For the past month or so, I've been seeing a steady stream of commentary from my conservative loved ones that they're looking for the Rapture to occur at any time. I wasn't seeing this earlier this year or last year or really in any recent years, but there's been a definite uptick in sentiments to this effect in the post-election chaos of misinformation and unmerited court challenges that failed to move any judicial court to overturn the election results.
When our favored politician/party loses power and we find ourselves thinking the end in near, we need to take an honest look at where our functional security lies. What about the millions who have been suffering under brutal, totalitarian regimes or widespread famine and war in their countries -- conditions that white evangelicals in America have no real experience with? Being the most powerful of empires today, why do we assume that God's plan in closing out this age centers around America? What does this say about all the past empires that rose and fell throughout history?
I don't know if this is true of Christians in other countries, but here in America there is an unspoken assumption that we "do" Christianity better than those elsewhere. We're not too interested in learning from foreign believers, such as how they worship corporately and live out their beliefs in their communities. Yet the reality is, we're outnumbered 2-1 by believers in the Global South. Most Christians in the world are people of color who live in Africa, Asia and South America.
For 40 years, Gordon-Conwell's Center for the Study of Global Christianity has been doing academic research in the global demographic trends of Christianity. I found this particular infographic helpful in seeing the worldwide estimates of self-identifying Christians:
The church I attend was started 20 years ago as a mission outpost for the Anglican Church in Rwanda. We incorporate some of their liturgies into our Sunday services and maintain close ties to them. We don't have mission trips, we have pilgrimages because there is much we want to learn from them. Out of our abundance, we come alongside them to promote the flourishing of the surrounding villages -- from paying schooling and seminary fees, to purchasing livestock for economic needs, to building a center for health care and vocational skills training. Our relationship with the Byumba Diocese has broadened my perspective on the wealth of diversity we have in the worldwide body of Christ.
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told. (Hab. 1:6)
Going back to the original topic of the signs of the end times, I wonder how our brothers and sisters in Africa think about this question. They have and still do experience poverty, famine, war, and genocide in addition to facing the threat of martyrdom from Islamic fundamentalists. Whether a Christian believes in a literal 7-year tribulation or not, we can agree that Africans have been through persistent tribulation for hundreds of years. By comparison, white evangelicals in America have suffered little as the most powerful majority race, the most predominate religious group and having obtained political power in recent decades. We don't face the same threats that our African brothers and sisters do and I'm curious how it changes their beliefs about Christ's return.
Having moved from a literal, dispensational interpretation of the end times to an amillennial*, covenantal interpretation, I don't look for the signs of the end times like I did when I was younger and listening to Jack Van Impe or watching the "Thief in the Night" videos. Now, I read the prophetic writings pointing to the coming of Jesus as the start of the "last days" and take great comfort in Jesus' promises to return one day to judge Satan, the demons and those who opposed him -- a divine judgement that would fall on us, were it not for the Cross. He will establish his righteous reign in the new heavens and new earth, destroying evil once and for all. That's all I need to know and as someone once said to me, "I'm a pan-millenialist; It'll all pan out in the end." So like the Parable of the Virgins, I keep my lamp full, watching for the day of the Lord.
Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.
-Fleming Rutledge, Suffering and Hope
*According to Ed Jarrett, Amillennialism understands the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles to be synonymous with the millennial kingdom of Revelation 20:4-6. The kingdom of God is a present-day reality with Christ ruling from heaven. And it is a kingdom populated by all those who have given their lives to the lordship of Jesus. It was a historical view held by early church fathers, Augustine as well as the Reformers, Luther and Calvin.
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