eschatology

There's No Place Like Home

May 27, 2008 By heather Leave a Comment

If N.T. Wright and music had a child, it would be Jeremy Begbie.

I’m pretty sure neither Wright nor Jeremy would endorse that statement, but there it is.

Begbie spoke of my two favorite things: the resurrection (meaning not just Christ’s, who is a foretaste, but the resurrection of the world) and arts. As a friend said, the resurrection makes me giddy. It’s true. I think of frolicking–yes, frolicking–at a beach with my grandparents or riding the back of a tiger (or even a unicorn!) or jamming on the piano with a jazz combo. Can you imagine what it’ll be like to play and sing and dance in the midst of the music of every tongue and nation? Can you imagine what it’ll be like to cuddle up next to a lion? Can you imagine what it’ll be like to sing with the mute, dance with the lame, and chat with the deaf? Who says being a Christian isn’t fun? (See–I mention the resurrection and end up on a digression.)

What’s more, Jeremy spoke in a language I understand: music. Throughout his session, he used Prokofieff’s Piano Sonata 7 to work through his points.

It made me happy.

I can’t begin to go through all of his points and do justice to them (I suggest buying the CD of his session).

Jeremy took on the topic, where do we go from here? What is the vision of arts and the Church? The vision comes from the future (rather than going into the future). Instead of moving from present to future, instead of keeping up with trends, trying to make the Church hip, dare I say trying to make our art edgy? (now there I go stepping on toes again), we move from the future to the present.

Amen.

We have a glimpse of the future in the resurrection of Christ, in Revelation 21-22, and in Isaiah and other prophetic writings. (My imagination often goes crazy with these passages thinking of a time when creation is beautiful and just and harmonious and radiant.) The Holy Spirit brings the future into the present, churning the culture. Begbie compared it to the transfiguration–God’s future erupting into the present.

This is our jam session. This is what we get to participate in.

The Spirit’s work is energizing, creative, unifying, deep, inverting. The possibilities of the Holy Spirit’s work are limitless.

How can we not get excited about this?

We taste the resurrection, don’t we? In relationships, in nature, in art, in a good meal, in dancing. This is what we are to cultivate.

Let me make a note (and this relates to the above statement about "edgy"): cultivating the resurrection does not mean ignoring or trivializing the evil. On the contrary, it’s willing to go to the depths of the evil around us. A story is only good if the hero has to overcomes obstacles, if he has to go through a trial. This story reflects the story of humanity and the story of Christ. Christ delved into the depths of evil. He resisted the temptation in the desert. He "descended into hell." From there comes the beauty of resurrection and victory. I say this relates to my comment about "edgy" art because there’s a difference between taking risks and trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy, a trap into which I fear we sometimes fall. I’m not saying that anyone who uses the term "edgy" has fallen into this trap. I’m only saying let’s be careful. As C.S. Lewis said, "In literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." This from the man who’s greatest work of literature is a retelling of an old myth (Till We Have Faces).

This journey is complete. We’ve been called to be beautifully unuseful to God, we’ve been mentored in the lifestyle, we’ve crossed the threshold, we’ve met our enemies, dealt with trials, and found allies, we’ve descended into the depths of the ordeal, and today we’ve been resurrected, our art has been resurrected.

The question is, our we willing to return to our Original World with the lessons we’ve learned from our journey, with this elixir to heal the nations? In other words, am I willing to use my art to participate in God’s kingdom work by showing Truth and creating beauty?

Filed Under: aesthetics, art, eschatology, Jeremy Begbie, resurrection, theology, transforming culture

Book Thoughts–Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright

March 31, 2008 By heather 6 Comments

My thoughts here are biased, I must warn you.

I loved N.T. Wright’s newest book, Surprised by Hope. He explores the meat of the Christian hope, what he calls the after-afterlife.

I’m biased because I’ve been frustrated by our misplaced, paltry hope. I’ve been frustrated by our Platonic belief in some sort of nebulous heaven up yonder where some roll is called. (Don’t believe me? Check out my post on our Platonic world.) Sure, we go to heaven when we die, but this is not our eternity. This is not our ultimate hope. Our ultimate hope is when heaven comes to earth, when God re-creates, restores, and reconciles the earth and our physical bodies. He will undo the affects of the Fall, namely, the hostility between man and God, between man and man, and between man and earth.

We sometimes forget about that last one. Oh, I don’t think we forget about the hostility between man and earth with tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes warring against us, with our war against nature in our pollution and exploitation. We forget that we will one day live in harmony with nature, caring for it as God intended us to.

