An old new picture of Heaven July 21, 2008
Posted by Zack in Uncategorized , trackbackPopular theologian Scott McKnight has been writing a long series on what the Bible says about Heaven. Today he’s up to Part 12. McKnight says:
We are looking into such issues as whether or not “heaven” is the eternal home, or whether it is better to speak of “new heavens and new earth” as the eternal place, and then we are looking into whether heaven/new heavens is “up there” or the earth itself under new conditions as it is recreated. (From part 5.)
This changing picture of Heaven is the furnace that fuels the Revolution in Jesusland. (I guess that’s a weird metaphor.) As far as I can tell, the tension between the “up there” and “down here” versions of Heaven have been part of the church almost since the beginning. For much of the 20th century, it felt like the “up there” version had almost won the day forever. The drive of the born-again/evangelical church became to save as many souls as possible (i.e. get people to say they accept Jesus) to fill up Heaven. If it’s all about going to Heaven, then conditions on earth don’t matter much.
But then, in the 70’s, some theologians got an undertow going that eventually starting pulling seminarians and others back to the “down here” version. Those obscure theologians gave rise to best-selling popularizers, young mega-church pastors and thousands of young church planters who are sowing this new/very old version of the Gospel. That early undertow has progressed into a full tidal shift that’s pulling everyone over. In some churches this has led to controversy. But — and this is just anecdotal — I think that in most evangelical churches they are simply mixing up the two versions and the people in the pews don’t even notice that anything’s happening as their church moves along the continuum.
However, that may be my outsider’s bias speaking. There might be controversy everywhere that I’m just not seeing. For example, there was a church I attended in North Carolina. I was amazed at how radical the sermons were for being a middle class, white, Southern evangelical church. But the other day I heard the story of an Emergent pastor who kind of got pushed out for pushing things too far.
This Heaven question: this is what the Revolution in Jesusland is really all about. The revolutionaries believe in in a real Heaven. Most seem to believe in a future change that will be just as dramatic as Tim Lahay’s apocalypse as portrayed in his Left Behind series. But the Revolutionaries believe it will be peaceful. They believe the whole human race will be physically resurrected into amazing super bodies that never get sick and can probably fly. An actual New Jerusalem will descend from the sky — a giant urban cube (thus the wings!) about as big as Rhode Island. We’ll have the time to talk to everyone and do everything we’ve ever dreamed of, and to do it all twice. Every addict, every mentally ill person, every leader, every housewife, every nation and ethnicity from every era will all have the time to process all the crazy stuff we did here on old Earth, and then who knows what we’ll do after that. What a great vision though. But we’re building it. We have to build it. That’s what’s so cool about this vision of Revolution that American Christianity is taking on.
Anyways, check out Scott McKnight’s series on Heaven. And don’t forget to stop back and check the comments here where knowledgeable Christians will rightly take me to task for all the over simplifications in this post.
Tags: Heaven, scott mcknight
Comments»
I’ve learned enough theology in my time to know that I really don’t know anything. I have no clue exactly what happens in heaven or after the end of the Earth, but I don’t buy into the “Left Behind” literalist translation of The Revelation. I think the evangelical church in general is too focused on Heaven and Revelation and not focused enough on present day situation on earth. We need to have faith in Jesus and carry out his commands on loving our neighbors by giving the hungry something to eat, giving the thirsty something to drink, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked and looking after the sick. If we do all these things, then we can bring a little bit of Heaven to earth, and I trust God will take care of the rest after we pass away.
“But we’re building it. We have to build it”
Be careful, Zack. We’re to be fully devoted to God in a way that allows us to abide in His building of the Kingdom. That’s his job. Our job is to be obedient to him; lest we think we need to build something that “gets us to heaven”.
God knows we don’t need a new Tower. He wants us to be his hands and feet, yes. But always be careful to listen to the head.
