I was a pastor of a local church when two significant moments in church history took place that exposed Christian’s mentality about the future. The first was the release of Edgar Whisenant’s book, “88 Reasons Christ will Come in 1988”. The second was Y2K (The proposed computer blackout transitioning from 1999 to 2000 on the calendar.). Both of these events had similar fruit as they exploited people’s eschatology and their fears of the future. The stories I could tell of people’s panic would both amuse and sadden the reader. I watched as people made decisions that were not only foolish, but actually devastating to their families, bank accounts, and personal credibility. Normally smart people were putting their lives on “hold” as they were paralyzed by the thought of the impending disasters just around the corner. Of course, the hype of these two events made the authors of books concerning these apocalyptic moments incredible amounts of money and it embarrassed hundreds of believers. More importantly, it revealed that one of the Achilles heals of the evangelical church is the fact that our view of the future is all too tentative. We are easily convinced that our time on earth is short and any long term planning is futile with regards to reformation and cultural change.
I would be foolish to open the can of eschatology in a blog post. Numbers of Christians consider eschatological framework to be an “essential” of the faith. If you don’t map out the future like the popular authors of our day see it, you are a suspected heretic. It is this mentality that has frustrated an honest discussion about how the church needs to view the future which has undermined our ability to implement strategies that actually have a shot at rebuilding a Christian civilization. You may have heard the old phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Rebuilding a Christian civilization and establishing a dominant Judeo-Christian ethic will take longer than a day as well. However, your view of the future will affect your long term strategy. For example:
How would you live your life if your doctor told you that you had 6 months to live? What if he told you that you had 30 years to live? Would your decisions today as to how the next days were actually lived out be different based on those two reports? I suspect so. Why? Your view of the future affects your today.
What about having a great sum of money and upon having thoughts of investing in the stock market you did some research. If your research said the markets looked good for the next 10 years or perhaps it instead said that the markets would be volatile for the next 5 years, would that affect your investment strategy? If by some communication you found out that the market was going to crash in 30 days would you remove your money from the market? Of course you would! Why? Your view of the future affects your today.
I have counseled young people in various ways throughout my 35 years of pastoral service and there have been those zealous pioneers who were so convinced of Jesus’ imminent return that they wanted to skip college and forgo any type of training to rush on the field of evangelistic service. We can admire their zeal and truthfully have no place in challenging their sense of calling, but equally as true is the fact that their view of the future is affecting their decisions today. A potentially gifted Christian doctor or lawyer, with a convoluted view of the future, can circumvent a far more impactful future of ministry by making these kinds of decisions.
Islam has both an eschatology and a strategy for indoctrinating and subduing the whole earth to its viewpoint. It’s called a caliphate. They believe the destiny of the world is a gigantic Islamic state and their strategy has been effective despite its deception. They relentlessly move into countries and reproduce at about twice the rate of the national citizenry and in a generation they become a dominant minority if not the majority in that nation. They disciple their children in Sharia, as well as skills in other arenas, and then begin to infiltrate and influence the culture the direction they choose to take it. Now most of us are aware that their ideology produces no liberty and in fact a case can be made that quite the opposite takes place and a tyranny results. It is an incredible deception, but nevertheless an effective one. Why? Because they have a picture of the future and a long term strategy to achieve it. We Christians, on the other hand, have no such strategy despite having the best worldview which produces freedom and liberty. The state of our current American government, educational system, marketplace and culture illustrates the point all too dramatically that Christianity is becoming irrelevant. We are getting our tails kicked despite having nearly 15 million self-professed born-again adherents. Something is significantly wrong. I believe a part of it is due to our view of the future and the inability to develop a long term mentality.
I want to be careful to state that this inability to think long term is not linked to our eschatology alone. The postmillennialist and amillennialist may not have as many theological walls to scale with regards to our time to effect righteous change as does the premillennialist, but no matter how a Christian outlines their “last days” schedule it is indisputable that the Scripture teaches us to think generationally. A case can be made that the early church certainly had a perspective which presumed the soon coming of Jesus Christ. Paul certainly addressed both the hope and the cautions with regards to this focus in his letter to the Thessalonians. And yet, the early church was relentless in its mission and ministry so that within the span of three centuries this new movement was not simply tolerated, but actually embraced and assimilated into the very Roman Empire. (Whether that was ultimately good or bad is a topic for another blog. The fact remains, it was so.) I personally have friends who are biblically committed dispensationalists and teach the imminent rapture theory and yet understand the equally important command of Jesus to “occupy until I come” (Luke 19:13).
Reforming a culture and rebuilding a civilization takes time and a strategy that is embraced by the majority of fervent believers. We are living in an era where the Church wants to rely solely on the dramatic event, rather that embrace a sense of continuity and faithful work in a culture. Christian conservatives tend to be less committed to politics than liberals and secularists because they do not believe (rightly) that politics is the ultimate answer unlike their political adversaries. Liberals work tirelessly to change the culture because they believe the government is Almighty and societal transformation is our ultimate salvation. Therefore, liberals staff every bureaucracy and political position which constantly makes it challenging to implement biblical worldview. Christian conservatives rally to a cause when the cultural climate becomes adversarial and generally work to elect a President thinking that this once every four year activity can turn the rudder of the ship. We want the dramatic election to “trump” (no pun intended) the faithful execution of a long term biblical strategy.
In recent years a great frustration has arisen over incrementalism and it’s ineffectiveness. I too, have been exceedingly frustrated by the regulatory strategy that is advocated by many Christians in the political arena. A long term commitment and strategy is not necessarily an acquiescence to the futility of modern day incrementalism. Yes, it is going to take some steps to rebuild a civilization, however, those steps are clearly rooted in the ten rebuilding blocks I am suggesting. Gary North stated it well when he said,
“Two steps forward and one step back is a perfectly reasonable strategy, if you think you have time on your side.”
North is not advocating a retreat mentality on occasion. He is advocating a commitment to a long term strategy that refuses to be discouraged should set-backs occur. If we are serious about becoming “salt and light” as believers, then we need to commit to the time it will take to reform what we are illuminating and preserving.
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