I get a little preachy about this.

Back to Wright’s book. Wright addresses the misconceptions (a.k.a. bad theology) that’s infiltrated not just the world (i.e. reincarnation), but also Christianity (i.e. when we all get to heaven).

The belief in Jesus’ physical resurrection is on the line here, folks. If you believe in Jesus’ physical resurrection, if you believe that he is the firstfruits, than you have to believe that we do will experience that physical resurrection. The whole earth (which now groans) will experience it.

Wright turns the gospel message upside-down. No, he turns how we talk about the gospel message upside-down. It begins with an overarching story–God’s plan of redemption for all of creation. Within that, individual salvation fits.

He then talks about why it’s important in the here and now, in areas such as justice, art, and evangelism (are you getting a feel for why I’m passionate about this?). He’s hard on all sides. Somehow Wright is one of the few people who can point out the faults of everyone specifically (moderns, you’re doing this; postmoderns, you’re doing this; liberals, you’re doing this; conservatives, you’re doing this) and still be liked by all parties. Personally, I’m a dispensationalist (which means, in my view, that Wright and I may disagree on some middle stuff, but we absolutely agree on the end, we absolutely agree that this end is the important part, and we absolutely agree on our present course of action). Wright’s hard on dispensationalist (and for good reason). I will say that he has a generalized and limited view on dispensationalist. Maybe he understands more but for simplicity’s sake boils it down. Maybe he only hear’s the loudest dispensationalist (with whom I probably don’t agree). But that’s beside the point to me.

The point is, Jesus’ resurrection leads to the resurrection (redemption) of the world, and somehow our participation in God’s kingdom work in the present contributes to that (although it doesn’t bring it about–God brings it about).

Too often, we let our lingo speak falsely. "When we get to heaven," we say, whether we mean that or we know better and should say, "In the resurrection." Personally (a lot of personals here), I’m going to correct my false lingo. I want to paint the right pictures.

What does it mean for art? It means embodying the groaning of creation and the hope of resurrection. It means no false sentimentality, like some guy walking into clouds. It means incarnating Christ himself.

I’ll stop now. If you want to read what others have to say about the book, here’s a recommended book thoughts list:

Klyne Snodgrass on Prime Time Jesus

Scot McKnight on Jesus Creed beginning goes chapter by chapter (the link is for the first chapter).

Raffi Shahanian at Parables of a Prodigal World

Nathan Gann (and his list of reviews, which includes several I haven’t read)

Side note: I’ll be leaving bright tomorrow morning (at an hour I’ve been told exists, but I have yet to believe it exists) for the Transforming Art symposium. I couldn’t be more excited! Get ready to have an earful (or eyeful, rather) when I return.

Filed Under: books, eschatology, resurrection

Where's Your Fudge?

February 25, 2008 By heather 7 Comments

I’ve taken to making my sundaes like McDonald’s. Do they still do that? Leave a thick layer of fudge at the bottom of the ice cream cup as a reward?

I spoon a tablespoon, maybe two, of Braum’s hot fudge into the bottom of my bowl, heat it up, and add Breyer’s natural vanilla bean ice cream.

The hot fudge mixes in with the ice cream. You can’t help but grab some in a spoonful, but the real treat comes at the bottom, when a gooey chocolate mess with a little bit of melted ice cream awaits you. Oh, how I love that gooey chocolate mess! I anticipate it and prolong it at the same time, the same way you do the end of a good book.

This got me thinking about the kingdom of God. It’s mixed in all around us–grace and love and beauty. But we’re not to the bottom of the bowl yet. When we get to the bottom of the bowl, now that will be a world full of grace and love and beauty. It will be the epitome of chocolatey gooey mess. A recreated, redeemed, revealed earth. Maybe God will fill a lake or two with hot fudge.

I think about this a lot–the future earth. After all, that’s where my hope is. But as much as I think about it, I forget that I only have tastes of the hot fudge now.

They say that men struggle with finding meaning in work and women struggle with finding meaning in relationships. I won’t deny that I sometimes look for ultimate fulfillment in relationships, but I struggle with wanting fulfillment in work, too. Ultimate fulfillment.

And it ain’t happening.

Not to say that God doesn’t give me a taste of fulfillment, that I don’t have beauty and grace and love now in what I do. But there’s still something missing. I can work and work and work and still not be where I want to be with my writing and speaking. Sometimes I want to be there because I want to see it glorify God, to see it further His kingdom. Sometimes I want to be there because wouldn’t that reflect well on me? Look at me, everyone. Look at what I did.

