The Post-eschatological charismatic thread has got rather long, so I have responded to a question posed by Virgil about prophecy and the parousia separately.
The preterist approach to prophecy as Virgil has described it seems to me too rigid and artificial. I would give precedence to the (historical) narrative and ask how this contextualizes prophecy. I think that much of what the authors of the New Testament say about the future has to do with the rather immediate circumstances of conflict in one form or another with Rome, and I would hesitate to make these particular prophecies work outside that relevant and realistic historical framework. But that is a contextual argument. It does not entail the absolute corrollary that prophecy ceases to operate altogether outside that historical framework.
As I have mentioned already, I disagree that parousia signifies the ‘presence’ of Christ with his people. The parousia, to my mind, is a shorthand reference to the more complex eschatological narrative of deliverance, judgment on the enemies of the people of God, and vindication of the suffering community in Christ. The word can mean ‘presence’ in a certain sense, but I don’t think the New Testament uses it to speak of the ongoing presence in the church of Christ who has come to be with his people. The Spirit is the medium of Christ’s presence in the world, but Christ himself reigns at the right hand of God. The parousia moment does not alter this: it confirms Christ’s reign; and it seems to me right, therefore, to suppose that the activity of the Spirit in the church does not change fundamentally now that the kingdom has been taken from the oppressor and given to the Son of man.
Since the Spirit is above all else the Spirit of prophecy, it seems to me odd to talk about the active presence of the Spirit in the church but disallow prophetic gifts. I do think, however, that we need to move beyond the traditional debate. I have argued elsewhere that the (emerging) church should understand itself to be shaped by a creational rather than a survivalist eschatology: the purpose of the church is not to endure and survive opposition but to represent, actually and prophetically, the renewal of creation.
We may need to think more broadly, therefore, about the activity of the Spirit than the traditional model of the body of Christ suggests. The body of Christ metaphor belongs in a survivalist context (hence it’s inward orientation). It’s not unusable in a post-eschatological situation, but it may be too narrow. I would ask how the Spirit of the creative God would manifest himself in a new humanity. I think we would then need to include within the purview of prophecy a much broader set of interests than the conventional eschatological themes of judgment and salvation. From this point of view the prophetic arises not from the particular gifting of individuals but from the very existence of the renewed hopeful community.
The politics of the renewed humanity
Since I’ve been toggling between two concurrent threads - God’s Politics and Post-eschatological charismatic? - I wondered if the interests of one could be applied to the other - taking the specific issue of the middle east as an example.
If the interests and attributes of the Spirit of God are to manifest themselves in a new humanity, how would that look in relation to events in Lebanon and Israel, and more broadly, in the wider historical, geopolitical arena of the middle east?
First, I simply see the ‘renewed humanity’ as another way of describing the body of Christ. We may have unduly limited the ‘body’ metaphor by locating it somewhat exclusively in the gathered congregation, but that is where it begins in 1 Corinthians. However, the metaphor, and the realities it represents, operate wherever God’s people are - so it also has a worldwide application.
Worldwide events and issues are worked out through tangible relationships (or their breakdown), so ‘the body’ always returns to some form of localised expression. Can we discard the expression of ‘the body’ as the gathered community of God’s people, described in 1 Corinthians? I think not - and neither need ‘the body’ be identified exclusively with a ‘survivalist’ mentality - whether in the first century (though I doubt if there ever was such a ‘survivalist’ mentality in that period), or beyond. The post-19th century evangelical church could validly be accused in some quarters of having a ‘survivalist’ mentality - whether an inward-looking ethos, or a view of salvation as ‘survivalist’.
So let’s think outside this box. What does the body of Christ as the ‘renewed humanity’ have to bring to events and issues which have the geo-politics of the middle-east as their epicentre?
A ‘survivalist’ mentality tends to break the world into an over-exclusive set of dualisms: spirit versus matter, this world versus the world to come, the good guys versus the bad guys, the demonic versus the redeemed. It oversimplifies conflicts, as amply illustrated in one-sided representations of ‘terrorism’, Islam, and by extension, Arabic nations as opposed to western nations. Extended further, it tends to adopt the ‘myth of redemptive violence’: the ‘good guys’ can take out the ‘bad guys’ through warfare. The bible may be interpreted as history which will lead to one colossal killing field: Armageddon, or the Gog-Magog war. In this warped version of the future, Israel is sometimes depicted as God’s agent to take on the bad guys, sometimes acting as proxy for the ‘good guys’, the ‘good’ Christian nations of the west. I have heard it said that communism would be shattered by the nation of the north (Russia) invading Israel, and being defated in war. I have heard the same said about Islam. I hear echoes of this viewpoint in some of the comments on the ‘God’s Politics’ thread.
In all of these warped visions, there tends to be pessimism about what can be accomplished for this world now, and a tendency to stake all on the return of Jesus. I believe in the latter (Jesus’s return), but not as a kind of moral or intellectual abdication of responsibility for involvement on all levels in the world now.
So how would a ‘new humanity’ spirituality look, in the Israel/Lebanon context, and in the wider middle east context defined by historical, political and regional issues?
