The Difference Between Imagination and Fantasy

The news is filled with pictures and videos of human agony and environmental brokenness.  Japan is only the most recent source of such images...and it sadly won't be the last.  Such events will bring to the surface the long-dormant spirit of hopefulness or hopelessness in people.  It is easy to not think about hope as long as life proceeds "normally" according to "plan."  It is also easy to keep hopelessness bound and gagged in the deep recesses of our consciousness as long as life is tolerable and as long as the things of life continue to bring sedation.  Tragedy - whether it is global or personal or both - will bring us face to face with the reality of our own hopefulness or hopelessness.

It is worthwhile therefore to talk about the difference between a hopefilled imagination and pure fantasy.  Christians are sometimes accused of engaging in laughable fantasy when it comes to issues of our hope.  But this is to confuse the definitions of both fantasy and hope.  Hope may be placed in the yet unseen realities of future, but it is grounded in the accepted truths of the past.  I never tire of telling my Hebrews students that Christian hope is about seeing with our ears.  We trust in the message that we have heard.  We trust in the truths which we have recieved.  This then gives us new eyes to see the future - eyes of hope even when all we see is defeat. This type of hope is not mere fantasy - but it is imaginative. 

To illustrate the difference...It requires imagination to hope that the Cubs would win the World Series this year.  Hope against all hope perhaps.  But it is possible because the Cubs are a professional baseball team (despite what our cultured despisers may say) and they have won the Series in the (distant) past.  It would be pure fantasy to hope that the Chicago Bears would win the World Series this year.  Imagination is grounded in the already possible.  The past opens up a world of imagined possibilities.  So the events of Japan create within us a common despair and hurting.  But events like those in Japan or Haiti or Libya also wake within us the eschatological imagination.  Because of the promises of God and the victory of the resurrection, we may anticipate and imagine in hope the new heavens and the new earth.

I will quote Richard Bauckham at length on this point...

           

Hope is an imaginative enterprise.  Especially is this the case when hope’s great gift is its power to negate the negatives of present experience.  Only the capacity of the human imagination to transcend the given enables us to escape the constraints of the present and to suppose that things might be otherwise.  This kind of imaginative or visionary hope is intimately related to transcendence.  It takes us beyond the mere extrapolation of the future from the present and the calculation of the future on the basis of past and present.  It envisage the genuinely new.  Of course, this raises the specter of mere fantasy and the questions of the ground of hope and the sources of hopeful imagining.  The more we envisage the category of the eschatologically new—a future reality that breaks the bounds of the immanent capacities of nature and history—the more important it is to distinguish imagination from fantasy.  Christian hopeful imagining is grounded in the promise of God and resourced by the images of the scriptural revelation.  As Moltmann’s theology of hope has always insisted, it is inspired and directed by the event of eschatological promise: the resurrection of the crucified Jesus.  It is characterized also by its relevance to the way Christian life now is lived in the direction of the coming of God’s kingdom and its impact on present reality.  In these ways, eschatological imagination is Christologically and scripturally disciplined imagination, not free-floating speculation.

            Consequently, human imagination does not function in Christian eschatology as an alternative to God’s revelation.  Rather, the revelatory promise of God in Christ and scripture appeals to the human imagination; seizes, transforms, and expands the imagination; makes the imagination the locus and vehicle of its reception.  It is the imagination transfigured by God’s promise that is able to envisage in hope the promised transfiguration of reality.  It is this Christian imagination that can envision the coming kingdom sufficiently for it to empower Christian living without reducing the kingdom to a reality that can be all too easily perfected already.

            It is vital to insist that, when statements of eschatological expectation are said to be imaginative, this does not mean that they are not truth bearing, as an overly rationalistic view of human understanding might suggest.  Christian hope is imaginative but not imaginary.  In reckoning with the imaginative character of eschatological images and stories, we recognize that they refer to a reality that, because it lies beyond present experience, cannot be literally described.  Christian eschatology must speak of a new creation that is both transcendently new and yet in continuity with this creation, since it is the renewal of this world.  Of something that were wholly discontinuous with present reality we could hardly speak at all, but of the transcendent future of this world, we can speak in images that point beyond the limits of their literal reference.

            Richard Bauckham, “Conclusion: Emerging Issues in Eschatology in the Twenty-First Century,” Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, 681-682.

The end is upon us! No really, it is!!!

