Look, I’m not suggesting that the just concluded Iowa caucuses and the upcoming New Hampshire primary are strategic pieces in some sort of apocalyptic end game. But I would invite you to ponder the power of the press and/or paid political ads. Even the talking heads within the beltway of the nation’s capital this past week have been chattering in amazement over the swift collapse of one candidate’s heretofore anticipated victory in Iowa’s caucuses. Riding high in the pre-caucus polls, the candidate’s sudden tumble from prominence has been attributed by most news media commentators to the power of negative political advertising, financed by political action committees (so called “super PACs”). The $2.8+ million that these technically “independent” super PACs invested in Iowa alone are evidence enough of the power of negative advertising. I.e., it works! What’s that have to do with the rest of us who will never touch $2.8 million in our life time? Stepping away from political allegiances or nuances, it does make you wonder, doesn’t it, how fickle we the public are, if three-weeks of non-stop television and radio ads can actually change our minds? Never mind those who justify this gushing of advertising dollars into a relatively, politically inconsequential rural state. It still makes me wonder how easily swayable we Americans are to the power of the media, the press, the advertising agencies. Which being interpreted means, I wonder if, in a time of crisis or critical decision-making, a relatively small cabal of individuals—with the financial horsepower to back themselves—could sway an entire nation to pursue a particular course or come to a particular decision. I wonder if the American public (perhaps even the global public) could be as easily persuaded as the Iowans were. Include some momentous catastrophe (financial, natural, political) and it wouldn’t take much to “guide” the public to a desired outcome, would it? For all our crowing about the independent American spirit, the truth is that a stadium full of screaming fans can pretty much set the agenda for an entire city, can’t they? Apparently the Apocalypse thinks so. In no uncertain terms Revelation 13 describes “all the world” (v 3) being led down the primrose path of disaster. Which is why I love the corollary narrative in Daniel—the compelling story about three young politicos who refused to yield to the full-court press of the press and the government. The entire nation (as it were) bowed down to the king’s golden image—but not Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:17, 18). I.e., we will not be bought or persuaded away from our allegiance to the Creator. God give us that threesome generation when we will need it! But in the meantime, the next time the press or the super PACs attempt to persuade you in 60 seconds what to think or do, do the Shadrach thing and simply refuse. Your allegiance to God in the New Year isn’t for sale, no matter when the world ends.
Pastors' Blog
By Pioneer Pastors
The world in the West awakened on Monday to the news that while we slept the 69 year old recluse and quixotic leader of North Korea had succumbed to a heart attack. Kim Jong II was dead. The North Korean press dutifully reported that the “dear leader” died of “overwork” and “great mental and physical pain” accumulated from “dedicating his life to the people.” And I could not help but wonder how it will be with the North Korean people Kim Jong II left behind. Their publicized expressions of grief and dismay over their “great leader’s” demise notwithstanding, how shall they survive? The notorious lack of food production in that hermit (and hermetically sealed) nation reportedly has produced a half-starved citizenry, eking out an impoverished existence. The nation’s ruling philosophy—that there is no God—has meant that there is no divine Responder to the human plight, no Creator to whom the struggling might appeal. And, God forbid, no Christmas story to offer even a glimmer of hope for a downtrodden people. So what Christmas shall the North Koreans enjoy? Oh, you say, if only we could tell them the truth about the first Christmas long, long ago—if only they could taste the elixir of hope embedded in that manger box of feed—if only they might come to know the Christ Child grown up and crucified and buried and risen—then surely, like their dominantly Christian cousins to the south, they too could be resurrected into western prosperity and Christian faith (perhaps not in that order). And yet I look at the American experiment in “believing” the now ancient Christmas story. Where has it gotten us? Last month the Associated Press reported: “The ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high—1 in 15 people—spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income. New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation’s haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty. In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America” (SBTribune 11-3-11). It is a baleful harvest when you embrace only one of the two Advents Scripture has promised. For what good is all the singing about once-upon-a-time, when the here-and-now is left woefully unaffected, pitifully unchanged? The Apostle Paul correctly protested: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (I Corinthians 15:9). Unless we radically embrace both the First and Second Advents, all the societal commotion over the First Advent is meaningless, hopeless—is it not? Are those Americans, who are as unmindful of the Advent yet to come as the North Koreans, any better off in terms of eternity? This Christmas what if we who call ourselves “Advent-ists” (we who are passionate about both Comings of Jesus) pushed our passion to action? What if we discovered a “North Korean” closer to home—someone, some family eking out an impoverished existence in this land of plenty? Not to assuage our guilt, but rather to manifest our hope, by helping another not of our tribe. What if we celebrated a North Korean Christmas here at home? Don’t you suppose someone’s New Year might yet bring reason to believe, to hope—if we really cared?
A few weeks ago Charles Schultz’s syndicated Peanuts cartoon went apocalyptic. Frame 1: Lucy to Charlie Brown, “I don’t worry about the world coming to an end anymore.” Frame 2: She continues, “The way I figure it, the world can’t come to an end today because it is already tomorrow in some other part of the world.” Frame 3: Lucy turns and asks Charlie Brown, “Isn’t that a comforting theory?” Final frame: Lucy smiling but Charlie Brown muttering, “I’ve never felt so comforted in all my life!” What do the end of the world and Christmas have to do with each other? One word: Advent. Which being interpreted, of course, means the Messiah’s coming. First time. Second time. Both times, “God with us.” Advent. The American lawyer and social activist, William Stringfellow, in his essay, “The Penitential Season,” bemoans the loss of meaning of this Advent season in America: “For all the greeting card and sermonic rhetoric, I do not think that much rejoicing happens around Christmastime, least of all about the coming of the Lord. There is, I notice, a lot of holiday frolicking, but that is not the same as rejoicing.” Why the loss of a deeper joy in this season? “The depletion of a contemporary recognition of the radically political character of Advent [i.e., “that message that in the coming of Jesus Christ, the nations and the principalities and the rulers of the world are judged in the Word of God”] is in large measure occasioned by the illiteracy of church folk about the Second Advent and, in the mainline churches, the persistent quietism of pastors, preachers, and teachers about the Second Coming. . . . Yet it is impossible to apprehend either Advent except through the relationship of both Advents” (in Watch for the Light 104, 105). Did you catch that? “It is impossible to apprehend either Advent except through the relationship of both Advents.” In all holiday candor, it makes me wonder—not just about Americans, but about those of us who bear the name “Advent-ists.” Have we inadvertently (and no doubt, innocently) abandoned the apocalyptic connection between the two Advents, between Christmas and the Second Coming? And yet in of this season’s most beloved and lauded of compositions, George Frederick Handel’s The Messiah, the composer powerfully and convincingly weaves together the theme of both Advents in his magnum opus. Isaiah’s grand prophecy—“For unto us a Son is given”—is inseparably joined with the Apocalypse’s mighty Hallelujah chorus—“For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!” Because it is impossible to comprehend either Advent “except through the relationship of both Advents.” Stringfellow was right. Then shall we not join him, and this Christmas set ablaze the candle of our joy, not only for the Advent that is past, but also for the One who is coming? “Oh that today the human family could recognize that song [“Glory to God in the highest”]! The declaration then made, the note then struck, will swell to the close of time, and resound to the ends of the earth” (Desire of Ages 48).
Don’t you love the Mike Water’s “Joyful ‘toon” cartoon Greg Offenback came across this week? Talk about one sophisticated sheep! Look at him (or is it, her). Catching some rays on his outdoor recliner and reading the latest “Sheep Digest” magazine—Mr. Cool sunglasses on, iPod and headphones blaring away, ditto for the TV in front of him, double ditto for his radio beside his chair, a stack of books on the ground (the Bible at the bottom)—in the distance his shepherd calling him—and what’s the sheep’s quip: “I wonder why I don’t hear from the shepherd anymore!” You go, Mr Sheep and Greg and all of us! Talking about a “perfect” follow-up to last Sabbath’s Good Shepherd teaching (“The Last Word: Of Sheep and Shepherds and the Midnight Star”—videocast at this web site: www.pmchurch.tv). “‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). What’s that have to do with Christmas? Simply this—in the cacophony of the holiday’s frenetic bustle, may we (you and I) resolutely carve into every day a quiet space of time where alone with the Good Shepherd we hear His voice. Why? The English writer J. B. Phillips once answered: “That is why, behind all our fun and games at Christmastime, we should not try to escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright, at what God has done. . . . Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet. We shall be celebrating no beautiful myth, no lovely piece of traditional folklore, but a solemn fact. God has been here once historically, but, as millions will testify, he will come again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any human heart ready to receive him” (quoted in Watch for the Light 24). That is why.
I realize that the times call for a bit of creativity now and then—but this creative? In a Black Friday mad dash for an Xbox video game console on sale, a woman at a Los Angeles Wal-Mart last week neutralized her competition (twenty other shoppers) racing for that same electronic toy. She did it with resolve and a nifty little can of pepper spray. Blinded all twenty of them. And hands down (and eyes shut), she won! Merry Christmas, children. But hers was hardly an isolated instance of Christmas shopping aggression. Commenting on the rash of "shopping related violence [rolling] in this week from Los Angeles to New York," the Associated Press reported (in classic understatement) that "experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels." Do you think! "With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. . . . Add in the online-coupon phenomenon, which feeds the psychological hunger for finding impossible bargains, and you've got a recipe for trouble, said Theresa Williams, a marketing professor at Indiana University" (South Bend Tribune 11-27-11). Though probably not enough trouble to convince businesses (and shoppers) to back off. According to the National Retail Federation, American shoppers last weekend spent an all-time high of $52.4 billion--up 16% from the same weekend the year before. And Cyber Monday online sales were $1.25 billion, 33% higher than last year. Did somebody say "economic recession?" Not wanting to be the Grinch that stole Christmas or sound like Dave Ramsey, but I wonder aloud: How much of these sales were credit card purchases to be paid off sometime in the New Year? All because everyone else is doing it? So what would happen if we turned counter-cultural for Christmas? What if we shifted the paradigm, and instead of focusing on how profusely we can give to those we know and love best, we instead began to ask how sacrificially we might give to those we know the least? Like the record number of Americans in the latest census (49.1 million) now considered poor. Don't know anybody that poor? They live 12 miles up the road from us in the inner city of Benton Harbor. Some live right here in university housing. So what if you adopted a family in need (up there or here)? Our Neighbor to Neighbor community service center in town (269-471-7411) has a list of needy families (up there and here)--why not call and ask how you might help one of those families? For the second year now, our church staff is choosing not to exchange gifts at our Christmas party, but rather combine all of our cash gifts for one of those needy families. We're no heroes. But it's proof enough that the paradigm can be shifted. Collectively, personally, simply. All it takes is for someone in your family to make the suggestion. (Which by the way isn't a moratorium on a gift or two for our own loved ones--just a shifting of focus to the more needy we don't even know.) "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (II Corinthians 8:9). No shopping madness (or blindness) on that starry night. Just the quiet emptying of Heaven's treasury for the poorest of the poor--you and me. Since we have received so freely, shall we not then freely give?
Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, his acclaimed history of the Pilgrims, recounts how William Bradford, the intrepid leader of that courageous band of Puritans, years later described “that first morning in America.” Recalling with wonder their landing on the salty, windswept shores of Cape Cod Bay on November 15, 1620, Bradford wrote: “But here I cannot stay and make a pause and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. . . . [T]hey had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor. What could sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity’” (46). His words are appropriate, not only because we celebrate the nearly four century tradition of the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving this week. But in Bradford’s description—“they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity”—perhaps we also hear the faint hint of a day of adversity yet coming upon this land of the Pilgrims. Could the breath-taking speed with which this nation’s hourly economic headlines are unfolding or unraveling these last few weeks be a portent of what is yet to come? Could this land of the free have already seen her best days? Scribbled on the page of Revelation 13 in my Bible are these words written a century ago: “The Lord has done more for the United States than for any other country upon which the sun shines” (Ms 17, 1906). Hardly a prideful claim of superiority or grounds for national arrogance, this quiet observation simply declares a common truth that this country has enjoyed the uncommon blessings of Providence. And in the sunlight how easy is the spirit of thanksgiving. But should the days turn dark and the supernal blessings wither away, what shall we be grateful for then? A year after their landing, the Pilgrims gathered for that first thanksgiving—half of their band already buried beneath the Massachusetts sod. Yet they gave thanks to God. And so must we. No matter the uncertain voyage that spreads before us, nationally or personally. The Almighty is still that. And in the darkest storm his mercy will yet triumph. Just look at Calvary. “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For his mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).
