Indie Kids Rejoice!
"Here is the very short version: The unseen world, the real world, the kingdom of God, the alternative world all around us and in us....is bleeding through all over us......"
"If you can't see the kingdom of God bleeding through then maybe you are looking in the wrong places. You won't find them writing about it in the newspapers. However, if your eyes are open, you can see it in magazines, movies, songs, friendships and loveships. The world will not end with a great noise and fire. It will end as it has been ending: the undoing of one stupid idea at a time."
The above is a snippet from a Lenny Smith blog post (if you want to read the whole thing, scroll down to the post titled "Tell it like it is!"), one of the most enjoyable, [very] short presentations of an optimistic eschatology that I have read in a long time. It is all the more pleasing because the words are coming from a man that has used his life to build beautiful Christian cultural artifacts (songs), and, in addition, to pass on this culture-crafting to his seed.
Lenny Smith is the father of the Danielson Famile, childhood acquaintances (or so I'm told) of Sarah Johnson (nee Evans), progeny of the Donut Man.
"Life without Jesus is like a donut, cause there's a hole in the middle of your heart."
"Here is the very short version: The unseen world, the real world, the kingdom of God, the alternative world all around us and in us....is bleeding through all over us......"
"If you can't see the kingdom of God bleeding through then maybe you are looking in the wrong places. You won't find them writing about it in the newspapers. However, if your eyes are open, you can see it in magazines, movies, songs, friendships and loveships. The world will not end with a great noise and fire. It will end as it has been ending: the undoing of one stupid idea at a time."
The above is a snippet from a Lenny Smith blog post (if you want to read the whole thing, scroll down to the post titled "Tell it like it is!"), one of the most enjoyable, [very] short presentations of an optimistic eschatology that I have read in a long time. It is all the more pleasing because the words are coming from a man that has used his life to build beautiful Christian cultural artifacts (songs), and, in addition, to pass on this culture-crafting to his seed.
Lenny Smith is the father of the Danielson Famile, childhood acquaintances (or so I'm told) of Sarah Johnson (nee Evans), progeny of the Donut Man.
"Life without Jesus is like a donut, cause there's a hole in the middle of your heart."
posted by trawlerman at 6:55 PM
1 Comments:
Are most Reformed amillenialists or post-millenialists and is there a big overlap between those two terms (as they can be used loosely)?
What constitutes an "optimistic" eschatology? I don't see a progressive increase of peace and prosperity and purity and the reign of Christ breaking out all around us. I see the greatest heresy the Church has ever faced sweeping many away from the Faith. I don't see what Lenny sees as the Kingdom in Western "culture" (magazines, movies songs, friendships) and I see "loveships" scuttled for "lustships".
Is it fair to lable any other eschatological position other than post-millenialism as pessimistic?
Pete | 12.31.04 - 9:43 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I must admit that eschatology is my weak point and I need to read more.
From my limited reading it seems that one Catholic view is that there may or may not be a Minor Chastisement (depending on whether or not many Christians repent an do penance and reconcile themselves back to God). This great repentance or the Minor Chastisement will usher in an Age of Peace where most men will submit themselves to Christ. In this great Age of peace and prosperity man will again become lax and apathetic and again turn from God to the Flesh. This will in turn lead to a great Tribulation which will end with the return of Christ as King and Judge in a final and glorious victory over Satan and evil.
This is one interpretation, there is a lot of wiggle room here though. I can't really comment too much because I need to learn more.
Pete | 12.31.04 - 9:58 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, Sarah knew them a bit. We went to one of their concerts, it was good.
I think their Father is an ex-priest and their mother is an ex-nun (ex- probably in the wake of the post-VII "Revolution").