There has always been a certain fashion in predicting the end of the world.  Christians (or groups claiming some association with Christianity) of course don't own the marketplace on end of the predictions, but we are sort of the Walmart of apocalypticism - the largest and most diverse selection (and also some of the strangest clientele?).  Apocalyptic predictions have remained so pervasive through the years for a variety of reasons.  Many of those reasons are cultural and sociological.  There will always be those within any society who are longing for an escape and a community as there will also always be those who are drawn to special and eccentric knowledge.  There will also always be those who desire to accumulate their own group of devoted followers.  When this social atmosphere is combined with biblical prophecy - a notoriously flexible genre of scripture - an apocalyptic playground is created.  In the end, being wrong doesn't even matter.  Most of these types of groups will simply lick their wounds and reinterpret their failure as some sort of perverse victory or as some sort of mathematical miscalculation (It's a little known fact, but apocalyptic nutjobs are notoriously bad at math which is tragic because so much of their livelihood depends on a specific kind of math, "prophetic algebra." You thought trigonometry was bad.  You have no idea!) 

Anyway, there is yet another group proclaiming that they have crunched the numbers (literally, they've got the multiplication all figured out) and have discovered that the end will come on precisely May 21 of this year!  Maybe finishing that term paper isn't all that important after all.  You can read the article here.  This is a great demonstration of the ridiculous and laughable (and tragic) inconsistency of "Bible literalists."  They enjoy taking a passage from 2 Peter 3:8-9 out of its context and treating it hyper-literally (one has to wonder if they actually have read verse 10!!) while ignoring clear statements made by Jesus himself about calculating dates and times (as in Matthew 24:36 to name just one place).  This passage from 2 Peter 3 has been consistently misinterpreted.  This particular interpretation was extremely popular in the Middle Ages.  This band of merry travelers are by no means the first or the last group (unfortunately) to make a splash off of apocalyptic paranoia (see below).  They really aren't even worth mentioning except that the biggest shame of it all is that Jesus' name is mocked and even dismissed in the midst of this craziness.  When asked, this group couldn't even articulate how to get to heaven.  How about...wait for it...Jesus?!

For those of you interested in such things, here is a summary from a book by Richard Kyle titled The Last Days are Here Again.  This is not an exhaustive list of apocalyptic predictions, but it does serve as a good illustration of just how pervasive (and wrong) these predictions have been.  These are all years in which some group or individual has predicted the end of the world.  Notice there are several repeat offenders (I'm looking at you, Jehovah's Witnesses).

70         Preterism

John Humphrey Noyes (Oneida Community), Christ returned spiritually

500       Hippolytus

800       Sextus Julius Africanus

999

1013

1184     Coming the Antichrist

1229     Coming the Antichrist

1260     Coming the Antichrist

1300     Coming the Antichrist

1325     Coming the Antichrist

1335     Coming the Antichrist

1346     Coming the Antichrist

1365     Coming the Antichrist

1387     Coming the Antichrist

1396     Coming the Antichrist

1400     Coming the Antichrist

1533     Melchior Hoffmann

1600

1666

1689     Camisards

1694     John Mason

1697     Thomas Beverly

            Cotton Mather

1700     The Puritans

1705     Camisards

1706     Camisards

1708     Camisards

1716     Cotton Mather

1736     Cotton Mather

Christ returns in the form of Ann Lee Stanley (the Shakers)

1757     Emanuel Swedenborg

1814     Joanna Southcott is reportedly

pregnant with the Christ

1843     William Miller; specifically between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844

1844

1845     Adventists

1846     Adventists

1849     Adventists

1851     Adventists

1866     Jonathan Edwards predicts that the beast (Pope) will fall.

1874     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1878     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1881     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1910     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1914     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1918     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1925     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1965     Elijah Muhammad (Black Muslims); the fall of white America

1967     Sun Myung Moon (Unification Church)

1975     Jehovah’s Witnesses

Herbert Armstrong (Worldwide Church of God)

1980     The Baha’i’s Under the Provision of the Covenant said on April 29^th, the world will end in nuclear holocaust.

1981     Some dispensationalists

Sun Myung Moon

1984     Jehovah’s Witnesses

1988     Hal Lindsey

Edgar Whisenant (88 Reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988);

WWIII will begin on October 3, 1988.