The sirens wailed by as I was out jogging early Tuesday morning. From their sounds, it appeared that not only our Oronoko-Berrien Springs volunteer fire department was responding, but units from nearby towns as well. Only later did I learn of the deadly fire that engulfed an apartment building not far from campus. Eye witnesses spoke to John Paul, an WSBT-TV reporter who wrote up an account for the South Bend Tribune (11-16-11). Rhodel Kabah, a resident of the apartment complex, told him, "I kept hearing shattering glass and screams." A neighbor, Quigley Morris, described standing outside the raging inferno: "The most difficult thing I've ever done in my life was to stand and listen to the mother cry and know there's a kid in there." The three-year-old child was trapped in an upstairs bedroom. The parents tried to coax her to the bedroom window, but she was too frightened. "When they told me a kid was in there, I said we have to do something," Morris went on. "[But] when we tried to go through the door, it was impossible. The smoke was in our faces." Firefighters later recovered the child's body. The child's father was airlifted to a burn unit in Kalamazoo, where he is recovering from extensive burns and broken feet from his second-story jump. Berrien Springs Oronoko Township fire chief Bruce Stover later observed that the fire simply grew and spread too rapidly, preventing any possible rescue of the trapped three-year-old. "We couldn't go in," he said. "We wanted to go in, but we couldn't go in; there was nothing we could [do] to search for the child." And so our community mourns with the grieving family. "We couldn't go in." Because the truth is, sometimes it is simply too late - too late to save the entrapped, too late to "rescue the perishing." In a civilization whose flash points and hot spots could engulf an entire region or even the world in a matter of days, the fate of seven billion really is a big deal, isn't it? How many of earth's children are even cognizant of the smoldering danger that could at any moment explode into an inferno? What shall we do for them? What if we had known a way to save that little girl this week - what if we could have rescued her but chose not to? How would her parents respond? Desire of Ages minces no words: "How would a father and mother feel, did they know that their child . . . had been passed by, and left to perish, by those who might have saved it? Would they not be terribly grieved, wildly indignant? Would they not denounce those murderers with wrath hot as their tears, intense as their love?" (825). And could you blame them? Now comes the zinger: "The sufferings of every man are the sufferings of God's child, and those who reach out no helping hand to their perishing fellow beings provoke His righteous anger" (ibid). The very strong point? We cannot stand by and do nothing. Because the people we study with, work with, live with, play with, and neighbor with belong to our Father, they are our family, too. We must go in after them. After all, Christ did for us - irrespective of the infinitely high cost he had to pay. We must go in after them. For Jesus' line seems all the more apropos as the holidays approach, "Freely you have received; freely give" (Matthew 10:8). Milton Agay, police chief for our village and township, told the reporter: "You wish you could do more, but what can anyone say? You just feel heartbroken for the family and for the loss of a life." Well put, Chief. So let us go in now before it's too late.
