Introducing...

Andrew Christopher Knox!

Born Sunday, January 10, 2010, at 10:32 PM
8 lb. 4 oz., 20.5 in.

Mama and baby are healthy and off to a great start. Thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes! We will let you know when we are ready to receive visitors.

Marvelous are the works of the Lord!

Christmas present and future

Merry Christmas!

Meggan and I are in Waupun today. It's a beautiful white Christmas outside, with an extra ice storm last night to make things interesting. We had Ben-and-Meggan Christmas on Monday morning; weather permitting, we will get to celebrate Christmas with many of our different extended families over the next few days. We've been participating in "Advent Conspiracy" through our church, which has dropped our stress levels a little, refocused our attention on the Lord's coming, reminded us of the needs of the world around us, and included some fun crafting for gifts. (Look out, family!) We are content, blessed, and significantly ready to have the baby. (Look at my pretty preggo princess!!!) Being pregnant gives advent a fresh poignancy - it sometimes feels like we're traveling along with Mary and Joseph towards parenthood. Songs about the joys that come with a certain baby have a double entendre for us.

I love my families. I feel so deeply blessed to have them, besides being particularly fortunate to like them (most of the time =-P). Up until the point of writing this, I've mostly been avoiding thinking about the idea that we'll probably be off in Spain next year. One's life journey is a curious thing - when I first became passionate about global ministry, I was a single male college student, eager to participate in God's mission to save the world, ready to make whatever sacrifice might be necessary. It was almost a foregone conclusion for me that this would involve leaving the U.S. I knew that would be bittersweet, but when you're 20, male, and loving college life, (1) you think it would be worth anything to pursue your passions, and (2) you're in the one season of your life where you feel like you could live a happy life apart from your family of origin. Besides, what passion could be more worthy than the gospel? The Lord's promise to his servants seems black and white - trust his words; follow wherever he leads; don't let the Christian subculture's family-first message dilute the Lord's prophetic call; go serve where servants are deeply needed.

Inevitably, my perspective has evolved over time. I still believe a lot of that stuff... but there are way more shades of gray than there used to be. I have a deepened desire to maintain faithful connections with my family members, both on principle and on a heart level. My strongest connections with my brothers and sisters in Christ do not naturally feel as enduring as my connections with my brothers and sister. Supernaturally, the family of Christ will surely endure, but I can't help seeing the world both ways, for better and/or worse. Puedo esperar por "abuelos, tíos, y primos" que van a venir con nosotros cuando criamos nuestro hijo en España, but I know there are grandparents, uncles, aunt, and cousins right here in the Midwest who will always be here for us, wherever we go.

Nevertheless, we do have family to look forward to in Spain. We will be part of a local church family, as always, but the people who will probably feel most like family will be our WorldVenture Spain family. This won't be a replacement for family, but we're praying and believing they will become a new family for us. We will love one another faithfully, but as far as Meggan and I can tell, we'll also probably like each other, A LOT, the vast majority of the time.

So, Lord willing, we will spend next Christmas with...

¡Los Gudeman! Ed and Sheryl, with their son Mark (off at school), their daughters Angel and Nikki, and their dog Navi. The Gudemans will be our veteran missionary coaches in Madrid, and probably our babysitters from time to time.

¡Los Anderson! Dan and Eva, with their boys Manuel and David. The Andersons are our Spain field leaders. Dan grew up as a missionary kid in Papua New Guinea, and Eva is the only native Spaniard on the team.

¡Los Larson! Our fellow Coloradans, we met Brian and Cassie for lunch before we left Denver. We had a wonderful time with them and their two boys. We and the Larsons are two of five missionary family units currently raising support to join the Spain team. All of us hope to be there within the next year.

¡Los Laky! Bill and Gina will be the team coasties (from New Jersey/Philadelphia). In our online team conversations, Bill is building a reputation as a goofball. (I already consider myself an unofficial member of his fan club. If it doesn't exist, I'm unofficially starting it.)

¡Los Reeser! Chad and Julie hope to be involved in church planting and theological education. They will probably be the first of the new units to arrive in Madrid, sometime in early spring.

¡Theresa Hodge! Theresa will be working with other WorldVenture ministries in southern Spain. She flies very soon - January 12!!!

As hard as it will be to leave, we are so thankful for our WorldVenture Spain family-to-be.

Christ the Lord has come to us this day, in the humble garb of infant flesh. He is coming again to make all things new.