Pete | 12.31.04 - 10:06 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the Savior's advent in our midst, not only does idolatry no longer increase, but it is getting less and gradually ceasing to be. Similarly, not only does the wisdom of the Greeks no longer make any progress, but that which used to be is disappearing. And demons, so far from continuing to impose on people by their deceits and oracle-givings and sorceries, are routed by the sign of the cross if they so much as try. On the other hand, while idolatry and everything else that opposes the faith of Christ is daily dwindling and weakening and falling, the Savior's teaching is increasing everywhere! Worship, then, the Savior "who is above all" and mighty, even God the Word, and condemn those who are being defeated and made to disappear by Him. When the sun has come, darkness prevails no longer; any of it left anywhere is driven away. So also, now that the Divine epiphany of the Word of God has taken place, the darkness of idols prevails no more, and all parts of the world in every dir
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:50 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the sun has come, darkness prevails no longer; any of it left anywhere is driven away. So also, now that the Divine epiphany of the Word of God has taken place, the darkness of idols prevails no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are enlightened by His teaching.
Athanasius
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:51 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life- a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all of its confidence to-day. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.
-C.S. Lewis, from his intro to On the Incarnation.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 11:55 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smith never equates the Kingdom of God with various media. He says that, if you look properly, with Kingdom eyes, you can see the Kingdom of God "bleeding through." The Kingdom of God is not limited to the Church if all one thinks of by Church is a building and worship. However, if one thinks of the Church as the called-out ones, the covenant people of the triune God, then this Kingdom includes culture, it includes everything that Christians do, and Christians are called to transform culture, as the New Humanity, with the New Culture. Jesus is King of everything, including movies, magazines, music. There is no "secular" occupation. You are either a Christian policeman or a pagan policeman. A Christian podiatrist or a pagan podiatrist.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:23 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's also valid to make a claim that the Gospel can be evidenced in an episode of Babylon 5, or a Ween song. Pagans do sometimes pick up crumbs from the Lord’s Table. You see loveships scuttled for lustships. Well, so do I. The question is, then, are you going to settle for the depravity of lustships that you see around you and despair, or will you focus and meditate on the true expressions of love, and maybe, perhaps, express some yourself. The real beauty of Lenny Smith is that he's not oblivious to the manifest evils around him. Yet he chooses "Rejoice!" And he has passed that on to his children, who loudly proclaim through their music, every time they play in a dingy little bar, that they are at war with the culture, even as they respect and steal what is good about it, even as they proclaim that there is an alternative culture, the Kingdom of God, that subsumes everything else.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:24 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you even read the rest of Smith's post? Nowhere does he argue for a la-de-da everything is alright mentality. He says that "The church should be leading the transformation of all things, but they are not."
He is not willing to settle for a pagan culture, but asserts that the church judges the nations in union with Christ. If the church is not doing its job, we get the contemporary mess that you seem to be willing to settle for. When the church is not leading, someone or something else will. Our current culture is a result of the church's abdication of responsiblity. The answer to this is not to blame the pagans, but to re-establish the church's reign and responsibility.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:38 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The best short introduction to the differences (or lack thereof)between "optimistic amillenialism" and "postmillenialism" is found in David Chilton's commentary on the Apocalypse, Days of Vengeance. If I can find the section today, I'll think about posting it here. There is also a camp of amillenialists that have nothing to do whatsoever with optimism, bascially (and this may be a caricature) holding to a cyclical (is that a word?) view of history in which things end rather bad. Many self-labled posties are actually optimistic amils, because they don't hold to a literal thousand years, agreeing with the amils that this passage is figurative, standing for the entire time of the Gospel Age.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 12:44 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a decent debate between two reformed guys, one a postie, the other an amil.
Douglas Jones vs. Lee Irons
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 1:00 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>"This Kingdom includes culture, it includes everything that Christians do, and Christians are called to transform culture, as the New Humanity, with the New Culture. Jesus is King of everything, including movies, magazines, music."
>>>"Pagans do sometimes pick up crumbs from the Lord’s Table."
>>>"Are you going to settle for the depravity of lustships that you see around you and despair, or will you focus and meditate on the true expressions of love, and maybe, perhaps, express some yourself."
I agree with all this.
P.J. | 12.31.04 - 10:02 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> "We get the contemporary mess that you seem to be willing to settle for."
I disagree with this, as I nowhere stated that I am willing to settle for the current state of affairs. To the contrary, I have a great hope for a renaissance of Christian culture, beginning with my family.
>>>"When the church is not leading, someone or something else will. Our current culture is a result of the church's abdication of responsiblity. The answer to this is not to blame the pagans, but to re-establish the church's reign and responsibility."
