Like a theif in the night...

I came from a Christian background. Lived it, done it, ever since I could remember. And although I remain sympathetic and admittedly still appreciative of the life that I grew up with, my convictions today are not what they used to be. Practically speaking, my personal faith, if such a term would still be in order, is no longer acquiescent with pop Christianity. When I was a kid though, nothing fascinated me more than Eschatology, or more plainly speaking... the study of last things or those concerning the final prophetic events mentioned in the Bible.

Now I haven’t been to church in a long time. And if it weren’t for my Dad and Mom visiting lately, I probably wouldn’t have been inside one again. Consequently enough, the Pastor's sermon was about Evangelism, specially focusing on the imminence of the end times.

I don’t know how many times I have heard this before. Nothing signifies pop Christianity more than "evangelizing the world". In fact, when I was a kid, they used to play a lot of Christian films specifically showing the end times and what it would be like to get left here on Earth when every other righteous man and woman has been taken away into Heaven. And it was scary... in fact it was downright fucking traumatic! I remember having nightmares about it for years and waking up almost crying. Of course now when I hear people still showing these movies, I get outraged. I can't believe that they still resort to scaring the shit out of people just so they convert. Sheesh!

I should point out however, that within the Christian community, there are several different schools of thought and approaches or perspectives (thank God) on interpreting the Bible, Theology, and everything else. And it does not follow that everybody has the same take on a given issue. Consequently, I know a lot of people (dear friends from the theological academe) who belong to those that appreciate and practice progressive thinking and will readily challenge traditionally accepted pop Theology if sufficiently justified. Sometimes, they are downright labeled as heretics. And though I am not sure I could still call myself a Christian by popular definition, I would like to believe that I still belong to this group.

Going back... the sermon was basically the recycled message on doing your part to evangelize the world. Expectantly playing on the guilt factor, the Reverend was giving statistics of death tolls, abortions, etc. and some other crap about how evil society has become now and why these are signs of the end times that the Bible was talking about. And this is what I want to talk about here...

In Mark 9:1, Jesus is quoted as saying "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power."

This to me is a very disturbing verse in the Gospels. Specially when you try with all your might to mesh this with the looming end times theology and the imminent return of the Son of Man that has been so widely preached all over the world. The truth of the matter is, the early Christians no doubt had the idea, or literally believed that Jesus would return and fulfill his promise during their generation. This is literally what gave them courage to go out and preach. The idea that help was on the way, the master would be returning soon... the kingdom of God is at the doorstep... I can almost see the light peering through the cracks.

This is further evidenced by the letters from Paul where he had to console churches later on, that it was ok even if they were growing old and weak and that the old people who were contemporary to Jesus' time who were promised from Mark 9:1 were actually dying one by one. They were selling their stuff, no longer actively living, and just waiting for the promised event. One can imagine that it was possible that they were probably just camping inside their churches.

So what happened to the promise? To address this In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, Paul makes a startling announcement. He claims that "The dead in Christ shall rise again." And even more so apologetically in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 where he later exclaims "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

This is what he left to console the people. Because of course it would have been the end of the Faith if they simply abandoned the promise. If Jesus' wouldn't really return and bring the glory of the kingdom of God with him, then what good is all of this? So by introducing this theology of the dead rising (which was never preached by Jesus himself nor any of the other Apostles), Paul effectively numbs the pain and suffering of the early churches and pumps the much-needed lifeblood to the promise. Suddenly, there is now new reason to keep steadfast. And so continuos the long and arduous waiting process. It doesn’t matter if it takes a decade, a score, or a century's wait. In fact, they are given honor as he stated in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 "For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep."

It was extremely effective, and it worked as planned. So much so that 2000 years after, Christians the world over would still buy this explanation.

Going back to today, we also see how pointless it is to keep mentioning "evils" in society to try to convince ourselves that the world is coming to an end. Exactly what is it really, that we have today that was not 10 times more worse than what it used to be? Murder? Rape? Genocide? Don’t tell me abortion.. don’t you remember they sacrificed babies back then? Christian persecution? Don’t you think being fed to the lions would be the extreme case here? The truth is, the signs that the Bible talked about has been happening since their time. It was happening then and has continued to happen through out history.

Besides, what is so goddamn special about our generation? Christians have been preaching that it can happen any day now... for 2000 years we have been waiting for that "any day now". Don’t you even think for a moment that like everybody else who waited and died through out history... that it might not also happen in your lifetime?

I am alive. I am living my life. I am enjoying my life. I interact with people, and I contribute to society. Don't you think this no longer applies to me today? I am not even gonna argue about whether I believe in all this, but the very least that pop Christianity can do is acknowledge that these are supposed to be things of the future and so being in any form dogmatic about interpreting what the prophecy means is being completely stupid as stupid gets.