Hi Andrew,

I’m afraid your link to the Coming of the Son of Man didn’t work so I couldn’t read it.

Post eschatalogical is self-defeating due to the meaning of eschatalogical, which refers to the last things. I was being a little toungue-in-cheek there!

But I had a serious point in mind, namely that if the events of the New Testament, the destruction of the Temple (as in preterism) and in your case the assimilation of Christianity into the Empire are the last things, then there is nothing further to look forward to. Alternatively, the term eschaton or similar to describe those events is a misnomer, an exaggeration perhaps or even a conceit of the church. Perhaps the prota (ta prwta) or the first things would be a better word to classify these events as, if classification is required. That would mean the first prophetic events of the church age or realised age. Our own activities and aims would then be a continuation of these prota, an explanation of them.

However, I am not convinced that any explanation or classification of these events is called for (other than perhaps fulfillments of prophecy). This is a natural consequence of an open world view. I understand that Greg Boyd holds to a view of the openness of God himself and I would certainly support that but in my view, such a concept is meaningless unless one’s view of the universe as a whole (God included) is similarly open. That is definitely a realist perspective.

Personally, I would rather stick with that realist perspective than accept a kind of dispensational view of history and judging from your comments, you probably would too. It does indeed make better sense to thus treat the NT as having near-term value rather than long-term value which then transforms into a dispensationalism. In the same way, the early church’s ethical activities, make much better sense when considered as ethical decisions made by a church that was confident of its own authority to make decisions of that nature, in union with the Holy Spirit. That’s much more realistic than treating the NT as another set of laws for us to follow for all time. It also places upon us a new responsibility (as openness always does) to assert our authority as the Church of the living Christ in all such matters as a continual activity instead of just trying to understand what the NT says about some given matter (such as homosexuality???)

As I said, I would much prefer this kind of worldview. But it does leave some areas of concern and I do miss the idea of a return of Christ in bodily form in final judgement. Perhaps you will be better than me at incorporating this into my theology but at the moment I sometimes think of myself (uncomfortably) as mildly heretical in acknowledging that I can’t work out how the return of Christ fits in.