Agreed. I think of so many Christians bemoaning the "attack on marriage" and Christian "values" while they allow divorce and birth control and push their wives to work so they have have some kind of material or social "status". Add to the the greatest love, the love of entertainment even when it is most often completely opposed to Christ.
P.J. | 12.31.04 - 10:12 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can the Church glittering and blazing with the golden blood of martyrs as they boldly bear forth Christ in an apostate age ...
Can St. Michael the Archangel casting Satan by the power of Almighty God into the depths of Hell ...
Can the Gospel being preached to every nation tongue and people ...
Can the conversion of many of God's Old Covenant people into the New Covenant ...
Can Christ the King returning in triumph to reconcile all things to himself and setting all things straight, punishing sin and evil and rewarding faithfullness and good ...
Can all this and so much more be dismissed as a "view of history in which things end rather bad". Is any view that rejects the ushering in of a Christian utopia on earth therefore pessimistic?
P.J. | 12.31.04 - 10:27 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you think the breadth and depth of Tradition is in regards to optimistic post-milleniallism? Or does this have as little historic Biblical warrent as pre-mill rapturists? I don't know, thats why I'm asking.
P.J. | 12.31.04 - 10:39 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Church has always recognized that God sent His only begotten Son in order to redeem the world, and that He will be satisfied with nothing less than what He paid for."
-Chilton
Here's the link to Chilton's Days of Vengeance.
The relevant section is pages 515 through 520.
As far as your objections above, read the debate that I linked to above and read Jones' sections to see why, no, the things that you describe are not bad or pessimistic, but they do not fully express how God has redeemed, and is redeeming, his creation. We must rejoice in God's creation, because God does. We are not heavenly minded to the exclusion of the earth, but heavenly minded so that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what we petition for, and this is what we believe shall be.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 12:30 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Many self-labled posties are actually optimistic amils, because they don't hold to a literal thousand years, agreeing with the amils that this passage is figurative, standing for the entire time of the Gospel Age."
John, you lost me here. Is Chilton's position thus? Is yours? Banshen has a small book, 'victory in Jesus', which does a good job of showing the 3 main positions. I believe him and chilton would disagree on this point. From what I remember Banshen writing, which I agree with, is that the NATURE of the mil is at stake, not it's length. Does the text/context support taking 1000 literally?. Maybe I'm all wet, figuratively.
Matt | Email | 01.01.05 - 2:00 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you think the breadth and depth of Tradition is in regards to optimistic amilleniallism? Is it at odds with the Traditional teaching of the Church? Is it at odds with the early Reformers?
P.J. | 01.01.05 - 2:56 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wasn't clear enough. I should add that many optimistic amils, and in fact, all amils, are actually postmillenialists because they hold to the idea that Christ will return after the millenium, not before or during.
Most sane christians of any eschatological stripe (dispies aren't sane) agree that the millenium is now, that the thousand years spoken of in Revelation 20 is not meant to be interpreted literally any more than we are to believe that since God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he does not own those on number 1001.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 2:58 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Pete and Matt both, does anyone ever actually go and read the things that I link to?
Matt, if you would go to the Chilton link above, you would know what his position is, and yes, I am in agreement with what you'll find written in the pages that I refer to. I'm not sure if it differs with Bahnsen's at all, and, if so, how much.
Pete, if you would go to the Chilton link above, you would know that he addresses tradition (albeit briefly) and provides sources for further study in a footnote on page 496, especially in regard to Reformed Tradition.
I do think that the Athanasius quote above is evidence enough of the triumphant attitude that the church should have. If you remember, Athanasius is the one who stood "contra mundum" (of course he wasn't entirely alone). He could have easily concluded that heresy was the order of they day, but that's not the attitude he had.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 3:09 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Gospel will be spread abroad over the seas and the islands in the ocean, and among the people dwelling therein, who are called "the fullness thereof." And that word has been made good. For churches of Christ fill all the islands, and are being multiplied every day, and the teaching of the Word of salvation is gaining accessions.
