Paranoia or passion for the Kingdom
After having been at the excellent SA Cell Conference at Nottingham Arnold Corps last week I was inspired to pick up Bill Beckham's book, "Redefining Revival" again.
Listening on the one hand to the pessimism of some about the state of the world and the church and the bury your head in the sand, let's pretend everything will be alright on the night crowd on the other it is easy to lose a true perspective.
This is what Bill Beckham says:
A portion of the church believes a final apocalyptic solution is the only hope for the church of the 21st century. This worldview is driven by apocalyptic paranoia that manifests itself in pessimism.
The population numbers alarm them. The evil they see in the world overwhelms them. Technological advances worry them. Future scientific discoveries threaten them. The possibility of persecution frightens them. The weakness of the church discourages them. They seek solutions outside of the church in politics, the mass media and apocalyptic predictions. They feel that God will remove the church from an impossible, dangerous and potentially embarrassing situation for the church.
I also believe in the final solution to history will be apocalyptic when Christ returns in triumph. However, Christians have often made mistaks in interpeting history because of an unhealthy fixation on dates, a narrow view of the world and pessimism about the church. An obsession with evil rather than a passion about Christ's mission in the world always distorts the historical perspective of the church. Therefore a theology of escape from the world replaces Christ's theology of Kingdom mission in the world."
After having been at the excellent SA Cell Conference at Nottingham Arnold Corps last week I was inspired to pick up Bill Beckham's book, "Redefining Revival" again.
Listening on the one hand to the pessimism of some about the state of the world and the church and the bury your head in the sand, let's pretend everything will be alright on the night crowd on the other it is easy to lose a true perspective.
This is what Bill Beckham says:
A portion of the church believes a final apocalyptic solution is the only hope for the church of the 21st century. This worldview is driven by apocalyptic paranoia that manifests itself in pessimism.
The population numbers alarm them. The evil they see in the world overwhelms them. Technological advances worry them. Future scientific discoveries threaten them. The possibility of persecution frightens them. The weakness of the church discourages them. They seek solutions outside of the church in politics, the mass media and apocalyptic predictions. They feel that God will remove the church from an impossible, dangerous and potentially embarrassing situation for the church.
I also believe in the final solution to history will be apocalyptic when Christ returns in triumph. However, Christians have often made mistaks in interpeting history because of an unhealthy fixation on dates, a narrow view of the world and pessimism about the church. An obsession with evil rather than a passion about Christ's mission in the world always distorts the historical perspective of the church. Therefore a theology of escape from the world replaces Christ's theology of Kingdom mission in the world."
posted by Rehoboth at
12:28 PM
1 Comments:
Carol thank you for blogging this -I will buy this book (even though I don't tend to read anything published later than 1920!)
This sentiment is spot on! No evangelist would ever pray "Amen, even so come quickly Lord' but would much rather cry out that God would be patient so that we get the maximum people into heaven possible.
I enjoy your blogs - keep 'em coming!
By
Andrew Bale, at 3:43 PM
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