The End of the World (12/21/12).
Considering the immanent end of the earth (The Mayans have until midnight to get their prediction right!), I figured this would be a great opportunity to launch my own end times predictions. I’ve had a longstanding interest in the topic, considering the fact that I’m pretty sure my resurrection body will be able break-dance. So here we go:
Prediction 1: The World Will End.
This is not so outlandish, given that the universe is cooling down. There’s also matters of global warming, nuclear proliferation, super-viruses, the zombiepocalypse, the robot takeover, and the weakening of the magnetic field. The world will most definitely end.
Prediction 2: The World Will not End Today.
I don’t think God will share his glory with the Mayans. Or with Harold Camping. Or with the Watchtower. Or with any other group that gives these end-of-earth predictions.
Jesus will come in glory at an hour nobody expects (Matt 24:44, 50). That’s why Christians are told to always be ready (Luke 12:40).
Prediction 3: The World Will End in the next 200 years (most likely).
What do I base it on? A few things:
1) Human history is changing at an accelerating rate. The Lausanne conference (the largest Christian gathering on earth) recently released this in a major statement:
“Almost everything about the way we live, think and relate to one another is changing at an accelerating pace. For good or ill, we feel the impact of globalization, of the digital revolution, and of the changing balance of economic and political power in the world. Some things we face cause us grief and anxiety – global poverty, war, ethnic conflict, disease, the ecological crisis and climate change. But one great change in our world is a cause for rejoicing – and that is the growth of the global Church of Christ.” (The Cape Town Commitment)
So the story is building to a climax.
2) Christianity is growing at a rate of about 5% per year (globally). The human population has basically stopped growing (for the first time in history). So if current trends continue, the work of global evangelization will be finished in the next 200 years. The Bible will be translated into every language on earth in the next 50 years or so.
3) The Bible focuses on this earth, so I think the climax of history will occur before we ruin this earth and move to a new one. Jesus comes back to earth, not to Alpha Centauri. In a similar vein, the Bible also focuses on humans rather than robots, so history will probably end before such things become the dominant reality.
4) About half the Christians who have ever lived are alive today. This means that if every generation of Christians assumed that Jesus would probably come back in their lifetime, most of them would eventually be correct. Let me state this another way: When we all arrive in heaven, and all the saints from every generation gather at the wedding supper of the lamb, about half the those in attendance will have seen Jesus return in their lifetime. That is how exponential growth curves work. This doesn’t prove that Christ will return in our lifetimes, but it does answer the most common objection, namely “People have always anticipated Christ’s return, and they’ve always been wrong. So we must be wrong too.” The reality is, he is no fool who anticipates that Christ may return soon, in this very lifetime.
Conclusion. So lets not make charts and graphs, because we don’t know when Jesus will return. On the other hand, lets also set aside the unbiblical notion that Christ couldn’t possibly return in our lifetime. I will admit that I have overstated things a little, but it has only been to shake us out of our lethargy; let us not become cynical toward the promises of Scripture. We live in an unprecedented age of climactic global change, where the gospel is reaching every nation, and where the potential to save or to destroy is greater than ever before. Let us live like this earth is incredibly important, but also not our final or eternal home. Let us anticipate the New Earth that Christ will usher in, and let us recommit ourselves to the Kingdom of God that we may hasten the arrival of these greater realities.
I enjoyed this blog post, but I also enjoy arguing so to your points:
a) I think this is an assumption: Things are changing at an accelerating rate so therefore we are close to the climax of the story. Who says the climax is at the end? Does God follow western narrative pacing or do we pace God’s work narratively in order to understand it?
And maybe it just seems accelerated in comparison to say 200 years ago, but 200 years from now these times will seem sluggish. Seem incomprehensible? People 200 years ago would think today is incomprehensible.
b) The growth rate has stopped growing but the global population is increasing steadily at 1.1% and there could be around 10 billion people on earth by 2050. Evangelism will probably still outpace it so you’re definitely right about that. We’ll have the Bible translated into every language in about 15 years according to Wycliffe (thanks to technology and the fact that there are half as many languages today as there were five-hundred years ago). I don’t see how the completion of translating the Bible necessitates the imminent return of Christ.
c) We have eschatological differences here (as well as in other relevant verses) about whether 2 Peter 3:10-13 means destruction or purging. Both views are acceptable in evangelical denominations; there’s even disagreement amongst Covenant Seminary’s NT staff. I guess your understanding of this would also shape how you read Revelation.