Hippolytus
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 3:10 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I will shake heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the desired of all nations shall come." The fulfillment of this prophecy is in part already seen, and in part hoped for in the end. For He moved the heaven by the testimony of the angels and the stars, when Christ became incarnate. . . . So we see all nations moved to faith; and the fulfillment of what follows, "And the desired of all nations shall come," is looked for at His last coming. For before men can desire and wait for Him, they must believe and love Him.
Augustine
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 3:11 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certainly, one can find chiliasm (premillenialism) in some of the fathers, all over the place, but Chilton addresses this (briefly) as well and points out that no one has really taken this position seriously since the time of Augustine, in large part due to Augustine's influence as an amillenialist. (except for, of course, our dispy friends, but their real heresy is holding to a dual people of God, not to premillenialism). Matt is right that what's at issue now isn't the length of the millenium, but the nature of it.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 3:18 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did read Chilton, and he really didn't address Tradtion except for an aside on Athanasius. That is why I asked the question again. For sake of discussion I will call the Catholic view postmillenialist and your view "optimistic" postmillenialist.
Anyone can misread the Fathers, especially 15 or 16 centuries removed. I would say if the Catholic Church, the Eastern
Orthodox, and the early Reformers all were postmillenial it would be nigh impossible to claim that they all misread the Fathers and the constant teaching of the Church in regards to eschatology.
If "optimistic" postmillenialism has only been advocated in the last century or two I would say it is pretty suspect on those grounds alone. I'm still not sure when "optimistic" postmillenialism began to be advocated. Any answers?
P.J. | 01.01.05 - 3:24 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't believe that you believe that anyone can misread the fathers! Surely the magisterium cannot misread the fathers!
Postmillenialism is pretty clear in the Reformed confessions:
Q. 191. What do we pray for in the second petition?
A. In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come,) . . . . we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; . . . and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends.
Westminster Larger Catechism
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 4:04 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And in various Reformers. I don't have the quotes in front of me now, but I could get them for you eventually. I think that postmillenialism is fairly clear before the reformation as well. certainly it wasn't the only view, but I do think that it was a valid view and at times the dominant view.
I don't always trust Francis Nigel Lee, so I'm hesitant to link to this, but here is his work on Patristic Postmillenialism
He starts a lot of quoting around page 10.
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 4:09 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, here, because I think that it's a good article, are some words from the Most Holy, Reverend, Pope Douglas Wilson.
Conquering Love
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 4:14 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> "Q. 191. What do we pray for in the second petition?
A. In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come,) . . . . we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; . . . and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends."
I don't find much to disagree with here. The question is to what extent this will occur prior to the Second Coming, and whether anything less than a fully Christianized culture and world should be seen as a failure of the Redemption. A case could be then made that the Redemption was at least a partial failure throughout all of history until the end of time. It seems more consistant that the Redemption has always been victorious and always will be victorious regardless to the degree of Christianization of the world and culture at any point of history up to and including
P.J. | 01.01.05 - 4:48 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think other views other than acceptance of a fully Christianized culture at the end of time can be labelled defeatest or pessimistic.
If the world has been fully Christianized it seems that Christ's second coming is more symbolic and ceremonial. It's a post-victory party and not an actual victory at the end of time. Slap me around and straighten me out here. Why shouldn't I label optimistic postmillenialism as the complete dud of a Second Coming.
P.J. | 01.01.05 - 4:56 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why shouldn't I label optimistic postmillenialism as the complete dud of a Second Coming."
Because that's not what St. Paul thinks. Read 1 Cor 15:24-25
The end comes AFTER he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For he MUST reign UNTIL he has put all his enemies under his feet.
Here's a study (that concludes in my favor, of course) of the verses in question:
Strawbridge
John Owen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.05 - 8:30 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I confess, most often I don't go to your links. But once bitten twice shy. Historically when I've done so it's been Lego Gospel, Nativity Bears or the like. So I'll be brave and read some links tomorrow, especially Holy Father Wilson.
Matt | Email | 01.01.05 - 11:42 pm | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fair enough. I'm still learning here.
I'm at the hospital and will be on the highway to Baltimore in about a half hour. I had to sqeeze one last post out.
Pete | 01.02.05 - 8:29 am | #
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post a Comment
<< Home