The Influence of Creation and Eschatology on Worldview and Mission: Part 4

Worldviews  
     In his book, Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Michael Wittmer states that ‘worldview’ is “a translation of the German word Weltanshauung, [and] has been variously described  as ‘perceptual frameworks,’ ‘ways of seeing,’ ‘the set of presuppositions…which we hold…about the basic make-up of the world,’ and ‘the conceptual framework  of ones basic belief about things.’”  Wittmer continues by pointing out that “The common theme running through these definitions suggests that a worldview is a framework of fundamental concepts or beliefs about the world.”  “In short,” says Wittmer, “a worldview comprises the lens through which we see the world.”   Everyone has a worldview, whether they are cognizant of it or not.  Everyone has a set of presuppositions that determine how they interpret the world around them.  N.T. Wright argues that worldviews are “profoundly theological,” and offers the following questions as a means of determining the worldview of an individual or group:

1. Who are we?


2. Where are we?


3. What is wrong?


4. What is the solution?

We will now attempt to answer the above worldview questions within the framework of each of the stories we have outlined thus far. From this point on, we will refer to the first perspective as the “Escapist” view, and the second perspective as the “Restorationist” view.

An Escapist Worldview
1.  Who are we?
We are immortal souls (spiritual essences) encased in immoral bodies.  We were created in the image of God, but that image has been so damaged that it can never be recovered in this life.  We are the Covenant people of God who believe the right things and uphold God’s moral code.

2.  Where are we?
We live in a fatally damaged world.  When our world was created by God, it was “perfect,” but very early on in our story we made a decision that damaged it.  It is now either spiraling into oblivion or simply existing until God destroys it.  It can still, at times, be quite beautiful, and that beauty reminds us of our Creator.  However, our world is irredeemably damaged and will be burned up on the last day. This world is fundamentally not our home and we exist here as “aliens” and “foreigners”.

3.  What is wrong?
Human beings made an incredibly destructive choice near the beginning of the story (Gen 3), and ruined the perfection they were charged with maintaining.  Our souls are immortal, but are separated from God because of individual sin.  Destruction is inescapably coming to everything physical, and our (individual) “immortal souls” are bound for eternal punishment.

4.  What is the solution?
God became a man and died vicariously for our sins.  We must simply believe and obey to save our individual immortal soul from eternal punishment.  Ideally, these “saved” individuals will share the basic propositions one must believe and the “plan of salvation” with others so that their “souls” will be “saved” as well.

A Restorationist Worldview

1.  Who are we?
We are the people of God, created in His Image. That image is distorted by the Fall, but is still there.   We are the Covenant people of God, who are blessed in order that we might be a blessing.  Our understanding of ourselves in holistic and cannot be broken down into “parts”.

2.  Where are we?
We live in God’s world which he created and loves.  God loves Creation simply because it exists.  We believe that this world was created “good”(in the dynamic and “loaded with potential” sense), and not perfect (in the “complete” and “static” sense).  We believe that God created us and this world to live in harmony with each other and with Him.

3.  What is wrong?
Human beings make an extremely destructive choice very early on in the narrative.  That choice has far reaching consequences and knocks the entire Creation project off course.  The Shalom or harmony that is supposed to exist between God, people, and creation is shattered.  The world is not what God dreams for it to be and all Creation seems bent on moving in the opposite direction.

4.  What is the solution?
God does not give up on his dream for Creation.  He enacts a plan to bring about the “restoration of all things”.  This plan involves covenanting with a community of people to operate as agents of Shalom in the midst of a broken world.  God becomes a human being (Jesus) whose life, death, and resurrection open the door for a renewed creation of Shalom between a) God and human beings; b) Human beings and other human beings; and c) Human beings and Creation.  God calls a group of people to live in His reality now in the midst of a broken world.  He calls us to partner with Him to make it more and more so.  He promises that one day Jesus will return and that Heaven and Earth will be renewed.  He insists that we will be resurrected and glorified so that we may enjoy the fulfillment of His promise and his dream for all Creation.
(To Be Continued)

The Influence of Creation and Eschatology on Worldview and Mission: Part 3

Trajectories
The basic trajectory of the narrative is radically altered depending on which perspective you are operating from.
In light of the first perspective, the story proceeds with things getting worse and worse. God loves the people (or at least their essence), but sees the creation project as incorrigible. By implication, all matter becomes evil while only “spiritual” things are good (because, after all, they are the things that are going to last). God, who is unwilling to let the spiritual essence or “souls” of people perish without a fight, enacts a plan. He enters into a covenant with a man named Abram and his descendants. Within their arrangement, God gives them a moral and ethical code to live by in addition to a set of basic propositions to believe. In return, God promises that they will be his people and that He has a plan for reconciling their “souls” to Himself. Eventually, God becomes a human being named Jesus who takes the destruction/punishment due us on Himself by dying a sinner’s death (though he was without sin). In this view, the overriding sentiment about Jesus is that He “lived to die”. Aside from “not sinning”, everything else Jesus did and taught during his life is either viewed as proof of who he was or simply nice but almost irrelevant. After His crucifixion, Jesus rises from the dead thereby defeating “death” itself and ensuring the souls of those who believe and obey a place in Heaven after they die. In his book, In The End—The Beginning, Jurgan Moltmann sums up this trajectory as follows: “The traditional doctrine about the Last Judgment…also talks about a restoration, but it refers only to all human beings, the purpose being that all of them, beginning with Adam and Eve, can receive their just verdict. Afterward, only heaven and earth are left. The earth will be superfluous and is to be burnt. This notion of judgment is exceedingly hostile to creation.”
Alternately, the second perspective paints a very different picture. The story proceeds with a God who is quite unwilling to give up on his dream for the world. He enacts a plan, not just to save the spiritual essence of individuals, but to pursue the “restoration of all things”. God enters into a covenant with a man named Abram and his descendants. They are to be the people of God, whom God will bless so that they might be a blessing to the world around them. Eventually, God becomes a human being named Jesus who lives out God’s dream of Shalom and teaches others to do the same. He dies a sinner’s death (though he was without sin) to free us from disharmony with God, each other, and creation (which is the definition of “sin”). On the third day after His crucifixion, He rises from the dead and his body is glorified. In this action, He frees people from death, gives them a preview of their own resurrection, and apparently opens the door for everything to be not only restored to its original condition, but for the project to go where God originally intended. Moltman concludes “The raising of Christ from the dead was not, either, a ‘return’ of the life he had lived; it was a transformation of his life on earth into eternal life. And it is in this light that we ought to imagine the design of the restoration of all things: its purpose is the transformation of this world into the future world of the eternal creation. The restoration of all things is to initiate the rebirth of the cosmos to its enduring form.”


