World Without End

The Apocalyptic Pastor

Eugene Peterson is about as mystical as Presbyterians get. He is a great example of a 21st century contemplative. Over the last few weeks I have been studying the use of Revelation in preaching and the pastoral vocation. Peterson devotes an entire chapter in The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction to the topic.

Peterson quickly identifies the role of apocalyptic as an adjective of the pastor. Insisting on the realities of the kingdom against the realities of the world is part of the task of the pastor. They are there to remind us of our exact station. Too often, the church acts like Israel, waiting for the promised Messiah. The Christian life lives in the expectation birthed by the resurrection.

Below are the three broad strokes that Peterson takes describing the apocalyptic pastor.

1. Apocalyptic Prayer-
Prayer is the pivotal action in the Christian community. In his task of being a pastor, John situates himself in prayer through the whole book. At the beginning and end of Revelation, John is in a posture of worship. Living on the boundary between Rome and the Kingdom, prayer connects the Christian life. Prayer is a formal, awesome activity. Pastors pray to bring people into the presence of God. Prayer is the true reality of a Christian

2. Apocalyptic Poet-
John is playful in Revelation, because he shapes a new reality for the reader. This is translation, not memorization. The creative task of the pastor is to shape the praying imagination of his people, therefore poetry must be used. Poetry is original speech, bringing things into being. Words make truth.

3. Apocalyptic Patience-
We want things quickly. The apocalyptic community is patient because it dwells in holy wedlock with Christ. It develops us into the true people of God. Apocalypse is urgent without being hurried. Patience is needed to enter into the "subtle and glorious poem vision". It takes patience to unlearn our hurried life and abide in the "deep time" of God. 

If you are familiar with Peterson, you understand that he constantly promotes a John 15 approach to Christianity, bed rocked in a constant and on-going relationship. This quick chapter is just another step in his dance.

Related Posts:
Story Telling and Re-Telling
Forming an Eschatological Community: Formation through Text

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

Resources: Apocalyptic Vision

Sorry for the long break.  I have started a new semester that is taking more work that I imagined.  I am working on a new posting schedule and some topics.  Look for a regular posting to start back next week.  Sorry for the absence.

I was wanting to feature this a few weeks back during the "Resource Week", but the links weren't updated yet.  Baylor University and The Center for the Study of Christian Ethics publishes a great journal "Christian Reflection".  It is a quarterly journal that is thematic.  The last issue was on "Apocalyptic Vision" and is filled with a wealth of articles, thoughts, hymnody and art review.  The journal has an interesting format, in that they also publish an entire worship service directed towards the theme.  Online, there are free study guides based on the issue as well.  Just this enough would be good enough to point you towards.

BUT, they also publish almost the entirety of the journal for free online (except for a few book reviews).  The subscriptions are also free, if you want to start receiving paper copies of your own.

So have a field day if you so choose.......

Eschatology and Hope: Time and Eternity

This last semester I had the experience to sit under Dr. Larry Wood and hear lectures on how Christian time and physics relates.  I will admit that those lectures and readings took alot of concentration and I am just now able to go back to it and spend more time in thought with the topic.

But Anthony Kelly has a great section on the topic of time and eternity that shares a vocabulary with those lectures.  Below are 3 points from chapter 2 of Eschatology and Hope.

1.  We live in time.
Creation in its every instant is related to the creator.  Time doesn't exist within God.  Thats an easy lesson to the small child, but when we get older we start to question in.  Time revolves around the divine.  God is operative within time, but not bound to it.  Time needs God.

2. According to Aquinas, creation could have been of eternal duration.
This is a philosophical allowance, but on the ground of revelation we understand that creation took place in time, meaning that it could have been eternal.  Time is an unfolding idea, and salvation has introduced a different dimension (Rahner and Pannenberg have contributed to this idea).  We are given time to contemplate (through justification and sanctification, ie our salvation experience) the divine.  God is His Triune love has time for creation and makes time for history and its full unfolding.

3.  God meets us in time.
Jesus was sent "in time" to extend a future sense back to humanity.  We were able to see the way out.  This is the proleptic imagination.  Christ and the Holy Spirit came to inhabit human time and to lead us towards the final realization of time.

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These seem like complicated ideas (and they are), but as Christians functioning in a culture that we are at odds with, gaining an understanding of humanity always being planned for combats the nihilstic ideas of the "great accident"....that our evolution is from chance and we don't matter in the cosmic scheme of the universe.

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

Eschatology and Hope: The Four Features of Hope

I wrote last week about Anthony Kelly's Eschatology and Hope, and it has been a good read so far.  What I want to share today is just a small excerpt regarding hope.  Hope is itself a foundation of Christianity, having a forward grasping hope that brings future into present is a practice of faith.  But it has fallen away, and as Kelly as put it “When the evils are so obvious, the language of hope seems to good to be true”.  It is humans attempting to find a lack of promise.

Kelly offers Four Features of Hope, and I think they are important.

1.  Hope differs from optimism
Optimism is the idea of being “happy enough” with the system.  It isn’t bad, but an emotion              expressing the facility to get by in a positive manner.  It wants prediction.

On the other side, hope is fine with spontaneity, and logic no longer needs to function.  We don’t expect anymore.  WIth hope, we realize that humanity is never in total control, and a Christian Eschatology presupposes a creating, saving Triune God who is in control.

2.  Hope operates in a world of meaning and values.
Optimism doesn’t have a moral obligation.  Hope differs by having a “conscience and an intelligence that mere optimism lacks.”

Hope sees future life as promise and not just the same mundane “getting by”.  Hope knows about and expects ultimate good, divine good.  It changes our value system to one that understands completeness.

3.  Hope focuses on what is truly important in terms of personal fulfillment.
Hope knows that we need more than just daily bread, but it looks to a life that humanity will be able to function at its highest degree.  It is bigger than imagination, and recognizes that we have eternal value.

4.  Hope is not mere wishing for something more.
Hope means knowledge.  It is a way of life.  It inspires action.  In “engenders a deep moral sense and points in the direction of a more passionate self-involvement in the making of the world.
Hope involves others,  If you have hope, you give it to others.

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I often wonder how I have forgotten hope, and how I haven't expressed it in the various ministry arenas I have served in or simply in endeavors in life.  Just yesterday I spoke with someone about how things just seem impossible these days, and how the apocalypticism that is purported through the media (and the History Channel's Apocalypse Week) just makes them want to give up.  After that conversation these characteristics are important.

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

Required Reading: Anthony Kelly's Eschatology and Hope

I am in Denver this next week running production at a denominational youth conference (cruise over to my main blog for that info).  I am going to post regularly here though, with a new feature called Required Reading.  With these series I will blog through some books that I really like regarding eschatology.  Hopefully, this way those interested can find out about new resources.

Eschatology and Hope is written by Anthony Kelly. It is from a Roman Catholic perspective and deals with many issues regarding why hope is an important perspective, and why Christian hope has a unique vision.

The book is a part of the Theology in Global Perspectives series, focusing on the unique issues of a global faith in the 21st century.  It deals with Protestant scholasticism as well as other religions perspective on current culture.