they are yet to happen:
past or future.

Sometimes these things can be combined as in "it happened partially but not yet fully." For instance, the whole world was evangelized by the early church in the first century. They went from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth. So you could make a case for prophecy all being fulfilled. But, in our day, we cannot yet say that our present world is so evangelized. So that leaves the prophecies still open to a futuristic expectation as well.

Our problem is usually to try to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Combining theologies can help us be open-minded about problems we don't see that others struggle with. We don't have to understand everything about God; and He has obviously left some things open-ended. He hasn't told us everything.

So we may not get what we want, but, if we try, sometimes we'll get what we need. And, no, that is not a verse of scripture.