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Contra_Mundum · #5 (**permalink**) 06-28-2007, 08:23 PM

Sad, but unsurprising, given the fall.

Remember,
We in the Christian community are--as long as this world endures--involved in a mission of maintenance and resuscitation on a dying world.

Whether the fools (in biblical parlance) giving direction ever realize it (during their lifetimes), their incoherent world-views cannot sustain "scientific" progress, or any identifiable "progression" of whatever-comes-next (postmodernism, or magic, or ...?). The tensions must become unbearable, and their whole jury-rigged civilization shall break down. This is inevitable (and inductively verifiable--just look at history) because this is God's world, and not the fairy-tale world of atheistic or idolatrous minds.

People like these lawyers and proposers of legislative and tyrannical coersion mindlessly undermine the very foundation on which they stand. They have convinced themselves that today's staus is solely the triumph of atheism over religion, especially Christianity. And only additional supppression will ensure "scientific" hegemony. <Incidentally, how is this attitude ANY DIFFERENT from the religious, coercive hegemonies of the past? Answer: it isn't.> But this philosophical materialist/naturalist view only has no permanent foundation. And those whose intellect urges them on to consistent expressions of their basic beliefs will ultimately find their credo, as expressed in Scripture: "All those who hate me, love death."

I see and understand the Christian's frustration over the collapse of western civilization. After all, we live in the midst of it, so we are affectionate for it. How much more urgent, then, for us to self-consciously regard those ties as temporary, destined to be renovated in a new (and better) heaven and earth.

For another reason, we the church have invested in those acts of maintenance and resuscitation for 2000 years, and we have a natural instict and desire to see those things remain. But we have to remember that Jesus is in charge, and in his wisdom he comes through and he sets fire to the vineyard (or a portion of it) in one generation. "Why is he doing this?" we insist on knowing. While we can't fully answer that, we can say that the former labors were not in vain; and furthermore, that future exercises of his people in maintenance and resuscitation will bear even greater fruits.

Observe: how that this passing-away world is a proving ground for a future seen now only through a glass, darkly. Our efforts are not wasted, or foolish. But they are not destined to remain in the forms of which we invest them. What is unseen--the effort itself, the knowledge, the investment--those we shall take as our inheritance into glory, not the institutions or the treasury or the edifices.

What else can we make of the end of Rome? Of Byzantium? Of the rapidly disappearing labors of Charlemagne, or Alfred? Christian triumphs were won in those days of yore. But in their passing, we do not lament the men and women, as if they worked all in vain. But then consider how what they accomplished reverberated through the ages.

I'm only saying that while we work in the dayllight (for night is coming) we consider more what our labors are preparing us for beyond this life, and what effects they are having in a small compass (not the big picture, which we will not see well until much, much later). We have significant work of maintenance and resuscitation to perfom. Just be faithful with little. Rejoice that Jesus sits unmoved upon his heavenly throne. It's OK to be frustrated and grieved by the evil men do, or attempt. Just don't stop there. Continue to work and pray. Don't fret about "that other guy" (to his own Master he either stands or falls). Ultimately your success is completely independent of his achievements, or lack therof.

And if Jesus tarries, you can be confident there will be positive temporal, as well as eternal, results that flow unhindered through the trainwreck that is fallen humanity's godless tumble.