Essentials of Evangelical Theology
04/19/07
Olson 15 Letter
Dear Toni and Denise~
I was a little intense in high school, wasn’t I? Do you remember the night I invited you guys over to watch that ‘end times’ movie A Thief in the Night? I want you to know that I only wanted to introduce you to Jesus, but I think I ended up scaring the daylights out of you instead. I want to apologize for any fear such a hyper-sensationalized movie may have caused you.
At the time, I truly believed that the events surrounding the end of the world were going to happen in that specific way. I was sincere in my hope that if you knew what was coming, you would choose Christ and be saved from the pain and suffering of the tribulation.
Although I still pray that you have met Jesus and have experienced the joy of knowing him, I realize now that I was using evangelical scare tactics by showing you that movie. The truth is, I don’t exactly know how it is all going to go down in the end. One of the major church fathers, Augustine, believed that many of those events were already happening in this current age (Olson, 339). Other liberal branches of Christianity believe that the apocalyptic literature of the Bible is the stuff of myth (Olson, 340). I was surprised to learn in my Theology class that ‘the rapture’ “is not a part of the great consensus of Christian belief (Olson, 345).”
One thing I do know: Jesus is coming back. And when he does, “every corruption of creation will be healed and God will be all in all or everything to everyone (Olson, 356).” Instead of focusing on the terrifying events that movie predicted, I want to instead believe in the “promise of peace and reconciliation, love and justice, abundant life and fulfillment (356).” If you know Christ, the future will hold wonderful things for you. We will all dwell with him “in a new heaven and a new earth for eternity (356).”
Peace, my friends.
Love, Shelley
The experience I had with Christianity, most especially with the Evangelical Protestantism that I was raised in, is one of confusion: a desire for Christ, but not understanding much about what Christians actually believed from the start. That sort of un-rooted situation opens up all sorts of bad paths. I actually have found this to be at its worst in friends who have devoted their lives to Evangelicalism.
Have you ever talked with an Orthodox Christian? Orthodoxy represents “the consensus” of the first thousand years of the Church without much by way of change. In many ways, there’s theologically no change from the first century. The focus is on getting life aligned with Christ, to try to live a life that models the Trinity: one that sees God’s Love as the central revelation of Christ. It is also Evangelical in the truest sense.
I resisted this for a long time. Looking back, it was all about my assumptions that I was right in the place I stood and the things I thought – I couldn’t see past my cultural context or personal experience. Now I see coming to Orthodox Christianity as not only the best thing I have done, but the only thing I could have done: it is the undiminished Faith and also a story of Perfect and Uncompromised Love.