Dear Friends in Christ,
In the 1830s, there emerged a new and highly influential teaching about our Lord’s Second Coming. It was promulgated by an Anglo-Irish ex-Anglican clergyman named J.N. Darby. He preached for several decades in Ireland, Britain and America. His peculiar doctrine was the “rapture.” This teaching was based on the Epistle for the coming Sunday, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, which describes the coming of our Lord and uses the phrase, “meet the Lord in the air.” This text was interpreted by Darby to mean that at our Lord’s coming, believers would be snatched out of their current lives and whisked away to heaven, while the earth descends into chaos, violence and destruction. Various “rapture” schemas are presented by countless groups from the Millenarian movements of the 19th century, to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists groups, American revivalists and fundamentalists, and various Pentecostal groups. All stem from this innovative eschatology of J.N. Darby. In recent years the most prominent examples of this teaching are the “Left Behind” series, Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth,” and John Hagee. This view has become so dominant that persons who have no connection with these traditions picture the Coming of our Lord in this way.
Among the innovations in this teaching were that there is a complete discontinuity between the world in which we live (which God created and into which our Lord came in his incarnation), and the world to come. This teaching claims that this world is bound for destruction and our aim is to escape it and await rescue (by the rapture) from it. Traditional Christianity would view this as a kind of latter-day Gnosticism, an anti-creation and anti-incarnation teaching.
The troubling thing about this teaching (besides being wrong) is that it encourages a kind of escapism from this world. This view discourages people from bettering human structures and engaging in building a world on kingdom principles – in anticipation of the breaking in of Christ’s kingdom. Rather, this eschatological perspective expects conditions in the world and society to worsen and welcomes evidence to prove this view. War in the Middle East is particularly welcomed as further evidence that Christ is near. Among some who hold this view, active social engagement for the betterment of the world and even peace movements are considered counter to God’s will.
Anglicanism and other forms of catholic Christianity have always fostered social engagement and promoted of social reform and social welfare as part of the Christian mandate to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). Not only individuals are to be brought into relationship to Christ, but “nations” including social structures are to be brought into line with kingdom principles.
As we engage these apocalyptic texts in the coming weeks, let us see how they engage us in our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment