The signs are escalating each day. The world is in turmoil. We are on the cusp—immediately—of the tip of the age.” So reads the disclaimer for an upcoming eschatological conference featuring some distinguished American evangelical leaders.
Across the Atlantic, as a pastor in Belgium, I’ve also recurrently heard from people in evangelical circles convinced or apprehensive about current events revealing the incontrovertible fact that Christ is coming not only soon, as he put it, but very soon. I sympathize with them: Apart from global concerns, our continent faces many challenges that make me yearn for God’s kingdom.
Still, I’m often surprised: Why does this high level of immediate eschatological expectation proceed when Jesus told us explicitly that we are able to’t know when the tip will come (Matt. 24:36; Acts 1:7)? Have we Christians baptized pessimism? Perhaps we would consider the works of a Twentieth-century world-renowned science fiction author and skeptic who envisioned the continuation of human life for tens of hundreds of years—after which read our Bibles again. When it involves where we’re headed, Scripture calls us to realism.
Aaround the time many young evangelicals found themselves reading premillennialist literature like Left Behind, I used to be absorbed in one other series: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.
Asimov, a Russian native who emigrated to the United States as a toddler, wrote or edited greater than 500 books. From 1942 to 1950, he published a set of short stories and novels dedicated to the autumn and rebuilding of a galactic empire within the distant future—roughly A.D. 24000. The Foundation trilogy became so influential that it’s often considered to have inspired elements of other fantasy classics comparable to Dune and Star Wars. (The work has also been adapted into an Apple TV show.)
The series introduces us to Hari Seldon, an excellent scientist who discovers the devastating news of the empire’s inevitable collapse. Through what he calls psychohistory, he calculates not only that the empire will stop in the subsequent 300 years but in addition that, if nothing is completed, 30,000 years of darkness will follow this demise. Seldon develops a plan to cut back this era of chaos to a mere millennium and speed up the rebirth of a recent empire through the “Foundation.”
Through the years, Asimov expanded the Foundation trilogy and linked it together with his Robot and Galactic Empire series to construct what some have called a hypothetical “history of the longer term,” exploring turning points within the greater than 20,000 years separating Seldon from us. In doing so, he anticipated many questions we now face today, especially the event of robots and AI and the way we’ll live with them.
In the absence of the idea that God would end history sooner or later, and with some measure of optimism about humanity, the non-Christian Asimov was free to explore his hypotheses about humanity’s future, including potential crises. His work stays a source of inspiration to those pondering our contemporary challenges.
Christian eschatology, contrary to Asimov’s timeline, has often been slightly pessimistic in regards to the continuity of our world. In its humorous census of “near-end” prophecies across history, the Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse counts quite a few more-or-less Christian preachers who predicted the “end of the world” of their time, starting as soon because the second century with the heretic Montanus.
Martin Luther continued this tradition. Referring to the dire state of the Holy Roman Empire and the specter of Turkish invasions, he wrote, “The world is coming to an end, and it often occurs to me that the Day of Judgment could arrive before we’ve got accomplished our translation of the Holy Scripture. All the temporal things predicted therein are fulfilled.”
Luther was more temperate than a few of his contemporaries, comparable to theologian Thomas Müntzer, whose end-time beliefs led German peasants to rebel and be subsequently slaughtered. Of course, all of them and much more moderen examples have been improper. Despite continual crises, the earth has continued to spin. And despite years of false predictions, every kind of prophets proceed to announce the very near end of the world.
Bible interpretation aside, some of these prophecies and mentalities proceed to resonate. (Consider the Doomsday Clock, as an illustration.) Why?
Belgian philosopher and spiritual skeptic Maarten Boudry recently published an article exploring what he calls “the seven laws of declinism,” or his understandings of the conditions making us humans anxious about our world.
Among the better-known mechanisms at work behind our feeling that the world is essentially falling apart—just like the invisible quietness of excellent news, our instinctive and self-preservative appetite for bad news, and the way nowadays social media intentionally feed this appetite—Boudry also highlights what he calls “The Law of Conservation of Outrage.” That is, our level of indignation tends to remain the identical even when conditions improve. We simply increase our sensitivity to lesser evils, in order that anxious people will all the time find some ground for his or her anxiety.
