You, Me and Eschatology
Recently I listened to a teaching series on the end times or the last days. This was a thirteen part series that covered the entire scope of Catholic teaching regarding the Kingdom of God and its completion, the Eschaton.
What became apparent to me with respect to our own day was a great need for this subject to be presented to Catholics, probably in terminology that avoids the use of words like Eschatology, because that tends to make the eyes glaze over. Why is this necessary?
First, it is important to note that there is an upswing in interest in Catholic theological circles already, and that is a good thing. There is nothing new to be taught in this area with respect to Catholic doctrine and the thinking of the Fathers, east and west, from the very beginning.
However, there really hasn’t been any concerted effort to disseminate this area of theology since St. Robert Bellermine (1542-1621) who was responding to outrageous charges from the Protestants, started by men like Luther, that the Pope was the anti-Christ. This kind of vitriolic hyperbole persists in some quarters to this very day. Jack Chick comes to mind. But that small segment of the Protestant population is really not the issue today.
What is a problem is the widespread popularity of the one-time fringe Protestant theory of the Rapture, based on a systematic theory called Dispensationalism popularized by the Anglican priest John Nelson Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby disseminated the Rapture theory which was actually first seen in a vision by Margaret MacDonald at the time of a charismatic revival among the Presbyterians of Scotland in 1830 led by a certain Edward Irving.
That Rapture theory has been recently been popularized into the mainstream of Evangelicalism and even to some extent into the superficially Christian and the general public. Many in and out of the Protestant Christian groups presume that the Rapture is received Revelation and there are sadly a lot of Catholics that accept the idea as well, not realizing its origins and its utter lack of foundation in scripture and Catholic eschatology. The reason that Catholics could suck up this nonsense is that they have never been taught anything else. Also, to add to this concoction there is a wide interest in the culture and some parts of the media in various new age speculations on man and his future and these run the entire spectrum from pseudo-biblical prophecy to Mayan prophecy to semi-Hinduism to alien communications, etc., etc. There are many Catholics that hear these ideas and have no way to discern what’s right, wrong and downright wacko.
Not only that, but without a long-term vision of the world and its final end, it is much more difficult to orient ourselves in the present, to understand our mission as a Church and to understand our purpose and mission as individuals. That effects how we perceive our spirituality, how we perceive our moral life, how we perceive our part in the mission of the Church, in short, how we perceive our entire Christian life.
For my own part, it is a good reminder that the first sign that the end is approaching, or put another way, the first one of the things that must be accomplished before the return of Jesus Christ is that the Gospel must be preached throughout the entire world to all peoples and nations so that the entire gentile world has the opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ. Why is that important to me specifically? For several reasons.
First, at my age, barring a miracle, this will not likely be accomplished in my life-time. Thus, it is a reasonable possibility, even a probability, that I will be dead before Jesus Christ returns. To me, that says a great deal about what I am therefore responsible to do in the balance of my life. It at least gives me the context for whatever God has for me to do until I die.
Further, it informs my understanding of my future possibility after I am dead and gone. That is to say, insofar as I die in a state of grace and am purged to enter heaven I can take up the job along side Sister Faustina in helping those who remain here by praying for them. I know that the nearer it gets to the time that Jesus returns, the tougher it will be to remain faithful, so the more those Christians will need our prayers.
Those are just a few of the ramifications that came to mind as I listened to the series. And it also pointed out that there needs to be some medium that will be readily taken up by the average Catholic that will teach the truth of eschatology and help re-orient them. Whether this would be a book, a course, or what I am not sure. But it needs to be done.
One Response “You, Me and Eschatology”
The most pernicious influence of Rapture “theology” is that it removes all suffering from the Eschaton. There is a painless departure from this life into everlasting bliss. Wonderful. But what will happen to the Christians that believe this tripe when the end actually comes? They will be dismayed to find that the message of Revelation is one of almost unrelenting suffering… that this is what we need to expect and prepare ourselves for. They won’t have categories for their suffering, they won’t have an understanding of it, and they won’t be prepared for it.
The second problem with the Rapture is that it removes Christians from this planet and gives the planet over to Satan and his minions, of one kind or another. Responsibility for this planet and a willingness to preserve it as the future seat of Christ’s throne are thereby weakened. In short, stewardship for this world is weakened and the cause of environmentalism is lost.
-V.