Although my eschatology book, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), hasn’t hit the streets yet (that’s scheduled for November), the first review has appeared in Publishers Weekly (October 6, 2014), p. 6. It’s more like a brief notice than a full-fledged review, but it’s quite positive.
“Theologian Middleton tackles a huge question: is a glorious afterlife the best hope Christianity can offer, or does the promise of a new, redeemed Earth give humans hope for today? His biblically grounded answer is the latter. To make a convincing argument for what he calls ‘holistic eschatology,’ he goes through both testaments of the Bible, deep down to its Greek- and Hebrew-language roots, and also takes on the received wisdom of many a Christian hymn that extols the far-off heavenly shore. . . . The implications for lived faith are bold, and the air this brings into theological discourse about what God intends for human creation is fresh and bracing.”
Tag Archives: ethics
Evangelical Feminism and the Kingdom of God
There are two interesting conferences coming up in October that I will be attending.
Toward an Evangelical Feminism
The first is the annual fall conference of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (CETA) on Saturday October 18, 2014 at Wycliffe College in Toronto. The conference is entitled “Toward and Evangelical Feminism: Scripture, Theology, Gender” and is co-sponsored by CETA with the Institute of Christian Studies and Wycliffe College. A flyer for the conference is available, as well as the conference schedule and the paper abstracts. The keynote address is by Marion Taylor (professor of OT at Wycliffe) on an evangelical feminist reading of Ruth, and the papers look fascinating (some of the papers attempt to define evangelical feminism and others are focused on reading the Bible as authoritative scripture that dignifies and empowers women in God’s world). Online registration is hosted by the Institute for Christian Studies (just scroll to the bottom of the page for the registration links).
Kingdom Conspiracy
The second conference, entitled “Kingdom Conspiracy: Reclaiming the Radical Mission of the Church in the World,” is sponsored by Missio Alliance, and will be held on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 on the campus of Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY. The keynote speaker is well-known theologian and biblical scholar Scot McKnight, who hosts the blog “Jesus Creed” on the Patheos website. The advertising says that McKnight might ruffle a few feathers by providing “a biblical corrective and a fiercely radical vision for the role of the local church in the kingdom of God.” A flyer (with the conference schedule) is available and you can register here.
I’ll report on both conferences after I attend them.
The Church’s Mishandling of the Gospel—Living with Unanswered Questions, Part 2
In my last post, I raised some of my questions about what the Bible teaches—especially where this teaching seems to contradict human experience, modern science, or other things the Bible teaches.
But not everything the Bible teaches is difficult to understand. Some of my questions have to do with why the church distorts biblical teaching that seems to be quite clear.
To put it another way, why do Christians do such a terrible job of living out the gospel, or even of grasping what the gospel is about? This leaves me utterly perplexed.
The Church’s Reduction of the Gospel to the “Spiritual”
To start with, there is the common reduction of the gospel to some small “spiritual” area of life, as if our faith doesn’t embrace the entirety of life in the world God has made. This other-worldliness in the Christianity I was raised with (this division between the “secular” and the “sacred”) makes no sense, given what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches that this world is God’s creation and he loves and cares for it, despite the sinful brokenness we humans have introduced. In fact, he loves the world so much that Jesus came to die on the cross for our sin, and now forgiveness and new life are offered to all who want a part in the restoration of the world.
The Church’s Blindness to Present Evil in the World
But the sacred/secular division not only blurs our vision of this good world, it often leads to our ignoring—or even buying into—the present evil in the world (in the so-called “secular” area), since it offers us no resources for challenging that evil on the basis of how the world should be.
One egregious example of this is the unholy mixing of the gospel, especially in the United States, with secular ideologies. This results in sincere people who claim to be disciples of the Crucified One advocating military action and even torture against people whom they think of as their enemies (without any pangs of conscience or struggle about how this relates to the teachings of Jesus).
It is paradoxical that the National Association of Evangelicals in the 1980s put out a position paper on war, in which one of the positions they rejected as “sub-biblical” was labeled the “love your enemies” position! It just doesn’t make sense to use Jesus’ own words to label a position you think is unbiblical.
Perplexed but Not Despairing
But I guess I’m in good company with my questions.
The writer of Ecclesiastes long ago had “applied [his] mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth,” including “all that God has done.”
Yet he ended up with the conclusion: “No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.” (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17; NIV)
Questions like the ones I’ve mentioned leave me quite perplexed, and even confused. But not in despair.
In my next post I’ll explain why I haven’t given up on my quest for answers.
CREATION to ESCHATON 