Beyond this, in accordance with Boudry, the solutions we discover for an issue allow us to forget in regards to the problem itself and give attention to recent problems that arise from our recent solutions, even when these recent problems are less acute than the previous (he calls this “The Law of Self-Effacing Solutions”). And the more liberty we enjoy in a society, the more we’re in a position to report about recent evils that go unheard of in other contexts (“The Law of Disinfecting Sunlight”). So progress itself can result in pessimism.
In sum, whether we face the firsthand effects of war or over-exaggerating the inconveniences of recent society, humans will all the time find fodder for the concept of decline. Most end-time concerns I’ve heard personally got here from people in countries with a relative degree of abundance and security. In fact, wealthier or more powerful people have potentially more to lose than those with little.
For some Christians, converting this angst into the notion that Christ is about to return seems a simple step to take. “Christ is coming very soon” may be a Christian version of the quite common “This world scares me,” or “I don’t like the way in which things are going.” In a world defined by Boudry’s seven laws, the person offering biblical confirmation will inevitably gain attention.
Whatever the standard of spiritual leaders’ exegesis claiming to know that Christ is nearly to return for this reason or that present event, they concretely validate the distress some feel and provides those anxious a measure of control back with the immediate certainties they provide. But as appealing as these items will be, God as an alternative calls us to direct our attention and actions toward others.
It just isn’t for us to make plans for the subsequent 20,000 years, but we lack the imagination of somebody like Asimov after we cannot conceive the survival of humanity, or just of our kids, beyond the setting we currently know. Certainly, many desperate situations in our world make us profoundly long for the renewal promised by our God. But time and time again, we are able to see that upsetting circumstances alone don’t mean that God has wrapped every little thing up or is completed working in our world.
In Asimov’s novels, the approaching threat is way greater than every little thing we could fear even in our globalized world: the autumn of an intergalactic empire, wars, and barbarity, accompanied by the death of billions. Still, Asimov doesn’t depict it as “the tip of the world.” Some will survive and may have to rebuild civilization. The major issue is whether or not they’ll be sufficiently prepared to shorten the period of chaos that may follow the autumn of the empire.
Scripture encourages neither an anxiety-inducing pessimism that may make us suspicious toward every little thing nor a naive optimism that expects humanity to progress by itself right into a peaceful and harmonious state. As the recent TV adaptation displays, regardless of the exotic interstellar setting, spaceships, inventive technologies, or fancy clothing which may await us, humanity will stay constant in its mixture of beauty and corruption. In this world, the wheat and the weeds grow side by side (Matt. 13:24–30; Rev. 22:11).
When Jesus told us to “keep watch, since you have no idea on what day your Lord will come” (Matt. 24:42), he didn’t mean looking forward to upcoming signs, whether within the sky or in Middle East geopolitics. He meant watching ourselves, as he makes clear in the next parable in regards to the faithful and the wicked servant, where the previous isn’t hovering on the door, waiting for his master’s return. Instead, he’s caring for those that have been entrusted to him (vv.45-46).
Instead of consistently on the lookout for indications of whether our Master is coming immediately, we’re called to let him develop into visible to our contemporaries within the Christlike way we walk, nonetheless long human history may endure.
Among the various characters of the unique Foundation trilogy, those most able to facing difficult circumstances are the individuals who trust within the viability of Seldon’s unknown plan for the Foundation despite insecurity, wars, riots, or bad leaders. I won’t reveal here what becomes of Seldon’s plan. In the tip, Asimov’s eschatology in Foundation just isn’t Christian. But we all know with certainty that the creator of our plan is way more worthy of our trust.
This assurance allows us, in a fancy and ever-changing world, to supply our contemporaries the presence of Christians who’re anchored in eternity and able to face the cruel realities and heavy questions of our day with the grace of their coming Lord, until he really does come.
Léo Lehmann is CT’s French language coordinator in addition to publications director for the Network of Evangelical Missiology for French-speaking Europe (REMEEF). He lives in Belgium, within the Namur area.