N.T. Wright talks about building *for* the Kingdom. Which suggests that we are not the architects of the kingdom–God is–but we are doing what we can with our limited knowledge and skills to build toward what the kingdom will be (though we don’t ultimately know what it will be). Here’s a quote from an interview:
“We don’t know how the kingdom works. Take Jesus’ parables about seeds growing secretly and small seeds becoming mustard bushes and so on. The kingdom is always a surprise to us, which keeps us humble. The danger with “building the kingdom” language can make us very proud. “Building for the kingdom” keeps you humble. It says, ‘These are your tasks; you’ve got to get on with them. How God puts them into the eventual construct is completely his business.’”
This is from an interview with Trevin Wax and can be found on trevinwax.com
Zack, I’ve been reading your blog now for several months and really enjoying it.
M. and Frances — this I still don’t understand. Every time I say “Christians believe their building the Kingdom of Heaven” someone responds as you did: “It’s all God”.
But God is pretty much only working through human beings these days, right? Not a lot of the parting the Red Sea style miracles any more. And humans are working with free will, right? Humans can be guided by the Holy Spirit? By Jesus? By God? But even then it’s our choice to follow. But most people don’t hear actual voices telling them what to do. And so the process of following relies on their ability to interpret the Bible.
I understand the theological and personal/emotional value of saying that “It’s all God.” But I think Christians are sometimes trying to avoid responsibility for their actions (and for the need to think through the implications) by pretending that it’s possible to “obey God” without using you’re own head.
The Bible doesn’t seem to limit our role to hands and feet. When I read 1 Corinthians 12, that seems to emphasize the degree to which we have to work together in a community (and as the WHOLE body of Christ). Is that a misinterpretation? While he doesn’t use the head in his analogy, he uses ears, eyes, and all different parts. Working together as a diverse community with all different talents and positions to allow God to build the Kingdom through us seems like it would require us, as the body of Christ, to also act as though we have a head.
This has been a long running question for me and I still haven’t found an answer: Where does it say in the Bible that we are supposed to refrain from trying to figure out the big-picture implications of our actions or refrain from trying to accomplish big picture goals?
It’s pretty confusing. Help me out.
Also, the distinction is only meaningful to Christians. From an atheist point of view (maybe most of the audience here, and my intended audience) God of course doesn’t have anything to do with it — and so occasionally on here, I’m trying to put things in a light atheists can appreciate. One of the goals here is to get people to be able to understand what’s really going on in the church and that means letting them see it in their own terms.
“They believe the whole human race will be physically resurrected into amazing super bodies that never get sick and can probably fly.”
What? So, like is Stan Lee actually God?
No, but surly the Holy Spirit is working through Stan Lee!
Like James, I’ve been reading the Bible and studying Theology for long enough to know that I don’t know jack! But, as far as Revelation and The End Times go - there are 65 other books in the Bible that I don’t spend enough time reading. I figure if I try to concern myself with the stuff Jesus says I’m supposed to be doing right NOW (feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, etc) then The End Times will take care of itself.
“Where does it say in the Bible that we are supposed to refrain from trying to figure out the big-picture implications of our actions or refrain from trying to accomplish big picture goals?”
I’ll take a flying leap at this…. It doesn’t say that, nor have Christians historically acted that way. A favorite historical predecessor for evangelicals, William Wilberforce, had a very big-picture goal (abolition of the slave trade) and organized for it. Martin Luther King, a more recent Christian leader, had a very big-picture goal and organized for it. Rick Warren (I’m just trying to touch some diverse bases here) wants to make Rwanda a “purpose driven nation” — again, big picture, big implications, big organization.
I might make a guess that some of the Christians you are listening to most are emphasizing smaller-scale and more local efforts not so much because of a direct reading of the Bible only, but in our current climate in part as a way of distinguishing themselves from the mistakes of two much better known and culturally louder groups who also have majored in Christian involvement in society, as the “revolutionaries” are doing:
1. the “moral majority” type whose highly organized big picture/big goal of legislating personal and especially sexual morality has had a number of negative effects on younger Christians, such that the whole concept of organizing for a goal has been tainted by it
and
2. liberal mainline churches who have been pushing for social involvement since at least the 60s, but often do not clearly make the theological distinction people keep jumping on you about (only God can make a Kingdom) and thus end up shrinking the Kingdom down INTO ONLY big-picture political efforts which humans build and accomplish themselves.