Disgusting, isn’t it?

I have these mixed motives because I’m not fully redeemed and recreated, just like the earth. We wait and groan together.

And someday we’ll reach the bottom of the bowl.

(Of course, this metaphor is imperfect because the whip cream goes on top–oh, wait. Maybe that was Eden. We finished that layer quickly. Or it melted away. Whichever.)

Filed Under: eschatology, hope, kingdom of God

Blaise and Christianity

May 21, 2007 By heather Leave a Comment

Regarding Christianity, Pascal said something to the effect (paraphrase ahead) that if you come to the end of your life, and you were wrong, you haven’t lost anything. This may feel lovely when you live in Christendom (and by that, I mean a world in which Christianity is popular and has influence by political or economical means), but it’s not true and it shouldn’t be true. I’m sorry, but Christianity is neither a crutch or a stuffed animal to hold tightly during the thunder and lightening (although I do love thunder and lightening and I do love my stuffed animal, Big Foot, much to the chagrin of my husband, but I’ve had Big Foot since before I was born, so what can I do?).
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that if not for the resurrection, meaning both Christ’s and our future resurrection (without one, the other does not exist), our faith would be one big joke (which some of you out there believe it to be—and some of us live as the straight man for that joke). This same Paul was imprisoned many a time, stoned and left for dead, shipwrecked, beaten, and eventually killed for his belief. Um, if he were wrong in the end, I don’t think he would simply shrug his shoulders and say, “Ah, well.”
Christ told us to expect hatred from the world, and then he was killed. Crucified, to be exact, a painful and humiliating death. Of course, he was resurrected, and those of us who depend on him will be someday, as well, which is my point. A survey of the other apostles: crucified (upside down), exiled, beaten to death, beheaded, other sundry deaths including a combination of the above. Others? Well, Steven was stoned, others were speared. There was Jan Huss and Wycliffe and Joan of Arc and Jim Elliot (and his crew). More people have been killed for the Christian faith in the twentieth century than all other previous centuries combined. Of course, sitting in our recliners flipping through TBN and other such channels, we don’t remember that. We go to church to make business contacts or shelter our children (more on that one later).
Personally, I’m not so okay with the idea. I’m not saying Chris and I are martyrs or persecuted, but we have made choices based on our Christianity. Given up things that we’d rather have. I would love to travel. See the world. But when you work in ministry, the budget doesn’t support those desires. And you know what? I’d rather explore the new earth. But if that new earth doesn’t exist, man, I’m kicking myself for these missed opportunities. Sure, we have Christ’s peace and joy now, but the root of that peace and joy is the hope of a future with him in a harmonious community and perfect nature.
This whole thing shouldn’t be a half-hearted why-not decision. It shouldn’t be some heck-it-feels-good thinking. It’s deciding to serve a kingdom now that is underground and will eventually win. It would be like shuttling slaves through the underground railroad before the Civil War.
Just so you know.

Filed Under: eschatology, philosophy

Taste and See that the Lord Is Good

July 4, 2006 By heather Leave a Comment

I love food. Much of my day is spent dreaming of my next meal. I only get out of bed in the morning (besides my husband cruelly flipping on the light) for the coffee (or, as J.S. Back terms it, the nectar of the gods). Around 10:00, I start planning lunch. Afternoon projects are completed with the reward of tea time (and biscotti, if I’m lucky). Dinner, well, dinner is craved days ahead.
I hate shopping. I walk into a mall and am instantly exhausted. With some very important exceptions: books, music, and Whole Foods. Mind you, it cannot be any grocery store. Tom Thumb is the just a quick stop for the forgotten milk. Albertsons is completely out of the question – a desperate times call for desperate measures store. But Whole Foods. That is my I’ve been in a down mood and need a pick me up shop. While other stores I enter only with an army plan, including an escape route, I wander down the aisles of Whole Foods like a lover lingers down his wife’s curves. I love food.
So I love that the Bible gives us hope in food. I love that God created Adam and Eve to beseech the juice of the nectarine to explode inside their mouth: we don’t just take pills to nutriate our bodies. I love that many of the Jewish celebrations revolve around feasts – the Passover feast, the feast of Purim, the feast of Tabernacles. I love that the imagery of the Promised Land and Messiah’s rule is the free-flow of wine and honey and milk. Jesus’ first miracle in the book of John is turning water into wine: the Messiah is here to establish His kingdom! I love that we look toward the wedding feast in the New Jerusalem when heaven finally fully meets earth and grace and justice culminate.
Cheers and Good Eats!

Filed Under: eschatology, imagery