First, there would have to be a radical reappraisal, which might mean dropping some of our instinctive reactions and dualisms. It is not necessarily anti-semitic to look critically at Israel, or to automatically regard her enemies as our enemies. Christians would need to distance themselves from a demonisation of Islam, and therefore muslims, and by extension the Arabic world, incuding the non-Arabic Iran, and the Sunni/Shia Islamic sects which are murderously opposed to each other. Christians would need to study carefully the history of the middle east, and not as mediated by their own partisan interest groups. They would need to see that the ‘western’ nations have a woeful record of imperial interference, destabilisation and dishonesty in the middle east, bringing by their policies incalculable suffering and harm to those least able to defend themselves, children and the poor, and adding to the region’s already existing problems hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths from WW2 to the present day.
Especially we would drop the ‘dualist’ simplicities which blame conflict on ‘the demonic’, (anti-semitism, Islam etc), and discern issues of injustice as the true engines of conflict. In the Israel/Palestine issue, there are people alive today who carry the wounds of that original injustice in 1948, and in whom the injustice is renewed every day by the continuing circumstances in which they live.
A further way in which a ‘renewed humanity’, which I take to be the church, or God’s people anywhere in the world, can act, is by sending a message of identification, in which suffering through injustice is recognised. It would not identify with responses to injustice through violence, but in the same way that Christians have traditionally responded to those unjustly imprisoned in ‘closed’ countries, whose primary need is to know that somebody, somewhere knows, and cares, and that they are not forgotten.
The renewed mind leads to action - but there can be no simple universal formula for action. It has meant for me, for instance, attending a public demonstration in London, for the first time in my life, against the policies of our government in the Israel/Lebanon conflict. It was curious to stand alongside Lebanese, Palestinians, international socialists of various descriptions and schisms, trades unionists - many of whose views I fundamentally differ with in detail, but by being there, I had crossed a divide, and was able to talk to them, express my own beliefs, as well as protesting with them.
Yet another way in which a ‘renewed humanity’ might be expressed would be in our attitude to muslims and their communities in our own nations. Instead of seeing muslim people and their communities simply as potential breeding grounds for violent attacks on innocent people (which some of them may well be), we could reach out to them as those who are increasingly fearful, isolated and socially excluded. This calls for a change of attitude before action. If some adopt views which make them our enemies, are we not called to love our enemies? I would like to hear less about the danger of Islam to the West, with scare-stories about radicalised muslims, and more about those who call themselves Christians loving muslims - an attitude in which Christians should be able to excel.
John referred to ‘Brother Andrew’ of the Open Doors mission in his post. Andrew, now in his 78th year, has met and spent time with the top leadership in Hamas and Al Qaeda. He was invited to a madrassa in which the taleban are trained for warfare in Afghanistan. He was given the opportunity to speak to the students - and he spoke of his passion for Jesus, the love of Jesus for the whole world, the cross and resurrection, and the bible as God’s truthful revelation. Their response was a request that he return and address the students at their graduation. His conclusion: don’t say that muslims are not interested in Jesus and cannot be reached. His experience is a living testimony that the supposedly most impenetrable and dangerous places of the earth are accessible, and people want to hear about Jesus.
This is my understanding of what it means to be part of a renewed humanity, and how that might look in relation to troubled regions of the earth. It does not involve dualistically separating a gospel of proclamation (the death, resurrection and outpoured Spirit of Jesus) from action, involvement, and a politics of love - which need to have their anchor in such a gospel. It looks at issues of justice and injustice, involving itself in people’s suffering, and bringing relief to suffering wherever it can. It is biased towards the poor and disadvantaged. It also has a focus on a higher law than justice and injustice - the law of mercy, forgiveness and grace. It recognises however that there is no short-cut to grace by ignoring the reality of wounds of injustice. It is a renewed humanity which is here for the now, has a ‘this worldly’ focus, but which accepts that a complete expression of a renewed humanity through a renewed creation will not occur in a universal form this side of a return of Christ - a parousia which ushers in the completion of the new creation.
Could not agree more
Andrew, I could not agree more with the general points you made in this post here, which is why I get so frustrated with this medium of interaction - blogs/forums/websites - are all not condusive to quickly and accurately sharing complex ideas.
Nonetheless, I do want to quickly point out and agree with you when saying that the Parousia is a lot more than what I perhaps initially suggested; by no means did I mean to suggest that the Parousia is simply about geographical/spiritual relations. The “coming” was about much more, about finalizing redemption, saving Israel, fulfilling prophecy, gathering the elect, jugment, renewal, recreation, new heavens, new earth, etc. All these themes are beautifully tied together in Revelation by John and ultimately, after such a complex climax, we really end up with what we started: humanity and its Creator dwelling together, with a tree of life in the middle of it all (see the Genesis story).
I really do not know how the Holy Spirit ultimately fits into this reality, but I do believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer available to believers, and I do that based on some of the things I have shared with you for the past few days.
So again, whatever approach I may have suggested that you found artificial and rigid was strictly structured around the discussion on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I am not convinced that eschatology was simply just about Christ’s presence with us. The story is much bigger than that, and gets bigger still as we all continue to study those issues and learn from those conversations we have with each other.