For the kind of segment of the current Western evangelical Christian community you’re most in touch with, the need to avoid being perceived as in cahoots with one of these two groups and to minimize the risk of recapitulating their mistakes and the damage those mistakes have done to the cause of Christ is quite strong, I think.
As I’ve done here before, I would really recommend NT Wright as someone who explains clearly why retaining an eschatological perspective and holding onto the truth that it’s God’s victory we’re talking about is crucial — but who also sees this as completely compatible with making speeches in the House of Lords about 3rd world debt, with fighting for trade justice, and so on.
Hey, Zack–Your points are well-taken, and you’re right that the distinction between building the kingdom and building for the kingdom is probably a distinction only interesting, and perhaps useful, to Christians.
To me, the usefulness of the distinction is just as Wright suggests–to keep us humble. I guess this struck a chord with me because there are always believers who seem to think they know exactly what God wants and how He wants it done. So often human agendas are lifted up as God’s agenda. I think this holds true for Christians who would like you to believe that God’s agenda is to get as many Republicans elected as possible as for those Christians who define Christianity as solely being about social justice work (and therefore God’s agenda is that we all vote for Dennis Kucinich).
Of course we use our heads. We do our best to discern God’s will and do what we hope is God’s work. We ask ourselves what we think the kingdom will look like–which is a big picture question–and then work toward that.
But since we don’t fully know the mind of God, since not all has been revealed to us, we better be careful when we say, “We’re building God’s kingdom,” which suggests we know just the way He wants it built. To me, when we say, “We’re building for the kingdom,” we’re saying we’re doing the best we can with the information we’ve been given, but since we’re imperfect creatures, our efforts will necessarily be imperfect.
Frances - But can you explain how adding in the word “for” actually helps Christians be more humble?
I hear a lot of the New Christians these days seeming to believe that they’ve discerned a formula from the Bible: build “for” the Kingdom, a la Wright’s example cited above, and then you *know* you’re doing the best you can. i.e. Just do local stuff, person to person stuff, and you can’t go wrong — because God will take care of the rest. I’ve been searching for that theology in the Bible, but I can only find it in Adam Smith’s philosophy of the Invisible Hand. This theology leads to disengagement from action at a civic, national and global level. But that is a choice. And I don’t see where God is telling us to make that choice.
I guess what I’m saying is humility is always good. But I am hearing the new Christian humility of the small & local often being converted into the new certainty: the new thing that sets us apart, our new fundamentalism. i.e. I think it takes more than inserting the word “for”…and maybe doing that is just giving us a sense of false certainty.
“They believe the whole human race will be physically resurrected into amazing super bodies that never get sick and can probably fly.”
See also, Singularity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity)
cmars: I know! That’s kind of an exciting prospect. Atheists and Christians could BOTH be right.
Hey, Zack–
There’s nothing what I’m saying that suggests our vision for/of the kingdom equals only working locally or on a small scale. I’m familiar with the new monastics (in fact am going to see the Jesus for President tour tonight) and appreciate what they’re about, but I wouldn’t say that the only worthwhile action is local action. You’re putting me in a camp I haven’t claimed allegiance to.
In any event, I’m not sure how else to explain the difference of adding “for” in “building for the kingdom” other than the way I have. Probably best just to refer you to N.T. Wright, as Beth has, and let you argue it out with him.
Zack, please hold up a second. I apologize for taking counter-point without building a rapport. Its a mistake I frequent in the blogosphere.
I realize you don’t know me or where I’m coming from. Because you seem to assume that I’m saying something I’m not. Before you do anything else, please go back to my original comment and re-read it.
Go ahead…
“It’s all God” is not in my comment anywhere. And since we’ve not taken the time to know one another very well so far, my intent gets lost and I probably just sound like opposition. I’m on a very similar page and I’ve probably been in this conversation just as long as you. Who knows, maybe longer?