Pro-life argument in the form of systematic logic

I just crafted the following argument for a facebook conversation, and I would like outside input. In particular, I'm wondering if my friends & acquaintances who are trained philosophers could help me find the technical holes in my formal argument. I know I'm not the first to put something like this together, and I certainly won't be the last... but, it was fun!

Argument in favor of pro-life legislation in the United States
1. Our nation promises all humans the right to life and liberty. (Axiom, from the Declaration of Independence)
2. The right to life qualifies all other rights. (Axiom, implied by the Declaration of Independence)
This is the only statement I'll elaborate on just a bit. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness are to be granted to U.S. citizens in that order - that is to say, when there is a conflict between one person's life and another person's liberty, the claimant on life has the legal right. You and I have liberty, but that liberty is qualified by the state in important ways - I am not allowed to murder you, and vice versa.
3. The right to liberty is one of those "other rights." (Follows from #1)
4. One person's right to live qualifies each other person's right to liberty. (Follows from #2 & #3)
4a. Each person's right to liberty does not include any right to infringe upon any other person's right to live. (Restatement of #4)
5. A nation that promises rights should defend those rights with the rule of law. (Axiom, probably from Plato's Republic or some other classic I've never read)
6. Our nation should defend the human right to life with the rule of law. (Follows from #1 & #5)
7. Our nation should defend the human right to liberty with the rule of law. (Follows from #1 & #5)
8. Our nation's defense of the human right to liberty should not include any right to infringe upon any other person's right to life. (Follows from #4a & #7)
9. A woman's choice to receive an abortion in any case where her own life is not in mortal danger is a matter of liberty. (Axiom, from the definition of liberty)
10. If a fetus is a human, s/he has a right to life. (Follows from #1)
11. If a fetus is a human, s/he has a right to life that qualifies each other person's right to liberty. (Follows from #4 & #10)
12. The mother of any fetus is in the category of "each other person." (Axiom, from the definition of person)
13. If a fetus is a human, s/he has a right to life that supersedes and qualifies her/his mother's right to liberty. (Follows from #11 & #12)
14. A fetus is a human from the point of conception. (Separate scientific and logical argument, alluded to above)
15. A fetus has a right to life that qualifies her/his mother's right to liberty. (Follows from #13 & #14)
16. Our nation should defend a fetus's right to life with the rule of law. (Follows from #6 & #14)
17. Our nation should defend a mother's right to liberty with the rule of law. (Follows from #7 & #12)
18. Our nation's defense of a mother's right to liberty should not include any right to infringe upon her fetus's right to life. (Follows from #8, #16, & #17)
19. Our nation should defend, with the rule of law, a fetus's right to life from her/his mother's choice to receive an abortion in any case where the mother's life is not in mortal danger. (Follows from #9, #16, & #18)

Will Ferrell as a third culture kid?

There are a lot of Christmas movies out there - some good, some not, some classic, some goofy, some cheesy, some highly irreverent. Odds are you have a favorite, maybe "A Charlie Brown Christmas" or "It's a Wonderful Life." Meggan and I? No buts about it, our favorite is "Elf." Will Ferrell is hilarious, and unlike most of his stuff, it's clean. Good plot, good comedy, good pick-me-up, nothing raunchy. An all-around fun flick.

We put it in the DVD player this week, and a whole new way to see the movie opened up for me: Elf is basically a third culture kid.

What is a third culture kid, or TCK? TCKs are kids who grow up between two cultures. Their parents are expatriates, living in a culture other than their home culture. Oftentimes TCKs don't really "fit" in the country where they live or their parents' home country. The two cultures combine to create a "third culture" (hence the name). A TCK of Nigerian parents raised in Germany would quite possibly feel like she has more in common with a TCK of Canadian parents raised in Brazil than she does with anyone from either Nigeria or Germany. In our world today, third culture kids come from military families, government diplomats' families, international business families, and ... missionary families. If we stay in Spain long-term, our kids will be TCKs.

So, how is Buddy the Elf a TCK? On the surface, the movie is about adoption. Will Ferrell's character, Buddy, is a human who crawls into Santa's sack as a baby in an orphanage. He is adopted by an elf father and raised at the North Pole. However, with the differences between elves and humans, Buddy's situation ends up more like that of a TCK than that of an adopted child. He cannot perform basic elf tasks at the level of the elves around him, and he stands out as the different kid. Some of his differences are useful, but many make him a misfit. When he returns to New York City, the same thing happens - he doesn't function like a normal human being. He has been raised in a perpetually upbeat culture, and he subsists on a diet of various forms of sugar. He commits some serious cultural blunders that any born-and-raised New Yorker would not make. He also has some skills that no New Yorker can match - his energy and ability for crafts and play, while sub-elf, are superhuman. He is an unparalleled bridge between the two worlds, and that becomes a great thing.

So this Christmas, as we expect our first child who will probably be a TCK, "Elf" takes on fresh emotional significance for me. When I see him doing things no one else can do, I glow with a hint of expectant pride. When I see his sorrow at feeling like he doesn't belong anywhere, I ache just a bit. And theologically, when I think of the day in the renewed heaven-on-earth to come at the end of the age, I rest in knowing that we will all feel as though we have come home.

If you've never seen "Elf," go watch it! If you like "Elf," watch it again and look for this theme. If you have personal knowledge of TCKs, take a look and let me know of any parallels you see that I haven't mentioned.

(Photo credits - Flickr user Positively Puzzled)

Social pressures and following Jesus

How is it that I am who I am, where I am, doing what I am? Why am I following Jesus rather than the American dream? How did I get here? How did you get where you are, and how did the dude next door get where he is? How did I come to make the good decisions I made? What about the bad ones? Where is God's pursuit of me evident in my story? Where are my autonomous choices?

... and how much of it all really just comes from social realities?

Here's the thing. I've been seeing a smattering of good things and bad things happening in the lives of people around me lately. Nothing new to that. But as I get to know their stories, I can't help but feel that the different social pressures each of us face end up shaping more than I might care to admit.

This isn't unexpected, I suppose. And it's not that God, the devil, and personal autonomy are ever removed from the situation. Everybody's present all up in there together. I guess it just feels like the social side is a tad overwhelming in the lives of people around me these days, to the extent that the other factors can seem like puppets in the social game.

My reflections here are motivated by some new tension I'm experiencing. For a while now, I've thought there were three main schools of thought in the church for instructing Christians on who we should be socially:
(1) No school of thought. People just live their lives and run into whomever and do whatever and that's it. It's sad, but lots of people live unexamined lives like that.
(2) Avoid corrupting influences, because they will drag you down. Hang out with other good Christians, and you'll sharpen one another. This one is particularly popular among parents of teenagers, and it has some biblical support (1 Cor. 15:33; Prov. 27:17).
(3) Become a person of contagious holiness. Under the OT law, ritual uncleanness was seen as contagious, such that the pure and the impure had to be segregated until the impure could be cleansed, such as through ritual washing and animal sacrifice. Socially, Jesus modeled the reverse for us - he hung out with society's down-and-outs, and he had a positive influence on many of them, such that his goodness became contagious in their lives, affecting who those people would choose to be in the future. The idea is not to avoid corrupting influences, but rather to remain faithful in love and friendship to the messed-up people in our lives. With God's strength and grace, we lead them up out of sin rather than following them into sin.

Ever since my understanding of these three options took shape, the third has stood out as the best paradigm. But lately, it seems to be falling flat.
--What if you've never been exposed to righteousness in a certain area of life? Say you're a Christ-follower, and all your friends smoke pot whenever they hang out. You've heard some people say pot-smoking is bad, but you've never heard anyone make an actual case for why it's a bad idea to be a regular toker. You see the fun social atmosphere it seems to create, and it never even crosses your mind not to participate. Why wouldn't you?
--What if you don't have any other social options? Let's tweak the previous scenario - still a Christ-follower, friends are still potheads. Now let's say you know it's wrong to get high, but you live in podunk Bartlett, Nebraska. These are the people who have been your friends since kindergarten. If you don't smoke when they're smoking, they treat you like an outcast. If you don't hang out with them, you don't hang out with anybody. If you suggest any alternative activity within a reasonable traveling distance, like bowling (about as good as it gets in the area), they say a bowl goes well with bowling. What do love and wisdom look like in that situation?
--What about mutual influence? Let's take another Christ-follower, a single guy. You've given Christ total control over your anger issues. You become friends with a non-Christian gal at work or school who has serious anger problems. She has seen you change a lot in the past year, and you start to become a mentor figure for her in dealing with her anger. Christ is definitely a part of the conversation, and she seems to be cautiously open to the God-stuff you're sharing with her about anger. She also has a casual view of sex, you find her quite attractive, and she has come on to you a few times. She likes what you're saying about God and anger, but she disagrees with your conservative sexual mores. Even when you hang out in public places, you find your mind wandering to places you wish it wouldn't. You're seriously worried that you're going to end up sleeping with her one of these days. How do you choose between continuing to exercise the unique influence you have in her life and avoiding situations of intense temptation?

