As reports of financial chaos echo through the world each day, we may begin to

feel like Modern Romans watching our world collapse.

I still think the world collapsed about 90 years ago, and the collapse has been
rippling across institutions and nations every since. The church’s initial
response to a modern notion of progress that was built on an overconfident secular
humanism was to turn inward, building a bulwark around the orthodox truths of our
faith. I’m not just thinking about fundamentalism.

As the modern world forgot our past and assumed that we could do not wrong, men
like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis emerged to warn of the dangers of this blind
pursuit of man’s unlimited potential. Chesterton (Apostle of Common Sense) and
Lewis (Articulator of Mere Christianity) defended the past against a false future
built on empty ideas of human progress that denied our need for grace (and God).
In one sense, the church spent the 20th century defending the past and building
fortresses around the past to protect it.

This was what the times required. But a few prescient thinkers, drawing
inspiration from men like Chesterton and Lewis began to speak of the future, a
Christian Future. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy wrote and taught about articulating the
future (and the cost associated with creating this future).

Two future thinker-actors were Augustine and Luther. They both lived at the end of
an age. They articulated the future. When Augustine wrote “The City of God,” Rome
was literally in flames due to invasions by tribal people (the terror may have
felt much like the attacks from our terrorists today). He wrote that book when
Rome was already a Christian empire and the pagans were accusing the Christians of
the downfall of Roman power.

Augustine’s book was a defense of the faith, and in it he suggested that the city
of man will never be perfect. It will never be the city of God. So all man’s
system are doomed to fail until God finally establishes his city on the earth.
Augustine’s ideas about the city of God inspired the people who came after him to
rebuild the world that was falling apart.

The Roman empire never came back. But the empire eventually shifted into the image
of Christendom when all of Europe was a Christian land. In some parts of Europe
(United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, etc), barbaric tribal cultures were
Christianized and eventually all shared a common culture and belief on the Lord.
In spite of today’s bad press, there was much praiseworthy in this medieval world.
(Just see Chesterton, Belloc, Lewis, Tolkien and others.)

But Christendom was not the final glory. It crumbled during the 14th and 15th
centuries, leading to (or revealing) massive corruption in the church and a
breakdown in the culture. In the mid to late 14th century many people were certain
that the end of the world was at hand. But by the early 16th century, Martin
Luther emerged to cast a new vision of what could be. (I realize that he was one
voice among many. While not disparaging their contributions, he is the one who
became the articulation of the future.)

His ideas led to the formation of the Protestant church, opened the door for
massive developments in science, and eventually took shape in our democracy and
the emergence of a modern world. (This is way oversimplified does not take into
account many other significant developments.)

Now we live at the end of that world. Is it the end of time? I don’t know. If it’s
not, then God will once again raise up voices who will proclaim the gospel in a
way that will reshape the culture and the world. In the end, America may not look
the same. It may not even be America. But God will do something glorious that will
lead to a greater spread of his word.

As we acknowledge the bankruptcy of modern progress, we must move in step with

what the times requires. The times require thinkers, writers, artists, musicians,
and more to articulate a Christian Future.

The impetus is upon the people of God to proclaim the kingship of our Lord Jesus,
and to create under subjection to His rule. The prophet who has always inspired me
about creating the future is Ezekiel. He is forced to change from priest to
prophet because the times required it.

From the land of exile, Ezekiel sees, eats, acts, and lives out his fantastic
visions. He articulates a future Israel through word-act. We are being called to
be a people who articulate the future through word-act. This often means being
derided as crazy and schizophrenic like Ezekiel. We must not fear but step forward
into the foolishness that will usher in a new world.

Our attempts to define every aspect of the end times has often short-circuited our
ability to see forward. We’ve become like businesses who live from payroll to
payroll or quarter to quarter. Rather, we must become people who live between the
garden and the New Jerusalem, learning to see and hear more clearly. As we see and
hear, we must speak-act the Word of the Lord.

We are people who live in between the times. Like Ezekiel, we know exile too well.
And sometimes we grow bitter and weary in heart. But like Paul we press on for the
high calling of God. And like John we keep our eyes on Jesus, the Alpha and Omega,
the groom, the Lord of Glory who is coming for a people who are without spot.