I’m trying to protect you from the trap of over-contextualization. I’ve tried to share a lot of these convictions with a lot of people. Some of which were people I was mentoring. When I shared this stuff and Christ wasn’t their Head and their King, it all falls apart and they start trying to do everything in their own ability. In the first chapter of Truth Is Stranger…, Middleton and Walsh discuss how building of Heaven on earth (Tower of Babel) is the main trap of Modernity.
Now, I’m just as Emergent and Anti-Imperial as anybody. But “unless my righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, I will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” So, wouldn’t you suggest that this means that our love for God and submission to him seems to dwarf that of the “Jesuslanders”?
After reviewing my comment, i would add that I’m convinced that God is looking for “Huios” (inheritor Sons) by whom he’s using to co-labor in the bringing of his Kingdom into this world. And yes he’s calling us to get off our lazy and ignorant bums to participate. And does it not by human ambition and power, but by His Spirit.
Its a two-way street. The more we are given-in to Him, the more useful and productive we become to the world around us.
Hey Zack, re: earlier conversations, Beth’s points about really wanting to avoid the mistakes of both the conservative and liberal sides are key. Not the key, but important none the less. It’s like we’ve seen so much corruption of good news to where it’s becoming “good news for me and mine,” which is antithetical to the gospel, so t any attempt to organize on a large scale is going to be met with skepticism.
My entire life I’ve seen people who say they care about political issues, but don’t care enough to actually know the people these issues affect. For example, I know lots of people who are against abortion at a legal level, but don’t know anyone who’s had one, and aren’t making any steps to get into situations in which they can get to know people who have. So, it feels inauthentic. Or give money to City Union Mission, but live as far from poverty as they can afford. Or, even more frequently, people who have legal stances against gay marriage, but don’t know anyone who is attracted to people of the same sex or gender.
So there’s this huge deal in which people want to change the world politically, and don’t really care about the people. It’s easier to get involved with political action, to let it be about “those people over there” rather than the people right here in front of me. So, there’s where some of the skepticism is coming form right there.
Change the hearts of people, and the world will change. Make a law, and . . . meh, nothing good seems to happen. That is another one thing I, personally, am reacting to, and one reason I’m not interested in large political action; it’s ineffective.
There’s also an element of that all-too-common-these-days malady of younger people not being willing to commit, or to decide to do something for the fear of losing choice. For me, naturally, and many people I know, the only comfortable level to operate on is that in which there are many choices available. Limiting choice means limiting freedom. Means stifling. So, in some cultural ways it’s easier to not organize. To just deal on a personal level, because you don’t have to CHOOSE. You can just do, and leave any time you feel hemmed in.
Perhaps the bigger issue for me is where my hope comes from. I have hope in the future. That God will put things right. Put them right better than I know what right is. And whether that means that we’re going to eventually bring the final kingdom on earth, or whether God will simply renew the earth at some point, I’m right there, working to make the world better, because he told us to. Because he likes nature; so I should preserve nature. And because he loves people, and especially is concerned about the poor and the downtrodden; so I should too, since I’m following him. I have hope in the future because of God.
It seems like there are a lot of people putting hope in Obama this election season (not so many hoping in McCain, funny that), like he’s going to be the thing that fixes stuff. I lean away form political aciton for the same reason I lean towards pacifism: I fall a lot into the nonconformity and Christarchy options that Brandon Rhodes sets up over at Jesus Manifesto today: ( http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/07/22/whats-enemy-love-got-to-do-with-it/ ). See, I think Jesus’s kingdom is a mustard seed kingdom, not a cedar tree kingdom. Or, more culturally put, kudzu, not redwoods. The redwood is respectable. It’s easy to see. Everyone likes the redwood. We make monuments to it. But kudzu is under the radar. It grows when you’re not looking. It’s not in the least bit respectable. If you understand it, you might kill it. But kudzu is going to have a lot more effect than a redwood. Heck, kudzu would take the redwood down if you let them grow up together. This is the kind of metaphor Jesus uses. As Shane Clairborne points out, he even subverts the metaphors of power that Caesar used in order to replace them with metaphors of weakness and powerlessness. Whoever will be greatest should be the least among us. So, whenever we start to talk about power to accomplish good things I get wary. Heck, isn’t that what President Bush did? Even if you’re looking at a surface level: “Saddam Hussein is killing his people. He has ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that we gave to him. He hates us. He refuses to prove he’s gotten rid of them. Therefore, we will use our power to liberate a people and protect ourselves.” I might be so bold as to attribute all of President Bush’s failures as a president to using power to accomplish things he thought were good. But, I’m an optimist.