Contagious holiness doesn't fit any of these scenarios very neatly. Neither does avoiding corrupting influences. What is the response of love in these situations? Who am I to judge the actions of a brother or sister in Christ in these situations who "gives into sin" or who "abandons their friends"?

Frankly, I had it easy as a teenager. I didn't get into drinking or drugs, but it wasn't because I was "above" that stuff. I was just involved in lots of activities that took up my time, and I happened to hang out with the last teenaged non-religious crowd in the entire U.S. of A. that didn't drink. I did once walk away from one of my cliques of friends, but it was in a rather mean way, and it was not for any moral reasons - I just didn't know how to relate to the other people anymore, and it was an hour's drive to go see them, and I wanted to hang out with my girlfriend. She was from an evangelical church, so I started thinking about Jesus more seriously and personally than I had before; when I went to college, I started hanging out with the Christian kids, and the rest is history. How much of where I am today has to do with responding to peer pressure in the direction of God?

Is there a resolution to this post? I have some thoughts in that direction, but they're not very systematic yet. I'm seeing that contagious holiness w/o iron-sharpening-iron is a recipe for disaster (and even a little avoidance of bad influences can be necessary). I'm seeing that God can use peer pressure, and so can Satan, and it's not always clear how deeply each is present in a given social situation.

I'm also reminded that our God is the God who creates good things out of nothing and miraculously redeems the ugly into the beautiful. I pray for God to create new positive social realities where they do not yet exist, and I pray for God's redemption to be poured out in our messed-up social spheres all over the place.

Accessible Eschatology: for further reading

Thanks to those of you who have been reading along throughout this series! Clearly it became drawn out a little longer than I had originally intended. I guess life has its own timeline.

Wanna do some of your own exploring on these issues? Here's a bibliography of books that have helped to shape my thoughts in this arena. Some are amillennial; others are premillennial; others are not primarily eschatological in their focus, but they still have a good deal to contribute to this conversation. Read synopses and reviews on sites like Amazon to find out which might suit your personal reading desires.

--The Bible. (Odd, but, hey, read it & allow it to shape your views more than anything else. Do these other books comport with what the Bible teaches? Do the things I have to say agree with the Bible? Cuz, hey, that's a tad important.)
--The Bible and the Future, by Anthony Hoekema
--A Case for Historic Premillennialism, by Craig Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung
--The Mission of God, by Christopher J. H. Wright
--The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, by Darrel Cosden
--Work in the Spirit, by Miroslav Volf

A Day in the Life: Madison, WI

It's been a while since I (Meggan) have written, so I thought I'd take a few moments to catch people up on our lives here in Madison. We have been living on Whitney Way since July and really do feel settled in our apartment. It has been great to catch up with Madison friends from college and reconnect at Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church, where we were married over five years ago. That's a blast from the past, right? Of course, Blackhawk has since moved to a new location in Madison. My cousin Chris is now a freshman at UW-Madison, and we had fun running into him one Sunday.

Ben and I are both working as we raise support to return to Spain, hopefully by fall 2010. I work at a local dance retail store called Rosy Cheeks in Westgate Mall. Ben works at Victor Allen's Coffee at Odana and Whitney Way. We can both walk to our jobs and are grateful that we didn't have to buy a second car during our time here.

Support-raising is the adventure that it always is. We are finding again that our expectations are usually way off, which is a challenge at times. We keep reminding ourselves that this is God's mission that we are taking part in, not Ben and Meggan's mission that happens to be God-honoring. Thank you so much to those who have already joined our support team! If we haven't been in touch with you yet, don't worry - we will be soon!

The pregnancy is going very well. I didn't have a lick of morning sickness. My stomach is going through a sore stage again, but that just means baby Knox is growing and trying to stretch out in his limited space. I had a recent scare, thinking that I had developed gestational diabetes, but the second test came back with fantastic results, making the first test just an abnormality. Praise God for that since I don't have the greatest family health history.

This Christmas, we are participating in Advent Conspiracy. Check out this video to learn more! We are hand-making a lot of our Christmas gifts, and are deciding to give a lot less in order to give to people in NEED. Blackhawk will be donating 100% of the funds received in a special offering to build wells for communities without clean water in Honduras, Peru, and Kenya, as well as provide wheelchairs for people with limited mobility. Of course you don't have to participate in the literal Advent Conspiracy to follow the "spirit" of this project. I challenge and invite you to approach Christmas differently this year, not because of the economic state of the country, but because of the overabundance that we already enjoy.