1990     The Church Universal and Triumphant said on March 15^th, the world will end in nuclear holocaust.

1991     Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Lubavitchers); the Messiah would come in September

1992     The Dami sect of South Korea; specifically October 20 or 28

The 11:11 Doorway Movement; a doorway will be open for humanity between January 11, 1992 and December 31, 2011

1993     David Berg (Children of God)

1994     Harold Camping; specifically in September

1997     Mary Stewart Relfe

2000     Convulsionaries

            Timothy Dwight

Sun Myung Moon         

David Spangler and Ken Carey (New Agers)

            Elijah Muhammad (Black Muslims)

            Jacques-Joseph Duguet

2007     Some dispensationalists

2012     Jose Arguelles

2040     Occultist Max Toth; Christ will be reincarnated

The Alpha and Obama Presidencies: A Comparison of the Language of Hope in Politics

Politicians have longed employed the use of what have been called mythos appeals when engaging their constituents – especially at momentous times in the history of a nation or during election season.  You’ve always heard these appeals – even if you didn’t realize it.  Mythos appeals are rhetorical devices intended to tap into the cultural and religious stories and values shared by a community or a nation.  And they can be very effective.  Think of a preacher standing up on Super Bowl Sunday morning and making a bold prediction about the outcome of the game before he begins to preach.  This is an example of a secular mythos appeal intending to capture the attention and goodwill of an audience in a sacred context.  Politicians are often very skilled at using sacred language in secular contexts (even if they are not themselves particularly religious).  These types of appeals are useful for politicians because they can unite people behind an idea or feeling even if they don’t necessarily care for the politician in question.  They are also effective in creating the two things that politicians love to leverage the most – hope and fear.

It is important to not misunderstand how a politician uses mythos appeals.  Generally a politician does not use a certain type of rhetoric (especially in election season) to radically alter the thoughts and values and narratives of the existing culture.   Instead, he is trying to tap into the overall feeling that is already present within his constituency.  He is hoping to recast it or leverage it in his favor.  So, the way that a politician talks may reveal to us as much (or perhaps more – depending on your level of cynicism) about our own culture as it does about the politician him/herself.

All that being said, I find the following comparison fascinating not only for what it tells us about our first and our current president but also for what it tells us about how popular beliefs (and the language we use to express those beliefs) about God and about His plan for our nation have so radically shifted.

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage.  (George Washington, first inaugural address, April 30, 1789)

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.  Yes we can…we will begin the next great chapter in America's story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea - Yes. We. Can. (Barack Obama, New Hampshire “concession” speech, January 8, 2008)

The two speeches could not be any more different.  Both speeches share the general assumption of American exceptionalism and share a hopeful vision of the future (it would be shocking for a political speech to not contain these two elements – unless of course it is a speech about your opponents).

Washington’s speech is a call to gratitude and national humility acknowledging the “Invisible Hand” which guides the affairs of all men, but especially the affairs of the United States.  In the face of insurmountable odds, a new nation had been born.  Washington is desirous to give God’s Providence the credit for this improbability and all the more, since there were those who were fearful of Washington’s power.  Washington was using theological language that was very much at home in the 18^th and 19^th centuries (Have you ever read the fourth verse of the Star Spangled Banner?).  This language isn’t above reproach.  It is very easily used as a pretext for nationalism and in fact was the justification for the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.  It is right to critique this selfish misuse of the doctrine of God’s providence.  But, overall, I think that the sentiment of Washington’s words is admirable.  It is falsely humble and actually arrogant to acknowledge any of the successes of this nation (particularly in the realm of freedom and human rights) but then to hesitate in giving God any of the glory for those successes.  It is arrogance that resists saying “God has blessed the U.S.A.” or praying “May God bless the U.S.A.”

Hope and exceptionalism are very prominent in Obama’s speech, but the language of divine providence is completely missing.  Hope has been turned into a humanistic project.  Exceptionalism resides in our own ability to make ourselves great.  Yes WE can!!  It is interesting that Obama uses Manifest Destiny language (sea to shining sea) in a purely humanistic way.  Many have pointed out the liberationist themes in Obama’s rhetoric.  The idiocy of Glen Beck aside, it is undeniable that Obama is our first liberationist president.  But any comparisons with the typical liberation rhetoric of the past should not be overblown.  Martin Luther King, for instance, used very humanistic language but the whole project was instigated and inspired by a God who rescues the oppressed.  We may argue about his particular approach to scripture, but there is no doubt that MLK consistently drew upon biblical themes for his message of hope and liberation.  Maybe it is because Obama is a politician while MLK was an activist, but those themes are virtually nonexistent in Obama’s message of hope.  Contrary to what you may or may not believe, this isn’t intended as a political critique.  It is more of a cultural observation. 