So, when it comes down to it, I don’t think political action can’t accomplish things for the kingdom. But I’m wary of it, because it smacks of making people do things. Of using power to accomplish goals, when Jesus is all about weakness and humility. We’re trying to follow Jesus over here in Jesusland, and Jesus accomplishes the biggest deal ever, not by acting in power, overthrowing Rome, or whatever, but by acting in weakness, dying form a cross, raising, and only appearing to a few people. Eventually, Rome falls anyway.
Zack,
It’s Scot, not Scott — he spells it with the pretentious one T and I think he’s kind of picky about it. Feel free to jump on me when I inevitably spell your name Zach.
Zack,
As you know I’m one of those who has tried to correct your “building the kingdom” with the alternative formulation, “building toward the kingdom.” But, as you also know, I’m not committed to the small scale/local stuff you seem to be equating with the “toward the kingdom” formulation here.
Paul uses the body metaphor often, and the head is always Christ himself–he is the one directing and organizing the body. At least, that’s what Paul’s metaphor says.
The importance of “toward” the kingdom is that Christians are committed to the eschatological picture of Christ’s coming reign on earth. Before then, the kingdom will never be fully consummated. You seem not to be able to get your head around the “already/not yet” tension of Christian eschatology. That’s okay. None of us have our head around it. But at the very least it means that the work we do in the world to advance God’s kingdom is preliminary work–preparatory. We actually believe Christ’s hidden reign will become visible at some point in real history. What that looks like is something we can argue about, but its essentiality to Christian belief isn’t in question except in some mainline liberal churches.
But!, our belief in the coming, visible reign of God over the earth does not dictate that we relegate our political efforts to the local or to the individual, as Beth very rightly pointed out above. You are absolutely right to point out that OFTEN (a word you could’ve used but didn’t) the impulse to insert “for” into the “building the kingdom” formulation functions as a mask for political irresponsibility. Turn the volume on that critique up please, Zack!
But as you do, turn the dial just a bit more into focus. “Building TOWARD/FOR the kingdom” is a formulation that’s integral to the makeup of being Christian. It does not mean the fate of the world has not been put in our (humanity’s) charge. (It has.) It does not MERELY mean that we’re supposed to stay humble about our charity or political work. (Although it means that too.) It does mean, as others have stated above, that God is the architect of the kingdom. Or rather, let me put it this way:
God is a super-genius architect who has given a bunch of interns the opportunity of a lifetime to build the perfect house. He’s given the interns some very general images of what he wants his house to look like, but left it to them to draft up the blueprints and build the thing. Of course, he wants the house built atop of some very inhospitable terrain, and so that poses constant challenges to the designs the interns keep coming up with. He could have very easily (genius architect that he is) thrown together the blueprints and laid them all out on the table for interns, but if he did that, they wouldn’t have learned very much. They wouldn’t ever get the chance to become great architects themselves. So, he throws clues out every once in a while, to spark the interns’ imaginations, give them hope, and strengthen their resolve. He sends helpers from time to time. Many of them he just sends to tell them what they’re doing wrong, but there are a lot of encouragers too.
Anyway, the task is so difficult, because the terrain is inhospitable, erratic and unstable. They think they come up with the perfect set of plans, and then something unexpected happens beyond their control, the terrain is affected, and they either have to revise their plans or start all over again.
Eventually, the genius architect is going to have to step in and help them finish, but by then, the interns will have become great architects, although they weren’t aware of the transformation because they were too busy sweating it out. When the master architect finally takes up residence in the new house, then and only then will the work be done. Then he’ll invite us all in for tea and crumpets or something.
