Book Club Discussion: Building God's Kingdom

It’s Monday, so today we continue our discussion on NT Wright’s fascinating book “Surprised by Hope,” in which the Bishop of Durham argues that Christian eschatology should focus less on life after death and more on “life after life after death” - the bodily resurrection of the dead and the reign of Jesus in the redeemed creation. Today I’d like to focus on Wright’s ideas concerning the role of the Church in preparing for this new world.

Competing Theories

Wright does a good job of examining and dismantling several competing theories that have become prevalent in Western Christian thought:

One is the dichotomy between evolutionary optimism (the idea that the world is getting better as people morally evolve) and Platonic escapism (the idea that the world is an entirely evil place from which our souls must escape and which God will completely destroy). Second, is the dichotomy between social gospel (the idea that if we work hard enough we can usher in the Kingdom of God on our own) and giving up (the idea that any attempts at redeeming this world are futile).

I don’t know about you, but most of my evangelical experience has included the teaching that God will ultimately destroy the world and that anyone who thinks the purpose of the Church is to try and fix it is naïve. I’ve seen this sort of theology applied to global warming, (“God is going to destroy the world anyway”), humanitarian aid, (“It’s more important to give people the gospel than to give them food”) and to social justice, (“Just let God straighten it out in eternity”).

While I’ve become disillusioned with this approach, I’ve also found the evolutionary optimism/ social gospel route to be discouraging because, as Wright suggests, “it will never solve evil retrospectively…(and it) underestimates the nature and power of evil itself…”

So when Jesus says that we should pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven,” what does He mean? And is Paul being a bit too hopeful when he  urges believers to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”?

Central to Wright’s response is 1) his understanding of the Kingdom of Heaven, and 2) his insistence that with the resurrected Christ is Lord.

The Kingdom of Heaven

Wright looks at the Kingdom of Heaven this way: “God’s kingdom in the preaching of Jesus refers not to postmortem destiny, not to our escape from this world into another one, but to God’s sovereign rule coming ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’…Heaven, in the Bible is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life-God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” (18-19)

The story of Jesus, he writes, is “the story of God’s kingdom being launched on earth as it is in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus’ followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice.”

Jesus is Lord

Wright is also convinced that Jesus is Lord of this new Kingdom.

“…The gospel, in the New Testament, is the good news that God (the world’s creator) is at last becoming king and that Jesus, whom this God raised from the dead, is the world’s true lord.” (227)

Wright then addresses the question I immediately found myself asking:

“But how can the church announce that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil, corruption, and death itself have been defeated, and that God’s new world has begun? Doesn’t this seem laughable? Well, it would be if it wasn’t happening. But if a church is…actively involved in seeking justice in the world, both globally and locally, and if it’s cheerfully celebrating God’s good creation…and if, in addition, its own internal life gives every sign that new creation is indeed happening, generating a new type of community-then suddenly the announcement makes a lot of sense.” (227)

Building for the Kingdom by Following Jesus as Lord

This brings us to Wright’s response to the objection that working for social justice is an attempt to build the kingdom by our own efforts:

“Let’s be quite clear on two points. First, God builds God’s kingdom. But God ordered his world in such a way that his own work within that world takes place not least through one of his creatures in particular, namely, the human beings who reflect his image…He has enlisted us to act as his stewards in the project of creation…So the objection about us trying to build God’s kingdom by our own efforts, though it seems humble and pious, can actually be a way of hiding from responsibility, of keeping one’s head well down when the boss is looking for volunteers…” (207).

Wright believes that while we are presently involved in building the kingdom, it will not come to complete fruition until the Second Coming of Christ.

I suppose my question is this: Do you think that the Church is meant to simply be a picture of this future kingdom or do you think that it is meant to help inaugurate this future kingdom? Do we get into tricky territory when we start talking about the lordship of Christ, with His followers being, (as Wright puts it), “agents of that authority”? Hasn’t that attitude led to some big mistakes in history-like the Crusades, for example?  Or does this cease to be a problem when we properly understand the fact that participating in this kingdom means loving others as we love ourselves, with the expectation that God will be the one to ultimately join the kingdom of heaven with the earth?


unorthodoxology
Comment
Re: Book Club Discussion: Building God's Kingdom
Reply #1 on : Mon June 23, 2008, 15:23:43
"The story of Jesus, he writes, is “the story of God’s kingdom being launched on earth as it is in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus’ followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice.”"

I don't see how this differs significantly from the portrait you painted earlier of the Social Gospel movement. I don't mean that as a bad thing either. I just think that folks like to demonize the Social Gospel movement so that their embrace of "missional" living seems like something new, not a discovery of something mainliners have been embracing for years.