America over 200 years later is no less interested in hope – especially  these days.  But these days hope is now a human project.  We are our own best hope.  Maybe we can.  But I wouldn’t count on it.  God’s role in hope has been pushed out of the public sphere to the extent that talk of God’s providential care is now seen as either passé or perhaps even racist.

Christians in the Cultural Matrix

So, this post isn't primarily or exclusively about the topic of eschatology.  But it is difficult to talk much about culture without also addressing issues related to eschatology, and inevitably talk of eschatology will also lead to a discussion on the nature and the future of culture.  The two topics go hand-in-hand.  Our theology of culture will reflect our eschatology.  For instance, if you are a "Left Behind" dispensationalist, your attitude towards culture will likely be one of antipathy or withdrawl - bunker eschatology.  If your eschatology is thoroughly humanistic ("We are both our own greatest nemesis and hope."), then your theology of culture will likely be either more accommodating or alarmist - depending on how well you judge our culture to be creating this great and peaceful society(ies) upon the earth.  It is also true that our culture (and our understanding of that culture) will extert a strong influence on our eschatology.  For instance, if your culture is highly nationalistic ("Our country is the greatest hope for mankind."), your eschatology will likely reflect that culture.  If your community is small and persecuted in the midst of an overwhelmingly hostile culture, your eschatology will also come to reflect that cultural reality.  With that in mind, I have been working on this for a while.  It is my reflection on the different attitudes and orientations of individuals (and often communities) towards culture.  I'm sure that it will not be entirely clear without an explanation, but where would you put yourself or your community on this matrix?  Why?  How would you defend your theology of culture?  Have you ever even thought about what you believe about culture?

I welcome your questions and critiques.  It is not perfect and remains a work in progress.

What is Biblical Eschatology?

Historically Informed

                Biblical eschatology is always grounded in the actions of God historically in the midst of and on behalf of his people as primarily revealed in his word.  Eschatology remembers and celebrates.  The vocabulary that we adopt and the hopes that we inhabit are informed by a God who cannot lie and has proven faithful to his word – in the story of Israel, in the story of the Christ, and in the ongoing story of the Church – local and universal.  Eschatology devoid of history becomes mere fantasy.  Historical eschatology, on the other hand, engages the human imagination as it is based upon the character and actions of a sovereign and loving Creator God.

Christ Centered

                Biblical eschatology must be centered on the truth that Jesus is Lord.  God has fully revealed His covenant loyalty in the resurrected, incarnate Word.  Biblical eschatology declares that He is risen, He is reigning, and He will return (soon and like a thief in the night) to complete his victory over every kind of evil and Satan himself.  Biblical eschatology cries out maranatha (1 Cor. 16:22) as both salvation and judgment are to be finally brought and completed by Christ.  Our hope is for his kingdom to be fully established.  Our hope anticipates his return.  And our hope remembers his resurrection as we now anticipate our own resurrection.  He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15:20).

Spirit Empowered

                The Spirit’s role in eschatology has long been undervalued.  The Spirit initiated these last days (Acts 2) and is the deposit (ἀρραβών) guaranteeing our inheritance (Eph. 1:13; 2 Cor. 1:22).  The Holy Spirit ministers to us not only through a ministry of regeneration and sanctification (also, it should be pointed out, an eschatological ministry) but also through a ministry of anticipation (Rom. 8:23) and ultimately, resurrection (Rom. 8:11).

Cosmological and Ecclesiastical in Scope

                Eschatology is personal in its effects and responsibilities, but eschatology is never merely individualistic.  Eschatology is corporate.  God called a people to himself in the Old Covenant and has now called to himself a people from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Rev. 7:9).  Biblical eschatology calls us into a corporate hope for the bride, the Church.  Similarly, no discussion of biblical eschatology can be complete without also acknowledging God’s plan to “make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).  Even the cosmos has a stake in eschatology and renewal (Rom. 8:21).

Politically Engaged

                Biblical eschatology declares a new kingdom and a new king.  Biblical eschatology is political but in a way that supersedes and judges the politics of this world (see Rev. 6:15-17).  Biblical eschatology declares the good news that “all authority in heaven and earth” has been given to the crucified and resurrected Christ.  Therefore, biblical eschatology is never nationalistic or racist or classist.  God may use the nations to bring about his judgment, but any human tendency to celebrate Empire should humbly remember the example of Babylon (Jer. 27:6 and then Jer. 50:13).

