C4CC(28): The end of the world (4)

And also the end of the book - at least the end of what I’m going to be putting on this substack! It has been immensely useful to me to share this material here. It’s more than fifteen years old, and whilst I would phrase things differently now, I’m quietly pleased with it. What has been very apparent to me is the origin of the book in talks that were audio-recorded and then transcribed and lightly edited - in other words, this material was originally spoken not written. My written voice is, inevitably, more considered, and that is what I shall be giving more of my time to as time goes on.

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The Christian imagination is not about imagining the apocalypse – that is the worldly vision. The Christian imagination is instead rooted in love. The revelation, the light which is coming in, is about the truth of who we are as created human beings. It is to say: “it doesn’t have to be like this, this world is not set up in the way that God intends us to live; this is not God’s intention.” Instead, the light which is dawning is revealing what God’s intention is, and it exposes the truth about who we are and how we live and therefore it sets us free from these processes. We now have a choice. When Jesus says “I come not to bring peace but a sword”, this is what He is describing. There is a peace in the darkness but now that the light has come there is a necessity of choice. The choice can be painful. There will be a clash between those who turn towards the light and those who stay in the darkness, between those who move towards the light and those who don’t want people to go to the light, because it threatens their comfortable darkness. This is why those who turn to the light will be persecuted. That is the way of the cross.

This is profoundly political in implication. It is about how we live, the choices that we make from day to day. We are called to repent of our present ways, changing our hearts, setting our hearts on the light, turning our hearts away from the darkness and turning to the light. This is why Jesus begins his teaching with these words: “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near, turn your hearts around and believe in the Good News.”

The fundamental claim that roots all of Christian life and behaviour is that the Kingdom has begun. Everything in Christian life is rooted in the Easter morning event. This is the good news, the evangel, that there is a new King (the original evangelists were the heralds sent out after a battle to proclaim that a battle has taken place, there has been a victory, and now there is a new King. Paul takes up this language and uses it to talk about Jesus). The whole point of being a Christian is to live under this new King, for the Kingdom is breaking into the world here and now. It is not something that will be accomplished all at once at the end of time (that is apocalypse), it is something which is beginning, and now we are engaged in this process of starting to live by the rules of the Kingdom.

That is what the Church is called to be. The Church is that community which lives by the rules of the Kingdom. The Church consists of all those who accept that Jesus is Lord – that God is in charge, that His purposes will be accomplished. It is not up to us to achieve the salvation of the world, for the world already has been saved. We do not have to save the world, but we do have to live in the belief that it has been saved. We are resident aliens, immigrants within the secular world, who have ways of life which don’t belong to the world but which belong to the Kingdom, which is coming but not fully here yet. So our ways of life, our hearts, are set upon a different Kingdom, which we long for and which we hope for. The crucial thing about Christian hope is that it is rooted in a decision, a settled will. It is not that we feel hopeful. Christian hope is not a feeling; it doesn’t rest upon our emotional make-up. It is a decision to act according to this information about the new King. It is a judgement, an expression of wisdom; it is a decision and a way of life. It is not an internal emotional state. It is also the principal expression of Christian faith for our time. Just as the Hebrews in Exile gained a greater understanding of God through their crisis, so too will our understandings of God be refined through ours. God is present in our suffering.

I believe that the church is at a critical juncture. It has provided the spiritual backbone and scaffolding for Western society for 2,000 years but that structure has slowly dissolved over the last few hundred years, setting the context for our present crisis. If Western culture has anything worth preserving then it shall fall to the church to ensure that those good things persist into the future. The scale of the disaster which is overtaking our civilisation will likely sweep away the majority of the institutions that we presently take for granted, most especially including the centralised state. Although it will almost certainly have to change in response to circumstances, the church will remain.

My hope is that if we do, we can ensure that the Dark Ages that have begun do not last for the many centuries that our predecessors suffered through. Having started this chapter with one science fiction novel, I would end with another. In Asimov's 'Foundation' sequence Hari Seldon – a scientist who perceives what is happening as his superficially flourishing society enters into decline – takes steps to establish a 'Foundation' – a place wherein understanding and knowledge can be preserved, in order that the Dark Ages might be shorter. Our task is a similar one, and it is one that must be taken forward by each local church community engaging with and enabling the transition that our culture has to make beyond the collapse of industrial civilisation.

This may seem an immensely daunting task. It is – it is certainly more than any individual could hope to achieve, but that shows up one of the flaws in our present thinking. We do not need a new great individual, whether that be St Benedict or anyone else. Christians already acknowledge one Messiah, we do not need another. What we need is a willingness to set our own personal ambitions and desires to one side in order to serve a larger and higher purpose. We do not need a sculptor ready to create new objects which can then be reproduced throughout the world. That is still to worship the idol of individualism. No, what we need is to remember a better path from our past. For we are in the business of building cathedrals – and it may well be that neither my children nor my children's children will live to see the cathedral completed – and yet, this is good and holy work, done for the Glory of God.

Let us get on with the task of building our cathedrals of justice, forgiveness and kindness in our communities, and walking humbly alongside the Lord, who is with us, letting Him teach us what it means to be human.

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29.11)