What I have included in this post is an article written by N.T. Wright on the fallacies surrounding the idea of the rapture. N.T. Wright is rated as one of the world's top evangelical New Testament scholars. He is very well known for his work on the doctrine of the resurrection and the so-called "new reading of Paul."
Farewell to the Rapture
(N.T. Wright, Bible Review, August 2001. Reproduced by permission of the author)
Little did Paul know how his colorful metaphors for Jesus’ second coming would be misunderstood two millennia later.
The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre[1]. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.
This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?
It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event[2]. The gospel passages about “the Son of Man coming on the clouds” (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus’ vindication, his “coming” to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11-27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.
The Ascension of Jesus and the Second Coming are nevertheless vital Christian doctrines[3], and I don’t deny that I believe some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation. This is taught throughout the New Testament outside the Gospels. But this event won’t in any way resemble the Left Behind account. Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.
The New Testament, building on ancient biblical prophecy, envisages that the creator God will remake heaven and earth entirely, affirming the goodness of the old Creation but overcoming its mortality and corruptibility (e.g., Romans 8:18-27; Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17, 66:22). When that happens, Jesus will appear within the resulting new world (e.g., Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2).
Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later.
First, Paul echoes the story of Moses coming down the mountain with the Torah. The trumpet sounds, a loud voice is heard, and after a long wait Moses comes to see what’s been going on in his absence.
Second, he echoes Daniel 7, in which “the people of the saints of the Most High” (that is, the “one like a son of man”) are vindicated over their pagan enemy by being raised up to sit with God in glory. This metaphor, applied to Jesus in the Gospels, is now applied to Christians who are suffering persecution.
Third, Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province. The citizens go out to meet him in open country and then escort him into the city. Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air” should be read with the assumption that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to the newly remade world.
Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere.
Paul’s misunderstood metaphors present a challenge for us: How can we reuse biblical imagery, including Paul’s, so as to clarify the truth, not distort it? And how can we do so, as he did, in such a way as to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world? We might begin by asking, What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized, by the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuinely biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God’s world on the grounds that it’s all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation?
Friday, February 12, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
On Doubt
One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich. He says, "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith." I believe this is very true. While there are many kinds of doubt, two of the most general ones regarding the character, nature, or plans of God and the other being the existence or presence of God, both are something we all must reckon with. Doubt, for us Christians, is a very real problem, but it is one that is seldom talked about. Perhaps we seldom speak about it in honest, personal terms because we are afraid of what others will think of us. Our other Christian friends might begin to believe we are closet atheists or on a slippery slope to liberalism. I think in some situations, we are even afraid that voicing our doubts and fears will make us look less spiritually mature. What I would like to do in this post is just share some very general thoughts on the phenomenon of doubt.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see," Hebrews 11:1 says. Faith is something that we choose to do in spite of having no concrete knowledge of what we hope for. To be quite honest, there are many days and times in my life when I have a hard time believing in the existence of God. When I look at the world around me and see the extent of suffering and pain that goes on, I just have a hard time reconciling that with the existence of a good God. I've heard and studied all of the reasons why the state of the world is as it is, but still the seeds of doubt remain. There are also many things in the Bible that just present huge obstacles for me in terms of belief. However, I shall not delve into them at present.
I have read and watched thousands of apologetic videos and books that seem to promise to give you an airtight defense for your Christian belief. They sound very good at the time, however, it does not take me long until I hear someone poke a hole in their argument. I then wonder if I have put my faith in the right thing. Is this all just an illusion? Is God and Christianity just a projection of my mind meant to fulfill a need I have? These are the questions that rack my brain.
So why am I a student of theology still? Why do I still plan on entering the ministry if I struggle so hard with belief? Because as I study, I see that all worldviews have insurmountable problems at some point. I also see that Christianity makes a lot more sense than most worldviews. My faith is based in the person of Jesus Christ and His work, not in my intellectual capabilities to answer all questions. I realize that to be a finite human being means having imperfect knowledge. Therefore, faith is letting the arguments take us as far as they can, but then making a decision to believe despite our unanswered questions. That is why it is "being certain of what we do not see."