                Further, Christian eschatology declares a citizenship that is not of this world (Phil. 3:20), but this foreign citizenship should not lead to the easy path of either escapism or collaboration.  All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Christ.  So as Abraham before us, Christian eschatology acknowledges that we are currently living as strangers even as we anticipate the final promises of Christ.

Hope-filled

                Biblical eschatology is filled by hope through and through.  Biblical eschatology recognizes (and is not surprised by) the evil and oppressive forces still at work in this world (Matt. 13:24-30).  But there is also the declaration that the kingdom has been inaugurated and evil is currently under judgment (Rev. 20:2).  We live in hopeful expectation for our full adoption as children of God, fully embodied eternal life in His Glorious Presence, and a final and complete ending to suffering, evil, and oppression (see Rev. 6:10).  Biblical eschatology lives within the tension of the already but not yet, and so it is never naively optimistic nor hopelessly pessimistic.  Further, biblical eschatology resists the tendency towards existentialism – Christian or secular.  This will never be our best life now.  Who hopes for what he already has (Rom. 8:24-25)?

Faith-filled

                Biblical eschatology submits itself in faith to a sovereign God.  Biblical eschatology calls us to perseverance and trust (Heb. 10:35-39).  In these last days, we have been given the task of declaring the kingdom in word and deed.  We have not been given the task of calculating or planning on when the end will come (Acts 1:6-8).  We have also not been given the task of making the kingdom come by our own effort.  This does not mean that eschatology calls us to disengagement from the oppressive forces at work in this world.  Far from it!  Eschatology calls us to engage this world in faith that our deeds are a declaration of what God has, is, and certainly will do.

Love-filled

                Biblical eschatology includes the wrath of God being revealed (Rom. 2:5; Rev. 6:17).  Biblical eschatology provides both words of hope and also severe words of warning.  But biblical eschatology should never be used as a justification for hatred, violence, oppression, or callousness – as it has so often been used.  We may, with the saints in heaven, cry out for God’s vengeance (Rev. 6:10), but we may also long alongside of God for all to repent (2 Peter 3:9).  Eschatology calls us to live lives of bold and sacrificial love “making the most of every opportunity for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).  Eschatology requires of us love, compassion, and “one anotherness” as ones who have experienced and anticipate God’s salvation (Matt. 25:31-46).

What is this blog about?

Despite the academic sound of the word, there are few things as practical or relevant as eschatology.  Simply put, eschatology is the study of the last things.  But this is not merely an academic discipline.  Every person, no matter their level of education, sophistication, or cultural background engages in eschatology virtually every day.  We live our lives based upon a vision - no matter how cloudy or incomplete or speculative or presumptive - of the future.  To illustrate, if I told you that you would with certainty die before your next birthday, your life would take upon itself a new shape because what you believe about the future and your end has changed.  What you believe about your personal eschatology has been altered and so your present life and its amibitions follows suit.  Eschatology (personal, corporate or national, and even cosmic) exerts a powerful, if not always recognized, influence over our lives.  It must be made very clear that everyone has an eschatology - whether it is grounded upon the message of a divine revelation (scripture), a philosophical worldview, popular culture, scientific theories, existential pursuits, or (often) a combination of all of the above.  Further, eschatology is not just about the future.  As I have said, it is also about the present.  The way that we spend our money, the politics in which we engage, the priorities that we hand down to our children, along with countless other things in our present lives reflect our eschatology.  Eschatology is also about our past.  Our vision of the future is informed by our understanding of the past and our overall attitude towards the events which have happened to us and to "our people."

This blog is dedicated to the ongoing discussion of eschatology - biblical, cultural, historical, and interfaith. 

And by the way, we (those of us especially in the Church) have for too long allowed the discussion of eschatology to only include fantastic and imaginative (and largely unbiblical) speculations about isssues such as rapture, antichrists, and calculating "times and dates."  These topics are obviously a part of any eschatological discussion, but for too long they have obscured and dominated the discussion and have largely missed the bigger point of biblical eschatology.  If you have come here looking for times and dates or affirmation of your favorite theory on the antichrist (Who is the antichrist of choice this week?), you have come to the right place - because you really need to have your eschatology challenged.