Our other weekly activities include going to Childbirth/Parenting classes at Meriter Hospital on Monday nights. Tuesday nights, we attend our lifegroup through Blackhawk. We are so grateful for this group already and have really enjoyed getting to know everyone there. Sunday nights, Ben volunteers with Lief, our college and seminary friend who is the high school youth pastor at Blackhawk.

Ben and I miss our Denver artistic outlets like Ben singing with the Sliders and both of us dancing at Littleton Dance Academy quite a bit. But, this is a season for other foci. We know we'll have those types of opportunities again in the future. And frankly, it's my own fault for not dancing here in Madison while I still could have. Those days are no more until this baby is born! In the meantime, I still feel connected to the dance world by working at Rosy Cheeks.

And that, friends, is a day in the life in Madison, WI.

Accessible Eschatology: the future and the work of our hands

Flipping burgers. Building furniture. Selling insurance. Tech support. Retail dance apparel (Meggan). Making coffee (me). ________ (you).

What does it all have to do with the coming of the kingdom of God?

There are some commonsense answers about how being a follower of Christ affects the way we work - being people of integrity, the "Protestant work ethic," providing for the physical needs of our families and of others, keeping busy rather than being idle, the opportunity to share Christ's love with coworkers... the list could go on. These are all good things, and they can motivate us to work hard and work well. But what about the actual work itself? Is there something redeeming about the very act of making the best darn latte I can make? Can that have anything to do with the kingdom of God?

Many would say, "no - that has to do with the appetites of this world, not the things of God." But what's wrong with this line of thinking?

(I feel like most of you readers could answer that question yourselves. Go ahead, give it a shot, then I'll write what I have to say & you can see if we were on the same page. Feel free to leave a comment about what you were thinking at this point if you like.)

...

...

Here's what I have in mind - our physical appetites are a part of the things of God. There is no great schism between the physical and the spiritual; these two "parts" of our lives are inseparably intertwined. Sure, it is common in our culture to live a life that inappropriately revolves around the physical appetites, and self-control is a virtue to be cultivated, but the pleasure of a delicious, artistic craft of the kitchen is a God-given pleasure.

In agreement with this, there is a physical side to the coming of the kingdom of God. If you've been following the series of posts, you know that the kingdom of God broke into this world with the coming of Jesus; it continues to break into this world through the work of the Holy Spirit (both in the Church and outside it); and it will have its ultimate fulfillment on this earth at the return of Jesus. If the kingdom has a physical dimension, our work can be a part of this.

This is where we need to pick up where the last post left off. Recall, we were talking about signposts, bridgeheads, and foretastes. Our work for the kingdom of God in this age is about establishing the presence of the coming fulfillment of the kingdom - call it a sign or a taste of that kingdom, or a bridge to it, whichever metaphor speaks to your soul. Just as this gives meaning to our ecological efforts, it can also give genuine meaning to our work. When I make the perfect cappuccino, it can be a signpost of the coming perfection of the kingdom of God. When I try my best to make a beautiful latte, but the foam looks nothing like a heart and everything like a man's twig-n-berries (happened, and definitely required correction before giving it to a customer), it can be a reminder that genuine efforts in God's name will no longer fail when the kingdom comes in its fullness. When you build a useful structure or invent a valuable product or play a role in some technological advance, your work could be something that is a part of the renewed earth - or, if not, it could join in the chain of precursors to that final renewal. A little abstract, but definitely awe-inspiring (and even pretty stinkin' cool).

In our work, we are given the opportunity to create something productive and useful where there once was nothing. It might not always be something absolutely groundbreaking - in fact, most times, it won't be - but it is still a creation that is working to build the future. It doesn't matter what it is, from babysitting to bull-riding: work can be an eschatological act.

Let us join in this prayer of Moses: "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands." (Psalm 90:17, emphasis added)

Next post: for further reading (and that will wrap up the series).

Accessible Eschatology: the end and the environment

Some Christians are generally unconcerned about the health of the environment. Why pay attention to dwindling resources when the God who works miracles can lovingly provide for his people whatever they need? A certain sector of dispensationalism has extra incentive for this lack of concern. Why care about global climate change when the big idea is that God will rapture us out of this earth?

