return of Alton telegraph column-the future

I’ve been thinking about the future in different guises. First, I am a lecti0onary preacher, and some of our Old Testament readings, for instance, Jer. 29 and 32 deal with the future. Our youngest daughter is a senior in college now, so her future is looming, even glaring at her. (I’m reading the new library book, Present Shock, and it asserts that our digital age has changed the way we conceive of the future to the extent that everything seems ot be collapsing into the present. Also, I love movies and have been wondering why movies now paint a future earth in the most stark ways and project a dystopia, not a utopia. Why are zombies, the “living dead” emblems of the future on TV and movies?

As a Christian, I continue to notice the continued stress on the end times in the thinking of a number of American Christians. In the Bible, apocalyptic, end time material came late in the history of Israel. When Israel was defeated, they could find no confidence in their own ability to fight. In our time, some have become beholden to a particular view of the end times that insists that God will act only when things reach a nadir. So, they can the events for trouble, but at the same time dismiss clear evidence of impending climate change. When people do not feel that they have the resources within themselves to seek a different future, they look to outside themselves. In that sense waiting for god to reverse the course of events is an indicator that they have given up engaging with God’s purposes, to build God’s work here, and to seek outside help solely.

As part of a denomination that has been in decline for a while, I have been wondering if the anti-religious institution bias in our culture is due, in part, to a different view of the future. When people build and support institutions, they are thinking for the long haul. they are investing in the future itself. They look past current occupants of a position and look toward a legacy, toward, dare we say it, posterity. If the future looks bleak, if the future seems to be fated beyond human powers, then why even try to plan for it?

One biblical point is clear on the future: it is not predictable. god the Creator is fully capable of adjusting and reweaving the created order. God has chosen human being to be partners in the work of creation’s orderings. While God does seem to have purpose, God seems to respond to human action and consider options, and they rarely seem to involve direct divine agency. Instead, God uses human action to mediate divine intention and response. For Christians, of course, Jesus Christ, in person and work, is the shining example of this.

Must the future replay the past or be an iteration of it? Apocalyptic thought, which Jesus may well have represented, sees God as capable of doing a new thing. In Isaiah, God can tell us to “remember not the former things.” God is not bound by cyclical constriction; God can choose different means, different paths toward divine purposes for human well-being.

It was not that long ago when President Reagan spoke of morning in America. I fear that too many leaders figure that we are looking at a setting sun, not a rising one any longer. I have grown tired of people asking if we should bring children into our world. Why not work toward making our world a place suitable for young life, a place that will recognize and permit their gifts to flourish? The God of life expects no less.