One pastor-friend wrote:

I read this guy’s speech with some alarm. [If you haven’t read it, a journalist claims the ‘Left Behind’ -type thinking of the Bush administration is opposed to any concern for the environment or world peace]. See http://jmm.org.au/articles/14668.htm

I think one of the most significant moves in my thinking came when I turned away from the pre-millenial view of the world I was brought up with. The pre-millenialism I learned taught us that we’re all going to be imminently raptured before the tribulation, which will pretty well disrupt all global life, and then Christ ushers in the millenium – which is only for a thousand years before it all burns up for some reason and a new earth is created.

The problem with this view is it encourages a total disregard for this world. Why would pre-millenialists care about the environment? work for the betterment of the community or the country? nothing we do on this earth in this system matters or lasts. The best we can do is keep ourselves pure and snatch as many as possible from the burning. So we cared about evangelism but not about art, we avoided everything ‘worldly’ and never let our religion stray into social justice or define how we should do our work.

In my discomfort with this stance, I noticed that in the image of the Holy City in Rev 21 the nations bring their treasures into it – as if God values what humans have done & created. In fact, I don’t reckon it is necessarily an image of the great future or of heaven, it seems to be a city located firmly in this world surrounded by the nations, and seems to be a pictorial way of describing the role of the church in the world. And I noticed that the only Bible verse that describes the earth being burned up (in 2 Peter 3) has a textual variant that looks more likely which says the earth will endure fire and fervent heat so that it is ‘revealed’ or ‘exposed’. And I love those images of rural life that Isaiah and co use of Kingdom bliss. So earthy and agricultural and bucolic…

So in short, I have stopped dreaming of heaven as a total alternative world and started working towards making a better earth because I think God cares about this one and has entrusted us with its care. Plus I can’t see any signs of promising activity on any other planets. Pre-millenialism, as we see in the US, translates into a powerful political theory that does not look favourably on sustainable, global thinking.

We have to posit a different role for prophecy. I reckon the images of heavenly bliss are meant to be guidelines for what we work towards here and now. (Which does not rule out their fulfilment in the future).

To which a scholar-friend replied:

Well said !!

Not only does the ‘Left-behind rapturist’ vision of The End give a mandate for the continued devastation of creation, it is also profoundly un-biblical.

As you point out, the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven (Rev 21:2, cf 20:1) to the renewed earth, and even though Rev 21:1 talks about ‘the first/former heaven and earth passing away’ (as does the 2 Peter text you mention), it shouldn’t be understood in terms of the annihilation of God’s creation and its replacement, but rather as the transformation of the old into the new (as Paul also talks about ‘new being’ and ‘new covenant’ — ‘all things are new’ and the old forms/ways are passing away — an overlapping process of the ‘now’ and ‘not yet’).

It’s amazing how recent the American apocalyptic vision of The End really is. If we look at how Augustine, Luther, & Calvin interpret Mark 13 (and Revelation), we get a VERY different scenario. It’s also clear that very few in the ancient world conceived of a catastrophic end to the cosmos (the Stoic idea of ekpurosis, re-birth through fire — as in 2 Peter) comes closest to modern nuclear eschatology, but is still not thinking of total annihilation.

The biblical texts that refer to sun and moon and stars being darkened/falling ALL have very clear historical referents (such as the fall of Jerusalem). This is increasingly being recognized by well-respected evangelical scholars like R. T. France and N. T. Wright. Others (like Brisbane Catholic scholar Anthony Gwyther) are pointing out forcefully that there is NO RAPTURE in the book of Revelation (see his book ‘Unveiling Empire’, written together with Wes Howard-Brooks — available from Amazon or Open Book on-line).

The Earth Bible series (5 volumes edited by Norman Habel from Adelaide) is a collection of articles on Biblical texts seeking to read them from this perspective (that is, a more earth-friendly perspective — ‘green’, if you like).

My own (Keith Dyer’s) contribution is titled: “When Is the End Not the End? The Fate of the Earth in Biblical Eschatology (Mark 13).” In: The Earth Story in the New Testament, eds. Norman Habel and Vicky Balabanski, London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002, 44-56.