Revealing the City of God
I was invited to by The American Reformer to publish a more fulsome critique of Paul Kingsnorth's criticisms of the idea of Christian civilization. That piece is now up on their website.
When I say “fulsome critique,” I was not kidding. It runs almost 10,000 words. But, it develops a lot of important theological themes like the nature of the fall, the archetypal memory of mankind which drives him today, the teleological nature of time, the heavenly city as the goal of salvation, what it means to be “in Christ” and how that affects our life today, the importance of the role of prophet, priest and king in the life of the community, and why we don’t do church discipline today much, if at all. I also look at the weaknesses and strengths in Kingsnorth’s argument. I hope in the end it is fair and informative. I am thinking that once it has had a little play over at American Reformer, I will do an audio recording to post here for my listeners. Do go give it a read over at American Reformer. Bookmark their site because they publish a lot of really thoughtful pieces working through our present moment theologically.
Link: Revealing the City of God
I am following with great interest your debate with Paul Kingsnorth. How very fortunate that it has led you to write the article “Revealing the City of God” on the American Reformer.
Listening to you and reading your writing bring new concepts to my awareness. (Indeed, it goes far beyond that!) Reading this article has been a great help for comprehending certain theological structures you have touched on before, but delve into here with more explanation. It was a joy to read.
The body of believers (past, present and future) is the perfect subset of those who have their teleos in the city of Zion, the new heavenly city of Jerusalem. We can anticipate that features of life in God’s own city will filter back from that culmination in theosis to manifest in this kind of ghost nation that are not necessarily geographically or temporally bounded together. Another subset that will share an overlap with the group above is the church (the parishioners of various denominations across vast distances). Similarly, another set of people might be Christian groups or Christian leaders and their followers who congregate online. These groups are deemed “self-selected”. Or better, they are called by God.
On the other hand, a Christian community, nation or civilization is a varied grouping. Is there not room amongst such a people for an uneven application of the exigencies of the faith? Certainly there are signs pointing to God. (If only none would perish!) Certainly there is a baseline of what is permissible. Yet, not all are equally devout and there will be unbelievers.
It seems that the human induced danger in that situation is to run too hot or too cold. Too hot and those not called to the faith present deceptively or rebel. Too cold and the message is watered down and the faithful yearn for truth. Some men will be raised up to the kingly roles, others to the priestly. God himself will find his prophets.
Could you see a place in such a society for those men and women who wish to renounce a life of family responsibly and sacrifice for community to instead go to the monastery to lead a life of prayer and study? Do they not also produce Christian cultural artefacts?
Boy am I looking forward to this. PK is a wonderful speaker and thoughtful source of values and context in contemporary times. I welcome your thoughts Kruptos. Two men communicating and offering views that build on theories of original text is a fine thing. I hope this leads to more discussion and content. 🙏🏼