(To Be Continued)

The Influence of Creation and Eschatology on Worldview and Mission: Part 2

Beginnings
We will not discuss the “literal-six-days” issue here which, in my view, seems irrelevant to the subject at hand. The creation narratives in Genesis 1 & 2 simply were not written to answer such a question in scientific terms, nor does the writing style lend itself to such an answer. The questions they are written to answer are both broader and grander in scope. Within Christianity, there are generally two views of creation. Admittedly, for the sake of our discussion, I am going to be speaking in very broad generalities. Indeed, few would say that my characterizations fit them exactly, but most will admit that one characterizes them more closely than the other.
On the one hand, some view creation to be fatally damaged or ruined. Their story begins with God’s pristine creation. God creates a world (or at least a garden in a world) that is perfect and apparently static. People are placed in this world and charged with maintaining the perfection that God originally created. This point is crucial to understanding this perspective: The role of humans was understood in terms of maintenance. Creation is a finished product that is to be maintained. However, in this view, people make a choice that sends all of creation into an irredeemable tailspin. Satan’s trick works and the whole project is thrown irrevocably off course.
On the other hand, there are those who view creation as damaged, but “good”. Their story begins (based on the same texts) with God creating a world that is “good” and as Rob Bell says, “loaded with potential”. Creation is dynamic, not static or as N.T. Wright puts it, “creation is a project, not a finished product.” God puts people in the middle of this dynamic creation and charges them with the responsibility to govern it in His image. As before, people make a choice that fundamentally damages creation, sending the whole project off course. This is the point where we reach the major difference in these two perspectives. It can perhaps best be summed up with the following question: Does God give up on his dream for the world? Whereas the first view answers in the affirmative, the second view responds with a resounding “No.”
(To Be Continued)
AE

The Influence of Creation and Eschatology on Worldview and Mission: Part 1

Our story begins in Genesis 1 and 2. God existed for an eternity before that point, but the story of us and our interaction with the Creator originates at the beginning of the Bible. The Bible then provides, in various genres and from a variety of authors, a developing narrative in which God’s interaction with human beings and creation over time is revealed. Interestingly, the “end” or consummation of the story is also revealed in scripture while the part of the story we live in remains unwritten in any tangible form. This puts us in a fascinating predicament which N. T. Wright in The New Testament and the People of God likens to a Shakespearean play for which we are missing the fifth act. Wright explains,
“The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a remarkable wealth of characterizations, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play should be staged. Nevertheless it is felt inappropriate to actually write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play in one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for a work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves.”
To modify and expand on Wright’s analogy; what if there were several radically different supposed final scenes floating around which were all proported to be written by Shakespeare? What if, in addition to that, there were several radically different interpretations of the first scene? What if some of the actors, though competent, experienced, and trained, felt that the ending was rather unimportant as long as it ended and they got to go home? Would any or all of these things substantially affect the direction and shape the performance? Would it be possible for there to be several performances of essentially the same play in which the “improvised scene” bore little or no resemblance to one another?
It is my contention that this is exactly the state of affairs we find ourselves in. Within the Christian community there are various and divergent views on Creation. These are not merely surface issues such as the “literal 6 days” controversy. They are deep rooted questions about the nature of creation and God’s attitude toward and plans for what He created. Additionally, there are widely divergent views on the appropriate or intended ending or consummation of the story of God and his creation. Looking at the eschatological discourse on the popular level, one might be led to the conclusion that the most important debate is whether or not a supposed “rapture” occurs before or after a “tribulation” (if it occurs at all), and specifics about the “millennial reign of Christ”. As with the interrelated questions regarding creation, I believe that most of the questions being discussed at the popular level regarding eschatology simply miss the point entirely. I suggest that one’s concept of creation fundamentally shapes one’s eschatology. I further assert that one’s eschatology determines one’s worldview and mission.
(To Be Continued)
AE

My Girls

I miss my girls. Two weeks ago I was at the Youth Specialties Conference in Nashville while Dana and Emma went to Dana's Parents' house. We came home and my parents came to visit for a week for Thanksgiving. It was a great visit, but very busy. After Church on Sunday I went back to Nashville for a Grad School class (New Testament Theology with Dr. Mark Black M-F 8-5). I am staying with my friend Phil and his wonderful family who are taking great care of me. This has all been great stuff, but I just haven't had much time to spend with my family. Emma called me tonight (I think her Mom helped her). She had an actual conversation with me. I think she's gotten smarter since I left on Sunday. I really miss them, I miss my girls. I can't wait to see them.
AE