Along our Christian journey, faith is something we must work on. As one of my professors says, "Doubts are like headaches; everybody gets them, and they don't last forever." Christian Mystical Theology calls this process The Dark Night of the Soul. It is a time in the Christian journey where everything we "know" is disassembled. We go through times of inner struggle as we seek to understand God. Prayer, Bible study, and other religious practices may seem hard or unhelpful, but we continue to do them anyway. It can't be said how long this "dark night" will last. Perhaps weeks, months, years? Mother Theresa went through this process for most of her adult life. She struggled with feeling the presence of God. Some, like Christopher Hitchens, called her a closet atheist. However, despite her doubts, she kept the faith. The good news for us in the pit of doubt is that one day, we shall emerge from the dark night into a beautiful and glorious morning. Our faith in Christ will be stronger and more personal. Our job, then, is simply to continue walking where we cannot see.
Let us remember that God is big enough to handle our doubts. By working through them, entrusting them to God, and soldiering on, we can live the Christian life. So by now, those of you who are reading this are probably either freaking out and thinking I have lost my faith or am in the process of doing so, or are feeling blessed because you have gone through the same thing at some time or another. I encourage the church to begin to be more open about our existential and intellectual struggles. Share them, contemplate them. Weather the Dark Night of the Soul together.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see," Hebrews 11:1 says. Faith is something that we choose to do in spite of having no concrete knowledge of what we hope for. To be quite honest, there are many days and times in my life when I have a hard time believing in the existence of God. When I look at the world around me and see the extent of suffering and pain that goes on, I just have a hard time reconciling that with the existence of a good God. I've heard and studied all of the reasons why the state of the world is as it is, but still the seeds of doubt remain. There are also many things in the Bible that just present huge obstacles for me in terms of belief. However, I shall not delve into them at present.
I have read and watched thousands of apologetic videos and books that seem to promise to give you an airtight defense for your Christian belief. They sound very good at the time, however, it does not take me long until I hear someone poke a hole in their argument. I then wonder if I have put my faith in the right thing. Is this all just an illusion? Is God and Christianity just a projection of my mind meant to fulfill a need I have? These are the questions that rack my brain.
So why am I a student of theology still? Why do I still plan on entering the ministry if I struggle so hard with belief? Because as I study, I see that all worldviews have insurmountable problems at some point. I also see that Christianity makes a lot more sense than most worldviews. My faith is based in the person of Jesus Christ and His work, not in my intellectual capabilities to answer all questions. I realize that to be a finite human being means having imperfect knowledge. Therefore, faith is letting the arguments take us as far as they can, but then making a decision to believe despite our unanswered questions. That is why it is "being certain of what we do not see."
Along our Christian journey, faith is something we must work on. As one of my professors says, "Doubts are like headaches; everybody gets them, and they don't last forever." Christian Mystical Theology calls this process The Dark Night of the Soul. It is a time in the Christian journey where everything we "know" is disassembled. We go through times of inner struggle as we seek to understand God. Prayer, Bible study, and other religious practices may seem hard or unhelpful, but we continue to do them anyway. It can't be said how long this "dark night" will last. Perhaps weeks, months, years? Mother Theresa went through this process for most of her adult life. She struggled with feeling the presence of God. Some, like Christopher Hitchens, called her a closet atheist. However, despite her doubts, she kept the faith. The good news for us in the pit of doubt is that one day, we shall emerge from the dark night into a beautiful and glorious morning. Our faith in Christ will be stronger and more personal. Our job, then, is simply to continue walking where we cannot see.
Let us remember that God is big enough to handle our doubts. By working through them, entrusting them to God, and soldiering on, we can live the Christian life. So by now, those of you who are reading this are probably either freaking out and thinking I have lost my faith or am in the process of doing so, or are feeling blessed because you have gone through the same thing at some time or another. I encourage the church to begin to be more open about our existential and intellectual struggles. Share them, contemplate them. Weather the Dark Night of the Soul together.
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