Anyway, I know what you’re saying when you complain that “building the kingdom” and “building toward the kingdom” sound very much like they amount to pretty much the same damn thing. Yes, you are right that even if we’re “building TOWARD the kingdom,” we’re still technically building the kingdom. Adding TOWARD or FOR is just one way we try to remind ourselves that our work isn’t done until it’s done, and the “master architect” is the one who decides when that point in time is, not us. That’s because he’s the one with the vision, and he’s charged us with the honor and hard work of trying to keep the vision pure amid some pretty inhospitable terrain, in which shortcuts are easily accessible but never successful.
God, Jesus was better at parables than me.
I think the real point here is the difference between Thom’s story of the actvie, thinking, planning interns and N.T. Wright’s story of the stone mason who just cuts stones for the cathedral(I.e. good deeds) and shouldn’t bother thinking about how they fit into the larger structure. That story of Wright’s is just Adam Smith’s invisible hand. (I can’t believe I’m critiquing N.T. Wright). But Thom’s story presents a whole different role in the world for Christians. I like Thom’s. Yet both Wright and Thom symbolize their picture by simply inserting the word “for”. Thom, maybe you should say “Building the Kingdom for God”? With the understanding the he doesn’t need us to build it for him of course!
N.T. Wright: “The example I use in the book is about the stonemason who builds for the cathedral. The architect and the builder have the great design for the cathredal. The stonemason is just told, “You’ve got to carve this bit of stone in this way.” And the stonemason does that and then later looks up and sees his stone halfway up in the cathedral and thinks, “Wow! That’s my little bit up there! And look, I now see how it fits into the greater pattern.” We are building, like the stonemason, for the kingdom rather than us actually doing the building itself.”
Yeah. But I think N.T. Wright’s metaphor of the stone mason doesn’t do justice to what he actually thinks and says (not in metaphor) about the kind of work we’re to be doing building the kingdom. He includes large-scale, organized politics in the kind of stuff Christians should be doing to work toward the advent of the New Creation. His metaphor highlights one aspect, but I don’t think he’d disagree with my story either.
And with a smirk on my face I’m sorry to keep frustrating your attempts to restate the sentence in a way that pleases us both. “Building the kingdom FOR GOD” is dangerous if it becomes a slogan divorced from my little story about being put to work by God. Moreover, in my story I tried to make it clear that God was really doing the work through us, or making it possible for us to do the work at all, by his frequent interventions.
Anyway, I think we’re getting closer.
OK - so I’ll get excited about the phrase “Building for the Kingdom.” But with the reservation that for a lot of people that “for” seems to really mean limiting the ways that they will build.
Something I still want to understand is how exactly do you (Thom, and others in this thread) understand God’s active participation. As I’ve said, I hear a lot of people these days replacing the market with God (i.e. if we all just make good individual decisions, then God will work out the big picture; i.e. God is Smith’s Invisible Hand that solves the big problems, but only if we stay out of the way). I understand that you’re not saying that. But I still don’t understand the ways in which you see God involved. For myself, I have a confusing mix of my own ideas and instincts about this, and when I read the Bible, there’s just no way to make sense of it yet for me. So any help there is appreciated.
Zack, this is a really good question and I’m going to try to answer it tomorrow if I can, but I’m sure there are plenty of your readers who could do a better job than me, so if they beat me to it, all the better for you.
Hello! I just heard about this blog today, so I apologize if it is bad blog etiquette to jump into the conversation so early (and late, apparently, considering the last comment was a while ago). But I’ve been wondering about conceptions of God’s active participation, too. This was bubbling around in my brain as I prepared my first sermon last week. The text was Matthew 14:13-21– “The Feeding of the 5000″– in which Jesus tells the disciples, who are freaking out over a crowd of hungry thousands, “You give them something to eat.” I’m not sure how it works– it’s a mystery, I think, and probably a big joke on our control-freak brains– but the resources, time, energy, and talent we offer up ends up being enough. But then, of course, there is SO MUCH need that isn’t being met, which makes me think that if we REALLY use our resources effectively (and maybe for Christians that also means remembering God is the one is blessing them, like Jesus blessed the bread in the story before it miraculously multiplied) then maybe the Reign of God/Kingdom of Heaven will come. Or maybe the world will just be better.