Some take it one step even further, that we should welcome ecological collapse as a sign that the Apocalypse is growing ever nearer. On RaptureReady.com, they maintain a "Rapture Index," which is described as follows:
"You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture."
Among the factors they consider to be positively related to quickening the rapture (and therefore worthy of our excitement) are Wild Weather, Famine, Drought, Climate, and Food Supply.

So, what do you think? Many Christians reject these arguments and consider themselves environmentalists. They give many good reasons:
--Christians are called to be stewards of God's gifts to us, and this earth is one of those gifts, so we should take care of it rather than exploiting it.
--The creation is described as "good" throughout Genesis 1 even before human beings are mentioned, so we should honor it as good in its own right rather than merely good as something to be used for our human purposes.
--The "creation mandate" in Genesis 1:26-28, the first command ever given to human beings, instructs us to "rule over" the earth with the kind of rule that God shows over us - a rule of love and care.

These are good points, and I agree with them. I think we can add two additional factors from an eschatological perspective that would make us even more sympathetic with the environmentalist cause than with the exploitive view of creation described earlier. One factor is against welcoming environmental destruction, and another is in favor of caring for the environment.

Against Welcoming Environmental Destruction
If we look back to our post on the signs of the end, we find a number of things to expect before Jesus returns. Some are good, many are bad. But it would be ridiculous to say that Christians should cheer for the bad things to happen, let alone participate in them. Would you cheer for someone falsely claiming to be Christ merely because you knew it might be a sign of the real Christ's return? Would you assist such a person in rising to power, faking miracles, and persecuting Christians, all to rush the coming of the glorious end? Of course not. Likewise, it would be backwards to choose not to worry about the environmental impact of your decisions with an attitude of, "Hey, who cares about this world? Maybe I'll even speed the coming of Jesus!" When we apply this same logic to the martyrdom of Christians, we see its absurdity. We don't cheer for bad stuff or accelerate evil - we endure hardship and suffering of all kinds for the sake of Christ, and we work as agents of redemption in this world.

In Favor Of Caring For The Environment
Here's another thought: what about the positive destiny of this earth? If you are premillennial in your convictions, you believe that Christ will reign on this earth for a really long time. Many amillennial believers today have similar convictions, seeing the "new heavens and new earth" described in the Bible as an utter renewal of the current creation rather than a completely fresh start with all new materials. One can make an argument for this possibility from the linguistic range of the word "new" in the Hebrew and Greek, but there are logical and analogical reasons for accepting this position as well. If this creation is inherently good, why would God start over completely? Why would he annihilate everything? Wouldn't that be, in a sense, an admission of the failure of this creation? By analogy, look at Noah and the flood. When this creation needed a fresh start, God didn't obliterate everything; he cleansed this earth and used its raw materials moving forward.

So, whether you are premillennial or amillennial, you have good reason to believe that this earth will see a glorious age someday. Unless you are postmillennial (which we argued earlier is the wrong view to take), you do not think the Church will be the one to usher in the golden age. Only the return of Jesus will bring that era. But what is our work for the kingdom of God in this age, if not the establishment of foretastes of the coming kingdom? When we extend God's grace to others, when we pray for physical healing, when we live humbly and generously, when we praise God in word and deed, are we not erecting signposts on this earth of God's redemption and the coming kingdom? Though our efforts will not bring the kingdom in its fullness, we are to live our lives now to partner with God in bringing whatever corner of the kingdom into realization as is in our sphere of influence.

As pastor and author Francis Bridger points out, this should apply to our care for the environment:
The primary argument for our ecological responsibility lies in the connection between old and new creation. ... In acting to preserve and enhance the created order we are pointing to the coming rule of God in Christ. ... Ecological ethics are not, therefore, anthropocentric: they testify to the vindicating acts of God in creation and redemption. ... [T]he fact that it is God who will bring about a new order of creation at the End ... frees us from the burden of ethical and technological autonomy and makes it clear that human sovereignty is relative. The knowledge that this is God’s world, that our efforts are not directed toward the construction of an ideal utopia but that we are, under God, building bridgeheads of the kingdom serves to humble us and to bring us to the place of ethical obedience.¹

So, take care of this earth, and not just for the sake of human convenience. Rejoice at its flourishing; mourn at its frustration. Remember that we are living in the already-but-not-yet kingdom of God - participate in its presence, and look forward to its glorious future consummation.

Next post: the future and the work of our hands.