"Properly understood" faith never ceases to be a problem, because the moment we think we have it figured out is the moment we set ourselves apart as authorities in a position to condemn and berate others.

I do this often. :)
Micah
Comment
Good stuff
Reply #2 on : Tue June 24, 2008, 13:36:13
Glad to see you're enjoying Wright, Rachel. I like him a lot.
Kedric
Comment
Points of comparison
Reply #3 on : Wed June 25, 2008, 10:59:17
In his talk at Flagler College last year, a question was asked how what Wright was advocating in his talk ("Paul's Jewish Gospel for a Gentile World") would compare to the social gospel movement of the 20th century. While he did not profess to be an expert on that aspect of history, he did say the main difference is that the church and the Christian does not build the kingdom of God but rather builds FOR the kingdom of God.

This has the subtle but clear meaning that humans do not make up the rules. The un-supernatural German piety of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which still affects much of Christiandom today, simply won't do. Anyone reading Wright's book can see the clear placement he is putting on the testimony of the scriptures of the resurrection of Christ and its implications. One cannot advocate--at least in my mind--a social justice (or gospel) that downplays this event by saying such a thing did not happen, and yet claim to be a part of the Christian church. If the resurrection is downplayed, then the Genesis 1 passages about humans being made in the image of God now have little power. (Just to be clear, I am not talking about any person on this blog.)

There are organizations that advocate the incarnational living approach that I believe is the (dare I say it?) true social gospel. Two of them are

Common Ground Montgomery started by (BK!) Bryan Kelly - http://www.cgmal.org

Desire Street Ministries founded by Mo Leveritt and continues through Danny Wuerffel -
http://www.desirestreet.org/new/danny.php

Another comment by the good bishop that Rachel quotes is very familiar to me:

<i>Wright believes that while we are presently involved in building the kingdom, it will not come to complete fruition until the Second Coming of Christ.</i>

This is basically the common two-age view of the New Testament. The Age to Come is now and not yet, but it is overcoming the Present Age. I believe this happens through the ministry (key word) of the church. As long as we keep the idea of ministry and service grounded in what the scriptures paint for us, we don't have to worry about anything like a Crusades. That's a complex issue all its own.

Wright's comment is also similar to what I learned in my grad studies. It is the acronym ICC.

God has Inaugurated his kingdom, his reign, through the ministry of his Son. The kingdom's Continuation happens through the ministry of the church, God's Spirit-filled temple. The kingdom's Consummation occurs at the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. No more mourning, crying, death or pain (probably because there is no more injustice because God's true justice is in place).

Though this post is long-winded (I apologize), I think a quote from Geerhardus Vos in his Biblical Theology illustrates the ICC:

"[There is a] historical-progressive character of the religion of revelation. In it the all-important thing is that God has acted in the past, is acting in the present and promises to act in the future. Those who live under it always look back into the past, that is to say, their piety has a solid basis of tradition. Even when desiring to make progress they do not believe in the possibility of real, healthy progress without continuity with the past; they love and revere what has gone before, and dare to criticize the present in the light of the past, as well as in the light of reason, where it is necessary. Their contentedness is not of the superficial kind, such as would interfere with profound expectation from the future. At the same time they do not depend for the progress in the future on their own acquired potencies or powers, but on the same supernatural interposition and activity of God, which have produced the present out of the past. Biblical religion is thoroughly eschatological in its outlook."
unorthodoxology
Comment
thanks..
Reply #4 on : Wed June 25, 2008, 13:33:39
That is actually quite helpful. I appreciate you spelling that out so clearly. No one has been able to do that for me yet. They just malign the social gospel and go on to talk about how we should do social justice. It never made much sense to me.

So, the issue has more to do with the modern project of stripping the supernatural from Christianity than the actual social gospel itself. It seems like a major difference is in eschatology, which I think is always a bit speculative.

I think I would argue with some of Wright's characterizations of the movement. I thumbed through his latest book and some of his others and found a lot of resonance with people like Walter Rauschenbausch who started the SG movement. I think their similarities are greater than their differences.

Of course, I would argue that the end result of both positions is pretty much the same.

Thanks again for the clarity.
Kedric
Comment
Social Gospel
Reply #5 on : Wed June 25, 2008, 20:14:20
I should be the first to point out my lack of knowledge of the history of the social gospel movement and Walter Rauschenbausch. I should not automatically assume that social gospel = antisupernatural. If anything, those latter terms are anti-thetical.

But yes, the stripping away of the supernatural aspect of Christianity, while still trying to keep some of the language and piety, that began about 150 years ago is what I laying out. If anything, Social Gospel should shout toward a supernatural source, a "well every one knows that" kind of thing. What is imporant is knowing Whose good news it is.

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