So I’m upping the ante on my reading in apocalyptic and eschatological literature. I encountered this quote yesterday and thought it worth sharing:
Ideas have consequences. . . . At worst, such belief [in a rapture] is a form of escapism. The hope of impending departure can lead believers to abandon interest in the world and its problems. The expectation of deteriorating conditions prior to the soon-approaching rapture is morally corrosive, encouraging pessimism, fatalism, and the forsaking of political responsibility. Disengagement from the problems of the world is ethically indefensible, but it is all too common among today’s prophecy elite. Their books tell us that nuclear war is inevitable, that the pursuit of peace is pointless, that the planet’s environmental woes are unstoppable, and so on. —Craig Hill, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), emphasis added.
Our call is never to disengage the world, never to be escapists. If Jesus did this, he would have never ended up on a Roman cross. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness how can it be made salty again? It is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot” — Matthew 5:13.
Engage the world. Follow Jesus into the very heart of pain, brokenness and decay that infects this world. Be the agent of change that we’re called to be. Be holy, as your Father in heaven is holy. This is holiness.