1. Francis Bridger, “Ecology and Eschatology: A Neglected Dimension,” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1990): 301, as quoted in Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006), 411.

Accessible Eschatology: support for Israel?

Last summer in Spain, Meggan and I spent a couple days with some new friends of ours, a family of Spanish Christians. We had been getting to know these folks for a few weeks, and we grew to love them. They showed us incredible cross-cultural hospitality! They opened their homes to us beyond what the average Spaniard would do, and I must add that the husband was immensely patient with my atrocious broken Spanish. On our second day hanging out, at one point in conversation, the wife said (as I remember and translate it), "I don't understand how any Christian could read the Bible and not be pro-Israel."

Earlier this summer, after moving back to Madison from Denver, Meggan and I went to the farmers' market around the capitol square on a Saturday morning. It's a staple of the summer in Madison, and on a beautiful morning, it's just a great place to be. In addition to the farmers' stands along the four sides of the square, each of the four corners holds a number of card tables set up by groups promoting their particular causes. One such group that Saturday was supporting Palestinian rights. Their primary informational Q&A sheet comes from an organization called Inter-denominational Advocates for Peace (IDAP). These are enthusiastic folks from at least six Christian traditions who believe in divestment from companies who profit from the harming of innocent Palestinian lives, an end to U.S. funding for the Israeli military, and an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

What's going on? How is it that different Bible-believing Christians look at this situation and come out with such diametrically-opposed viewpoints? Well, eschatology plays a big role in this conversation. Let me show you how.

A couple posts ago (on "the millennium"), I asked the following question:
--Does God have a special plan at the end of time for the land of Israel, the city of Jerusalem, or the Jewish people?
Answer: It depends who you ask... so let's ask a couple different groups.
Dispensational answer (for a refresher, see post on "two types of premillennialism"): Yes, yes, and yes.
Amillennial answer (see post on "the millennium"): No, no, and no.
Not surprisingly, our Spanish friends mentioned above are dispensational (whether they are familiar with that term or not), and the U.S. denominations represented in IDAP come from amillennial traditions (Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and more).

However, the question for a Christian of whether to support the present-day political state of Israel against the Palestinians is not just a question of dispensationalism vs. amillennialism. There are amillennials who support Israel and dispensationals who don't (and plenty of Christians for and against Israel who are unfamiliar with eschatology altogether). The Israeli/Palestinian question is wrought with historical, political, and theological complexities.

I am the wrong person to break down the historical and political issues. What forces led to the post-WWII creation of the state of Israel? What has transpired in the military conflicts since then? How have civilians been put in harm's way, and by whom? Is Israel a democracy, an apartheid state, or both? (Is that even possible as a combination? Gosh, I'm ignorant.)

On the other hand, I am a little more qualified to talk about the theological issues. In no particular order, here are some questions to consider.

Who are the people of God? In a certain manner of speaking, all people are God's children. He loves and cares for every human being. He desires that each of us would have our basic material needs met, he expects each of us to hold to basic moral standards, and he wants us all to come into a personal relationship with him through Jesus Christ.

This points to another way of answering the question - God's people are those who trust in Jesus with all their being and become part of the global Christian movement (a.k.a. the Church). These people may come from any ethnic background or religious upbringing. In Israel/Palestine, they include Muslim-background followers of Jesus (a tiny group in number), messianic Jews (a larger but still very small number), and Palestinian Christians (the largest of these three groups, though still a small minority among all Palestinians).

There might be a third way of answering the question, depending on your eschatological viewpoint. Dispensational Christians would say that ethnic Jews remain the people of God. They assert, as we mentioned a couple posts ago, that God is doing two separate things in history, one with the Church and one with the Jewish people. Eternal salvation for individual Jews can still only come in Christ, but God's Old Testament promises to the Jewish people still stand. Amillennial Christians would disagree, saying that the Church has replaced Israel as the people of God since the coming of the Messiah.

Does the land of Israel belong to the people of God? The answer to this question is usually tied to the third part of the previous question. From an amillennial perspective, the Old Testament promises to the Jews about the land of Israel and the temple will find their ultimate fulfillment at the end of this age, in God's reign over all of the new heavens and new earth. The new Israel, the Church, is a kingdom that is "not of this world," yet it will spread "all through the dough." That is to say, there is no land or country that necessarily belongs to the people of God, but the people of God will continue to spread throughout every country on the planet and have a positive influence within in every land. The land of Israel/Palestine has no special significance for amillennial Christians.

