What About the End?

What are we here for? This question has plagued human beings for millenia. I ran across the blog of Michael Kruse today, with a reflection on just that question.

He also links to the faculty journal of Austin Theological Seminary, Insight. The Spring 2005 edition focuses on how many Presbyterians have avoided asking the question concerning the end of time. Kruse says that the journal has some excellent articles, and I would agree. I will be reading these articles carefully over the next few weeks.

Many of my Presbyterian colleagues do not like thinking about eschatology, or "end imes". I am not sure why. Kruse thinks that we are too focused on the "here and now", and that may be true. There is more to the Christian life than accepting Jesus and then waiting around to go to heaven.

Still, the popularity of the "Left Behind" series (70+ million copies sold), and of dispensationalism in Protestant churches has many Presbyterians feeling, pardon the pun, "left behind."

My own experience in this was as a new Christian. I had given my life to Christ, surrendered, actually, in June 1976. I was given a New American Standard Bible (NASB) by my good friend, Mark Calcagno, and I read it voraciously. I also read a two volume book on the Gospel of Mark by Ray Stedman, pastor of the Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto. I think they were called, "The King Who Serves" and "The Servant Who is King" or something like that. It had a profound influence on my thinking about Jesus and about the Bible.

The other book I read early on was "The Late, Great Planet Earth" by Hal Lindsay. It detailed Lindsay's take on the events surrounding the "end times", which were soon to occur. Millions bought the book, and took the message to heart. The church raptured. The rise of the anti-Christ. The tribulation period. The battle of Armageddon. The glorious appearing of Jesus Christ. I read it with awe and wonder.

I also read it with a view that the man was trying to sell something. I had not read my Bible long, nor all that carefully, but it just seemed to me then that the current events Lindsay described fit too neatly with the obscure biblical prophecies he cited. I read it. I gave it back to the friend who lent it to me.

It was only later that I studied about the classic Christian positions on the end times: amillenialism, pre-millenialism, and post-millenialism, with dispensationalism a special variant of pre-millenialism. I once heard a pastor say, "I, myself, am a pan-millenialist. I believe that it will all pan out in the end."

Still, Kruse is right. With no clear vision of the future, the present is not as compelling, and it is easy to get lost in the day to day affairs we must deal with.