Interview: Evangelical End Times Thinking Has a Baby-and-Bathwater Issue
We shouldn’t toss out Christ’s second coming with bizarre theories of how it will unfold.
In recent decades, many Christians have taken pains to emphasize that faith in Christ is more than a mere “ticket” to eternal life. This has led to a renewed focus on the significance of faith in the here and now. At the same time, however, it can also cause us to downplay New Testament references to a hope grounded in a future event—Jesus’ second coming.
Chris Davis, pastor of Groveton Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, was among those who avoid the topic of the Second Coming, out of embarrassment at the wild speculations and contentious debates that eschatology sometimes inspires. But in a season when hope was running thin, he returned to the theme and discovered afresh how it focuses our hopes and desires upon Jesus. This journey of rediscovery culminated in a new book, Bright Hope for Tomorrow: How Anticipating Jesus’ Return Gives Strength for Today.
J. Todd Billings, author of The End of the Christian Life and professor of theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, spoke with Davis about his book.
Your book opens with a story. You had been a pastor for 10 years and experienced various health and family struggles. You and your wife were aching for a looming two-month Sabbatical. As you write, “Our daily goal was simply to make it to that day when the Sabbatical would set everything right.”
What happened when your sabbatical came? And what’s the significance of our tendency to look forward to some moment when everything, presumably, will be set right?
What happened was we took ourselves on sabbatical with us. Which meant that very little changed over those two months. I wish I knew why humans expect things to get better. I’d like to think that it ...