Story Telling and Re-Telling

Christian belief is on a timeline, and that is our truth.  We have a duty to teach about beginning and end.  Christian end doesn't focus on destruction, but on wholeness and New Jerusalem.  For me, getting past bad eschatology (one that is not focused on Christ, but on fear and exploitation) took understanding what scripture and tradition said about the end.

In postmodernity, we have the duty of dealing with lost and misconstrued story.  The story is open ended.  The end is written, but the middle is being written every day.  So many times I realize that I need to get past my Vacation Bible School perception of bible stories to realize that instead of these being moral lessons, that they are foreshadowing vignettes of the kingdom and people that are interacting with God.  By re-telling these stories as pointing towards the incarnation (as patristic mystagetes did), this becomes our story, and we are able to understand the unfolding, dramatic nature of the kingdom.  This is also localized, because we need to understand our own communities unique contributions to the story of God.

Truth is taught by community embodiment.  This is how the Church will deal with narcissistic truth, by providing a lived out story.  Christian leaders will have to spend time in study, prayer and teaching to make sure we correctly fill in the holes.  I watched Terminator Salvation last night at the recommendation of a friend.  The reason was because of the small plot development of John Conner having tapes that his mother had made for him, and these giving him knowledge regarding Skynet.  When he encounters a problem that isn't addressed in the tapes, he realizes that his "truth" has a flaw.

The Church must regain its story, and part of that story is a "better" eschatology.  The Church must exist as a true reality mirroring the reality of the world it believes in.  Our worship must encompass our eschatalogical timeline, and instead of assuming that people understand themselves as part of Gods narrative, we (the Church) must be the narrative reality.  Our worship doesn't speak of experience but it must be "the event in which we may behold what is to come." (Robert Jenson)

So we end with a question.  What does eschatalogical worship look like?

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

Comments

[Chip Bennett]

I loved this quote:

"Christian end doesn't focus on destruction, but on wholeness and New Jerusalem."

If it's true that the story we tell is the most compelling story then rethinking our eschatology is essential.

Thanks for posting these thoughts. As an outsider I appreciate the opportunity to engage with these ideas. I've rethought much of what I believed about the end to the point that I have only a fuzzy idea of what I believe, but a pretty good idea of what I don't believe.

[JosephWinston]

Arthur C. McGill, in a series of Lectures given at St. Olaf College
Summer Theological Conference in 1974, said "The kingdom of heaven
will be rich in self-expenditure and therefore also rich in loss of
life, in the giving up of life for others, in the giving away of life.
Always, of course, life will be restored -- for death is simply, in
the perspective, the simple need in which we wait upon God to give us
ourselves. Death, I believe, will not be removed in heaven. What will
be removed is the imposition of death, the use of death for terror and
hatred, the fear of death, the perverse craving of the people who fell
this fear to posses life; this is what will be removed in heaven."

This is the root of eschatalogical worship.

We give without regards to the cost. We hear of this life in the Christ Hymn in Philippians. We get a glimpse in the Samaritan's paying for all future costs. This giving is not
from a surplus of either finances or time but instead we give because Jesus first gave His all for us.