{"id":2263,"date":"2013-03-08T13:39:56","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T17:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2013-03-08T18:01:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T22:01:28","slug":"relax-people-the-world-is-not-ours-to-save","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2013\/03\/relax-people-the-world-is-not-ours-to-save\/","title":{"rendered":"Relax, People: “The World is Not Ours to Save”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What are we going to do about all those fired-up youngsters who are running around trying to save the world (and acting like they have only four minutes<\/a> to do it)?<\/p>\n

There has been a sea-change in the church. Like so often happens, Christianity seems to be swinging over to a concern with social justice and activism\u2013at least among the young ones. But what happens when all these energetic, passionate, globally-concerned Christians realize that they can\u2019t actually save the world?\u00a0<\/em>When they wake up to the reality that the job is too big, there are too many obstacles in the way, \u00a0the \u201csystem\u201d is unchangeable, and there is no quick fix or code that will crack the world\u2019s problems? What happens when disillusionment sets in?<\/p>\n

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, author of The World is Not Ours to Save<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>has written a \"\"<\/a>remarkable book, in many ways. As the back cover says, he is the \u201cfounding director of the Two Futures Project, a movement of Christians in the global abolition of nuclear weapons.\u201d So yeah, Tyler must know something about trying to save the world. This is a call for realism, sanity, and trusting in God for the final outcome\u2013from a true, dyed-in-the-wool Christian activist.<\/p>\n

The book is very well-written: he gives us some lively prose, interspersed with personal stories of his own activist background and passions, and it\u2019s pretty theologically deep too (I wasn\u2019t surprised to discover that he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in theology). He connects political and social activism with biblical eschatology in a way that is not often done\u2013and that is sorely needed.<\/p>\n

One of Wigg-Stevenson\u2019s main themes is that \u201cChristian activism is grounded in claims about God.\u201d I think his best insight, along these lines, has to do not with God \u00a0per se, but with God\u2019s desired future for creation. That is, his best insight is that Christian activism ought to be based in an adequate\u00a0eschatology.\u00a0<\/em>What is the desired future for society, people, creation, etc.? The kingdom of God is one of peace, wellness of being, love, adequate resources for all, etc. So, we\u00a0should\u00a0<\/em>live in anticipation of that future in the present and it certainly can\u2019t hurt to\u00a0try\u00a0<\/em>as best we can to make the present look like the future it will be. But we should also\u00a0relax\u00a0<\/em>a bit, because the world isn\u2019t ours to save, and we\u2019ll just end up disillusioned if we try to do it ourselves.\u00a0Accept our limitations.\u00a0Recognize that only God will bring God\u2019s kingdom\u2013but don\u2019t stop doing what God has impassioned you to do toward the eschatological vision of peace, mutuality, and shared prosperity.<\/p>\n

Where Wigg-Stevenson is weakest, it seems to me, is in the choppy way he moves from his discussion of violence and war in the Old Testament to the present. Something seems amiss, or at least left out of the picture. He has an obvious passion for activism toward peace. But he also tells us that the \u201cterrible passages of Scripture teach us that human life belongs wholly and only to God, full stop.\u201d This does not mean, however, that \u201chuman beings can never kill.\u201d In fact, the OT gives us examples of \u201cdivinely sanctioned life-taking\u201d (indeed it does). \u00a0He goes on to reason that, \u201cBecause all life belongs to God, those who take it must always be acting as God\u2019s proxy, for God\u2019s purposes\u2013whether in the holy wars of the ancient Israelites, to advance God\u2019s salvation history, or in human government, as the ministers of wrath against injustice.\u201d (73). The conclusion of the matter, for this author-activist, is that \u201cto kill outside the boundaries of God\u2019s justice is to take from God, in a way, the time and place of a person\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question remains, though, as to how one knows, with any measure of certainty (in the present), whether one is \u201ckilling outside the boundaries of God\u2019s justice\u201d? We have heard leaders, for example, proclaim, as they sent their young soldiers into war, \"\"<\/a>that they were convinced <\/em>this was God\u2019s will. People would be killed (even thousands of them), because of God\u2019s justice. And of course, one could be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or whatever, and earnestly believe that God is using them to bring about God\u2019s justice through killing others (or commanding the killing of others). But hey, they were just acting as a \u201cproxy for God.\u201d And why should nuclear war be left out of the equation\u2013if God were to requireeven that\u00a0for the sake of his justice?<\/p>\n

Wigg-Stevenson says, \u201cThe working of God is often terrible. But God may be terrible because he is holy, and holiness is fearsome to behold. So, what do we name it when we, who are so deeply profane, arrogate to ourselves the right to ape God, to plant our unholy feet in his sacred place and wreak terror and horror? This is abomination because the world is not ours\u201d (74).<\/p>\n

But if God used \u201cprofane\u201d people to bring about terrible things in the Old Testament (not only defensive wars, but holy wars\u2013herem\u2013<\/em>which required total destruction of all living things), what should prevent \u201cprofane\u201d world leaders today from bringing about terrible things, in the name of God\u2019s justice and righteousness?<\/p>\n

I empathize with the desire to sustain the tension we see in the Bible. God\u2019s love does not exclude God\u2019s holiness or justice. But unless one is going to say that, after the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, God\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>sanctions \u201cprofane people\u201d to kill other people (and Wigg-Stevenson doesn\u2019t say this), more needs to be said about what criterion a president, military leader, or anyone else for that matter, would use for discerning whether one is\u00a0truly\u00a0<\/em>hearing from God\u2013before they pull the trigger. To put it more bluntly, what if a world leader, with his or her finger on the nuclear button, felt deep within his or her heart and soul that God was calling for\u00a0herem\u00a0<\/em>on a \u201cwicked\u201d nation, and that this action would pave the way for God to bring about the kingdom? More may need to be said regarding how Jesus and the eschatological vision (which, as the author points out, is also an OT vision), helps us to understand, interpret and sort through the \u201cterrible\u201d things God seems to do in the OT. Only then can we come back to the present day and envision how the eschatological kingdom should orient our approach to violence and war.<\/p>\n

For other reflections on this book, check out the\u00a0Patheos Book Club<\/em>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are we going to do about all those fired-up youngsters who are running around trying to save the world (and acting like they have only four minutes to do it)? There has been a sea-change in the church. 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