The 21st Century and Eschatology

A few days ago, I saw a family story about four-year-old twin sisters on a child care program. The second of these twins was so jealous that she had to monopolize everything before their sister, which made the rest of the family suffer tremendous pain. But surprisingly, the expert's prescription was simple. For the older child, do everything first on odd days, and for the second child, do everything first on even days. When the parents divided the days, the whining of the second child disappeared like a lie, and the child made no hesitation in giving up to his sister as if he had done so.

In a way, the biggest education for a child to grow up seems to teach him that there is a time, a future, not yesterday, not now. When a baby who is only a week old actually cries from hunger, parents should give it milk without delay. No parent would say, "Well, it's not time yet. Wait~" I don't. But even though the child is six months old, he still can't do it again. Gradually, parents should inform their child of the time interval "a little later~" That interval of education not only gives the child the patience he needs to live in the world, but also gives him the "trust" that his parents, and the world he's going to meet, will keep his promise.

From this point of view, the story of the Old Testament of the people of Israel consists of the contents of each long time they make a covenant to the people of God and learn in person that every bend of history, not the past, not the present, but the coming time, called the "future," is promised to them. This future time is sometimes symbolized as 'when the hands become as many as the stars in the sky,' or as 'when entering the land of Ghana,' or as 'reconstructing the kingdom of Israel.' Symbols, no matter how diverse they may be, the point is that there will be a time when they will be able to stand properly as God's people again and become strong and rich

However, the concept of the future has changed a lot for us Christians after the New Testament times. For us, the future has to do with the waiting for Jesus who died on the cross but rose again, and Jesus who ascended to heaven but promised to come soon. Otherwise, no matter how much we come to church, get baptized, or even call ourselves Christians, we will become fake Christians, hollow inside. In short, eschatological beliefs are the key to making Christians Christian.

But we have no choice but to admit this fact at the same time. If we talk deeply one by one with brothers and sisters at church, clergy, and theologians we meet in the church, it means that each of us understands very differently about 'Jesus' coming again'. Some people take the words of 1 Thessalonians read today literally and wait for that time, thinking that Jesus Himself comes down from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the sound of God's trumpet. Others can never know how and when in detail, but anyway, there must be a time when Jesus will come, so I think it is important to prepare well in advance like the wise virgins of Matthew's Gospel. Others believe that the attitude of the faith to decide to live a new life as a Christian before the power of death encountered in the existence each faces is a rational understanding of the end times, rather than the end of physical time.

Which understanding is correct? I think from an ecumenical point of view, all these attitudes are complementary to each other. But honestly, I don't have to deny that as I study theology, I've been a little more lean to the last position. In any case, not all Christian understandings of that final future coincide, but theologians have referred to them all as “apocalyptic beliefs” and have described them as characteristic features of Christianity. However, as I have become increasingly interested in environmental issues in recent years, I am thinking little by little whether the eschatological faith at the core of the Christian faith is rather hindering us from solving the problems facing humanity today. I don't know if it may sound a bit disrespectful, but I hope you will be patient and listen to why I came to think this way.

The new word “human tax” is popular these days. This phrase came up when some scientists suggested that the era of 'Holocene' in which we live in the chronology of geology should no longer be called 'Holocene' but 'Anthropocene'. Geology gives the name of the era as a representative of the geological characteristics of that era. According to modern scientists, carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the earth's geology and atmosphere increased tremendously by humans who developed industry after the 18th century. Therefore, it is said that its chemical composition is qualitatively distinct from the previous one. In other words, since the heavens and the earth have completely changed qualitatively compared to the previous ones by humans, it is argued that it is appropriate to call them an 'human epoch' by naming them. At first glance, it means that humans are so powerful that they can even change the chemical components that make up the earth, so you may have heard this word as a sign of the greatness of mankind. However, in fact, it is used more and more now as a term referring to an urgent and severe warning about the earth's ecological environment, which will soon be destroyed by humans.

When I was very young, I said it was environmental pollution, but when I was in college, people said it was environmental destruction. Not so long after that, the term climate change became popular, and now it is called a climate crisis, even a climate disaster. Everyone, as you may have heard of, I would like to tell you a fact that most are almost certainly not familiar with. Since the middle of the 20th century, the international community has been talking about the sudden rise of the Earth's temperature. Then, after a long discussion in 2015, we concluded the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The contents of this agreement are as follows. If we do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions in this way, we are facing a catastrophe in which the average temperature rises by more than 4 degrees at the end of this century. The significance of this agreement is that the United States, which had been lukewarm on the climate change agreement until then, signed this agreement and decided to fulfill its responsibilities as a country that emits carbon dioxide most.

