In a recent post last week, I started a line of thought about beliefs and political ideals, noting that I have long believed God planned humanity to have a diversity of views. I didn’t think I would ever finish it, thinking nobody would care, but the topic seems to have stimulated discussion, so I’ll plug along.
I’m having second thoughts about my beliefs based on the idea that there might not be any grand theme in the Bible, and if there is, it is wrong. Not just that the Bible is not inspired in the infallible sense that fundamentalists use it to justify clinging to ancient superstitions, or that there is some great mysterious truth behind the myths, as liberals like to say — just that it is a book created by well-meaning people trying to understand a confusing world.
I don’t want to bog down a blog billed as “cool” with theology, but it is clear reading the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) that a main theme is that God favored the Israelite people and planned to install them — led by a prophet with the office of Messiah (Christ) — as rulers of the earth. I imagine that thought would have comforted a people used to being attacked and forced into subservience by powerful empires.
Christianity teaches that the entire Bible was inspired, but it also teaches that the Jews were wrong because A) the Messiah is God and not a human and B) the real Kingdom is in “heaven” and not a political kingdom on earth. The problem is that the evidence inidicates that Jesus and his disciples clearly believed the Jewish ideas. Christian beliefs to the contrary can only be found by picking out odd verses from different books.
Taking the New Testament books as a whole, it is clear that Jesus and his disciples believed that they were going to be involved in the glorious return of God in their lifetime. In the beginning of the book of Acts, the resurrected Jesus teaches for 40 days about the coming kingdom, and the disciples only recorded question is “when?”
Peter said in his first book “the end is near” and Paul gave people practical tips for an ancient version of Y2K. In the books they wrote just before they died, they changed their tune. For example, in his second book, Peter said to ignore those who scoffed at the idea of the end of the world, even though such talk had been wrong. His famous explanation was that “a day with the Lord is like a thousand years,” evidence that spin is not a modern invention!
So does the Bible have any meaning today in political discourse? For all their faults, I believe fundamentalists do have a point — if the Bible is not inspired, it is just another book produced by a bunch of Middle Easterners who reflected the culture of a primitive time. I can’t agree with their ability to explain away — or ignore — the mixture of slavery, polygamy, blood sacrifice, genocide, the death penalty for a wide variety of offenses such as homosexuality, oddball dietary laws and worship rituals. However, the fundamentalist view makes just as much sense as that of liberal Christians, who speak of a mystic truth behind what they see as well-written fables, but fables nonetheless.
This post is philosophical and not political — that’s a topic for another day. Obviously, the history I provide here is very sketchy and my conclusion is thinking out loud. But maybe our task is to try and do justice and what is right for people and this planet without having to justify its adherence to the Bible.
I don’t think Jesus ever told his disciples that the earthly kingdom was to happen in the lifetimes of anybody that was present in his audience, except for a cryptic statement about John. His reference to “coming soon” uses the greek word “tacoß” (takh’-os) which means suddenly with the implication of “not much warning,” which does well to explain why Jesus was always telling his disciples to be prepared for His return, but He made no indication that His kingdom could happen either prior to his crucifixion or during the life of the disciples.
If we entertain the notion that Jesus spoke prophetically regarding the kingdom, and that he spoke of things to come, nothing in the text following the Gospels contradicts that. The text does not pinpoint a specific date about the coming kingdom or the end of days, so there’s no way to say that Jesus was incorrect in his prediction of His kingdom.
As far as Peter’s “spin,” maybe he was backing-tracking on his own belief that the end might come during his time, and maybe he already understood that his time wasn’t the same as God’s time. In any event, his quote about a day and a thousand years appears to be a reference to Psalm 90:4.
As for Peter’s Y2K tips… I don’t follow. I see Peter’s statement about the “the end of all things is at hand,” (1 Pet 4:7), but that might just as easily be a statement of the knowledge of coming persecution to Peter’s audience – he follows it up with “rejoice to the extend that you partake of Christ’s sufferings…” which seems to be a clear reference to persecution. Peter was crucified later, so I’m sure that death-by-persecution was a familiar theme for Peter’s audience.