Dispensational Christians would agree with much of this - the Church has no land yet is spreading to every land, and the land of Israel does not belong to the Church. On the other hand, they would say that the Old Testament promises to the Jews about the land of Israel and the temple will be literally fulfilled on this earth for ethnic Jews in the land of Israel/Palestine. This fulfillment will come in Christ's millennial kingdom on this earth at the end of the age. Because of this perspective, a great number of dispensational Christians place a high significance on the founding of the modern-day nation of Israel about 60 years ago, seeing it as a sign that the end of this age is coming soon. Many dispensational Christians desire to see the modern-day nation of Israel expand to include the widest territory in the region God ever promised to the Jews (a region much larger than either Old Testament Israel or modern-day Israel at their largest points).

How are the people of God called to live in their political lives? Entire libraries have been written on this topic over the past 2,000 years, so we'll stick to some basic points, important for our conversation, which the majority of Christians would endorse. The Bible shows a healthy skepticism of human government throughout the OT and the NT. Political states are entities that can accomplish some good in administering criminal justice, protecting the people, and caring for the poor and downtrodden... but they (and the people in them) are prone to arrogance, injustice, violence, and corruption. God's people who find themselves in positions of political influence should work for gains in effectiveness in the former categories and (naturally) declines in the latter categories.

Two specific biblical outworkings of these general principles deserve our particular focus. THESE ARE PRETTY IMPORTANT FOR WHERE WE'RE GOING, SO PAY ATTENTION. First, while God expects the pursuit of justice, peace, and the common good from all political states, he has higher expectations of his people. He believes we can live far closer to these ideals than people who do not know him (see, for example, Amos 1-2). Second, the Old Testament people of God were repeatedly instructed to show kindness and generosity to the non-Israelites living in their midst. This instruction was usually tied to remembering that their ancestors had been in that same position when they were foreigners in Egypt.

Where does the modern-day political nation-state of Israel fit into this conversation? For the amillennialist, the answer is short and sweet - there is no theological reason to favor or disfavor the nation of Israel. One should care about the political situation in the Middle East for the same reasons one cares about other political situations around the globe: for the control of human violence and the promotion of a just peace between warring factions.

For the dispensationalist, there are approximately four options worth considering:
(1) The current state of Israel is unrelated to the kingdom of Israel to be restored in the millennium; or
(2) it is in some way a precursor to that coming kingdom of Israel; or
(3) it is the same state as the one to come in the millennium, when it will be ruled by Jesus; or
(4) "I don't know if it's the same state or not."
Most dispensationalists opt for (2) or (3). The reasons to hold different positions depend on what one thinks of the nature of the state of Israel in the millennium. If one expects it to be a mix of people who are faithful to God and people who are not, much like the Israel of old, the current state of Israel (which holds Jews of every stripe, from secular to Orthodox) could fit that description. If one expects the millennial Israel to be comprised of the remnant of Jews who are faithful to God, the current state could not be the same as the one to come - it would be a precursor at most.

Here's the rub, and this is the money shot... Most Christians who unquestioningly support Israel are dispensationalists who believe it has a role to play in God's end-times drama. But if one truly believes that the current state of Israel is, in this important way, the "people of God," one should hold them to HIGHER standards of justice and peacemaking, NOT give them carte blanche. The dispensationalist should be MORE CONCERNED that Israel would show kindness and generosity to the non-Israelites in their midst, rather than supporting anything Israel might do to "claim its land" from the Palestinian inhabitants. For these reasons, regardless of one's particular theological beliefs about the role of the Jewish people or the land of Israel at the end of the age, one should never overlook or excuse any injustices perpetrated by the Israeli government. Even if you think it is God's will that the Jews should have this land, you should not be content as they violate God's ways to pursue that end.¹

That's my bit, and a little longer of a post than I had expected. Apparently it takes a bit of space to address a complex issue, even though I'm only addressing it from one angle. For those who are interested in a little more reading, including more historical and political perspective than I have provided here and a list of other potential resources, this article by one of my seminary professors can serve as a launching point for further investigation. As you read you'll see that my thoughts on this matter have been influenced by Dr. Carroll's. UPDATE (Oct. 1): See Claire Rymer's comment to this post for two helpful resources. Claire has massively more knowledge about international political realities than I have.

Next post: the end and the environment.


1. As a disclaimer for those of you who might need to hear it at this point, I'm not trying to say that all Palestinians are merely innocent victims. I'm just not willing to turn a blind eye to the evidence of injustices committed on both sides.