what does Truth? (work in progress)

What does Truth?

In a conversation with a man I respect and have sat under as a learner, a subject was broached that continues to bother me. Not in a he’s wrong, I’m right sort of way, but in an unsettled dissonance. We had this conversation in graduate school when my class was studying (more like being lectured on… there was no discussion) Dispensationalism, an eschatology [study of the end times] that uses segments of time [dispensations of time] to determine the outcome of the end of the world.

He said,

“Yes, there are other interpretations [read: opinions] of the end times but the reason I ascribed to dispensationalism is because dispensational eschatology determines the ecclesiology [doctrine of the church] I practice.”

I was at first stricken with an, “Ok, I can agree with that,” sentiment… but as I chewed on the statement I became increasingly unsettled. Questions began to arise in my mind… Questions like:

Does my lack of an certain eschatological view influence how I do church? And should that matter…?

What are the different views of end-times? And what church doctrine follows these different/competing views?

Have we founded our practice of church [our ecclesiology] on pillars of opinion, rather than on Jesus?

These questions have fueled a vicious appetite for knowledge on eschatology, on doctrine, and on Jesus… After a heavy dose of Dispensationalism in grad school, I skimmed around some Post-Millennialism and Amillennialism doctrine, and after this confusing foray I decided to balance the scales and dig into the Gospels, reading and re-reading in different formats, translations, and paraphrases what Jesus had to say on the “end of the world.” In the search I hung on Jesus’ commentary on the Kingdom of God, of which Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed has been hovering over for the last few months. And Brian McLaren seems to come back to in all his articles and books [see his article, “A Reading of John 14:6” and his book, “The Secret Message of Jesus”]. It seems this topic is central to the dissonance found in the eschatological debate.

The Kingdom of God, which most Dispensationalist offer as the ‘coming Kingdom,’ seems to be more than we have been brought up to know.

We being most Westernized Protestant Christians.

In dispensationalism the ‘coming King’ is central to the story of tribulation, doomsday economics (wars, famine, one-world government, et cetera) and the final judgment. Of which the ‘coming King’ rides in on a white stallion with a sword of truth cutting down the enemies of truth… staining the ground with blood and covering his robe with the evidence of disobedience.

If this interpretation is true, Jesus is a dichotomist in his ways. How can he die on a cross for us (the sinner) taking with him the burden of sin, only to come back and murder all who have not spoken his name in a prayer. He comes first to love the prostitute, the tax collector and the sinner and second to kill them…? It just doesn’t fit.

I have struggled with this duality for some time and may not be any closer to an answer, but I can tell you that my ecclesiology will not be influenced by a “death threat theology.”

It seems that we have shrunken our view of Jesus, and bloated our view on ourselves.

This bloating has created with it a very self-centered gospel message, focusing on the eternal fate of our soul rather than the present state of our neighbor. In this vein it is easy to ignore the social, environmental and political atrocities that are happening around the world an even in our suburban backyards. This ignorance drives Duane Clinker to realize that,

“specific evil action is not required to wipe out vast sections of humanity, but simple apathy.”¹

It is easy and self-serving to go to church every Sunday, sing feel good songs and listen to a program on “life to the full!” It is hard and self-sacrificing to go to a homeless shelter, a prison, an orphanage, or a neighbor and share with them the love of God; loving hands of service, loving words of encouragement, loving loaves of bread, and loving clothes for the head.

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1. Duane Clinker, Social Holiness; unpublished manuscript, found in “Everything Must Change” by Brian McLaren, pg. 244.