I don’t believe we will have soul-like robots in the future (like on BSG et al). Hubert Dreyfus has an excellent critique of the assumptions we make about AI. Look him up when you get a chance.
d) I don’t see how that answers the objection. If everyone alive today ends up dying before his return, then they will have been wrong too. It will only be the last generation that would have been right. While they might be a “majority” of Christians who have ever lived, they could be living a thousand or more years from now.
I’m not sure if this is relevant to the conversation but how do you take into account the decreasing violence and war deaths in the world? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-stats_n_1026723.html) The world seems to be getting better by some estimations. But maybe we’re not the judge of whether it’s getting better or worse.
Thanks for the comment Victor! If you have any more questions, just raise your arm-ageddon (lol, sorry, this ends now).
Here are some refined explanations:
a) That things are changing at an accelerating rate doesn’t prove that we are at the climax of the story, but it does show the story is going somewhere. Things can’t stay at the current stage for long. This doesn’t prove that Jesus will come back; that’s not the point of my post at all. My main point is just that we shouldn’t assume that he WONT come back. All the false predictions (which are dumb in the first place) have caused people to overreact and assume he wont come back in our lifetimes. I’m simply trying to show that this is a bad assumption.
b) I am aware of the small population growth, but I oversimplified to keep things short. The reality is that current birth and death rates are not causing the growth. The current growth is driven by a temporary mathematical anomaly: the midlife generation is larger than the elderly generation (because the birth rates were still high in the 1940′s-70′s). So as the midlife gen replaces the elderly, the population will continue to grow. Once that process is done, the growth will stop. If you want to see what I’m referring to, watch about a minute of this TED talk starting at 10:20 (http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.html)
Wycliff has a campaign to begin a Bible translation in every language by 2025, but they probably won’t complete them for a while after that. I said 50 years as a worst-case senario.
c) I’m not really committed on whether the New Earth will be this earth, changed and renewed, or a brand new one. Either way, the point I was making is more that Revelation imagines Jesus as coming back to a single planet, rather than “coming upon the clouds to visit the 12 core worlds of the alpha star-system”. My argument is not definitive; the Bible speaks in its own terms, and the original audience wouldn’t have had much of a concept of other worlds, but it does seem (subjectively perhaps) that the story will remain focussed primarily on this earth.
d) Here’s how I mean that this answers the objection: When you get up to heaven and shake hands with all the saints, you will find that about half of them had Jesus return in their lifetime (this because of the growth rate of Christianity). Given this atemporal reality, it is not unwise for each generation to live as if Jesus will likely return in their day. From our perspective within time, our probability of being correct is low. From an atemporal, heavenly perspective, the probability of being correct is about 50%. It’s a weird argument, I know, but it is not illogical. This point is only meant to show that we should not assume that Jesus will not come back in our time–he might. In fact, we might even call it likely (though we only speak in terms of ‘probability’ because of our limited knowledge–he either will come back or he won’t)
For your last point–the world might be getting better or worse. I personally think it is both. The good is getting better and the bad is getting worse. That’s just my eschatological outlook and others are free to disagree. This doesn’t bare too much on the conversation though, because earth getting better or worse doesn’t necessarily affect when Jesus will come back–it depends on one’s millennial view.
Thanks, Gerin. That was a great refinement and I definitely want to talk more about this when we’re both back in town. Also, if you get a chance, check out the book Desiring the Kingdom by James K. A. Smith. I’ve been reading it the last couple days, MINDBLOWING stuff. I think you’ll like it.This is not spam, I swear.
Thank you for your thoughts and like you I am looking forward to the end because it is the beginning…