As the largest number of nations internationally pledged, the international community was thrilled that mankind had finally found hope. But if you know now, don't be surprised. Even if countries really do their best to keep the promise of the Paris Convention to achieve the miracle of tying the temperature up to 2.0 degrees, this achievement cannot stop the Arctic and Antarctic summer thawing, and as a result, the massive amount of carbon dioxide released as the black soil rotates every summer was a weak stopgap measure, unable to stop the extinction of 16 percent of the earth's plants, 8 percent of the vertebrates, and 99 percent of coral reefs. And even if the Paris climate agreement is miraculously well followed, it will never prevent the outbreak of already 133 million climate refugees in 2030. Even though we know all this information, the Paris Agreement has chosen the evil of the worst, because we can't stop all industries and consumption, so let's watch at least two degrees, so let's stop the end of humanity.

However, the year after the Paris Agreement was concluded, the newly elected U.S. President Trump, insisting on America First, withdrew from the Paris Agreement on the grounds that the previous government's agreement to reduce carbon dioxide more than China was unfair. The scenario that mankind ambitiously prepared to prevent the future of a complete catastrophe has led to such a big rift, and many governments around the world, including the Republic of Korea, are still lukewarm about taking responsibility. So we are not even interested in whether or not the bridegroom will come, because we have taken the place of wise virgins and become foolish virgins ourselves. It's just comforted by the fact that our bodies are now at ease, that our lives are abundant, that there are four more foolish fellow virgins, and so easily dilute the shame of laziness and irresponsibility.

Prof. Clive Hamilton, who wrote the book <Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene>, criticizes at the end of the book that Christianity is fundamentally the main culprit of the climate crisis and an incompetent religion that does not take any responsibility as the core spirit of Western society that caused industrial civilization. He says:

“Some evangelical ministers declare: “I am not interested in climate change. I will be in heaven.” If you're such a cold person, you can't help but think that somewhere other than this one might be a more worthy destination for him.”

We are well aware of the fact that we cannot easily deny this painful question. We are well aware of the history of how Genesis God's command to be fruitful and prosperous has destroyed and exploited other peoples, continents, and nature without hesitation in the history of Christian imperialism. We are embarrassed to know that history is contained within the history of our proud church.

Joshua 24, who settled the people of Israel in Canaan and distributed the land, gathered his people in Shechem before his death and asked them how they would live upright before God. Death is something that no one can replace, so a man before death has no choice but to wrestle with his tragic fate. But as the leader of Moses and the man of God, Joshua did not think of his fate before death. For what is more important to him is not only his own life, but his people and descendants who will live on the land after his death.

So he said to his descendants who had just settled in the land of Canaan, lived in harmony with the heathen culture, and had just begun forgetting the promises of the wilderness with God, “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord... throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel!” He warned strongly, and admonished us to choose the right path before God. Although he dies and disappears now, he has become a leader who does his best to prepare for the future of his descendants who will continue to live on this earth after his death.

But as I read today’s scripture, I thought about what Joshua's words to fear Jehovah and to serve him with all faithfulness really mean for us in the 21st century. Does it mean to go to church well? Does it mean that we should be holy on Sunday? Does it mean to evangelize your family and neighbors? Does it mean to serve our neighbor? Does it mean building a just society? When I thought that there were conservative and progressive, evangelical and liberal in faith, the answer seemed to be quite clear to me as a few personally countable answers.

But now that the climate crisis, or climate disaster, has been foreseen "scientifically" clearly, we realize that no longer can we be judged simply by hard work in faith, by hard work in morality, or by just fighting in terms of social justice. The climate crisis will be the greatest pain we have ever experienced, and the greatest sin we have ever committed, at a time when no country on this planet has done its best to stop the rise in temperature. In the face of this ruthless evil, what we have done so far, such as attending church faithfully, serving poor neighbors, or creating a welfare system to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, may be all too personal or even useless.

If you think you're talking too much, think like Joshua, who thought of his children living in Canaan after death. Since all of us died, the world in which we now teach in college in our 20s, and our children and grandchildren, both teenagers and younger, will live. It would be nice to think of a world where generations that will only be genetically two or three generations old will live. The future of our close descendants will never be known, but every season, with massive floods and cold weather, is at risk, and the lack of food will continue to cause international conflicts and conflicts. New infectious diseases spread and people avoid and detest people, so our offspring's lives themselves are living in the world of Armageddon, where there is no sense of stability and peace.

Then what should we promise to God now? How is it to live fully, to live truthfully, and to live a life with fear of God? You should never be self-complacent. More than ever, we need an awareness of a real end, which is more urgent. Furthermore, we must acknowledge the last apocalypse that our foolish greed will cause, and we must do our best to avoid that last apocalypse. And ultimately, the beliefs that we desperately desire to give these foolish humans the last chance once again, these are the eschatological beliefs we really need in the 21st century.