Remember that rhyme about Europe? “Austria was Hungary, very very Hungary, ate a bit of Turkey, dipped in Greece. Long-legged Italy, kicked poor Sicily, into the Mediterranean Sea.” (http://wiki.answers.com) Just an old memory device for school children? Perhaps. But for the nations clustered around the Mediterranean today neither rhyme nor reason seems to depict their plight. Last week all economic eyes were on Greece. This week the financial world nervously is watching Italy. Who will it be next week? Iran? On Tuesday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, released a formal report that challenges Tehran’s assertion that its atomic nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes. The IAEA now asserts that Iran has for several years been testing components of a potential nuclear weapons device. Already voices in Israel and the United States are clamoring for retaliatory action against Iran’s nuclear sites. For now calmer heads are prevailing. But next week? And if all this weren’t enough, earth experienced a “near miss” with an aircraft-carrier-sized asteroid that blew past us this week at 30,000 mph and 201,700 miles away. What a week! (We should’ve stayed in bed.) The point? Disequilibrium (the absence of homeostasis) is the name of the game on this planet any more. It has become our daily fare. Which is precisely the danger. Because, like the frog in the kettle analogy, we can become so accustomed to adrenalized headlines that we actually miss the stunning reality of accumulating events, until (like the hapless frog) it’s too late. That’s why I take comfort in Jesus’ upper room promise on the eve of his death: “‘But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come’” (John 16:13). Good news #1—we have a divine Guide who will journey with us to the end of the age. Good news #2—he knows the future. Good news #3—he will keep his friends informed regarding “what is yet to come.” Good news #4—which is why we have nothing to fear for the future, no matter how many alerts are sounding! Did you hear FEMA’s (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) first-time simultaneous national test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) this past Wednesday at 2 p.m. (ET)? Designed to enable the President to address the nation within 10 minutes from any location any time, the EAS on Wednesday sounded the now familiar sustained tone for 30 seconds on every radio, television, cable and satellite station in the nation. Just a drill, we were reminded over and over. But stating the obvious, the day is coming when it will be no drill. And when that day comes the very good news is that you won’t need 10 minutes to connect with God—the Spirit of Christ, who is with you, will already have prepared you for the alert. The point? Stay close, and not a single alert will catch you off guard.
Let me be quick to paraphrase the words of Amos, “I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet” (see Amos 7:14). Truth is, living in the 24/7 news cycle of these tumultuous times, it doesn’t require mega-doses of prescience to make the following prediction here in this Fourth Watch blog. The unraveling this week of the much-heralded (last week) “resolution” to the European Union’s intractable Greece crisis has given new meaning to the “tragedy-comedy” genres of theater the ancient Greeks gave to the world. Greek prime minister George Papandreou announced on Monday a national referendum next year to decide whether Greece would accept last week’s eleventh hour EU bail-out offer. European leaders were stunned. One Irish commentator (perhaps reflecting Ireland’s own precarious financial survival) observed: “The date of that [referendum] vote is as unclear as any intricate political calculations behind Prime Minister Papandreou’s decision to call it, or even whether he informed the Franco-German neo-axis powers before announcing it. Nor is it obvious what the precise implications for Europe might be, other than perfectly hideous. Chaotic hardly seems an adequate adjective. The Greeks have unleashed pandemonium, and if there is any hope remaining in Pandora’s box this time around, you’d want the Hubble Telescope to locate it.” (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/this-is-no-return-to-ancient-greek-democracy-16071942.html#ixzz1cYe9vpXV) In all fairness, the EU-Greece drama is matched only by our own government’s political theater played out in Washington’s “tragic comedy” efforts to stanch America’s financial hemorrhaging. Truth is—the entire world teeters on the razor edge of economic collapse. And that is the Fourth Watch prediction of this blog—that the “new normal” for our national and global economy will be accelerating uncertainty that will terminate in irreversible ruin, the collapse of our civilization. I.e., the second law of thermodynamics will prove true economically—we will move from a state of equilibrium to an irreversible state of entropy and collapse. But such a prediction is hardly rocket science. So why make it? Because I fear for my church. I fear that the indomitable pluck and inbred optimism of the American spirit will temper our apocalyptic awareness and shackle our Adventist sensitivities. I fear that like the five foolish virgins of Jesus’ parable we will drowsily murmur that there is surely more time that must pass before our “second advent” hopes need awaken. I fear the following prediction: “Transgression has almost reached its limit. Confusion fills the world, and a great terror is soon to come upon human beings. The end is very near. We who know the truth should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise [read “sudden”]. . . . Are we as a people asleep? Oh, if the young men and young women in our institutions [read “Andrews University”] . . . could only discern the signs of the times, what a change would be seen in them!” (8T 28, emphasis supplied) Then what shall we do? The soon-coming Christ makes this invitation: “‘Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me’” (Revelation 3:20 NRSV). Now is the most opportune time we have left to “share a meal as friends” (NLT) with our Savior. Now is the only time we have left to make a personal friendship with God our highest priority. (How? Click here and I’ll share the answer with you) Put it off, and like the EU and Greece, I fear it will become the “tragic comedy” of too little, too late.
On Monday Rome issued a bold 18-page response to and proposal for the burgeoning financial crisis engulfing the world. According to the Reuter news agency it calls “for sweeping reforms of the world economy and the creation of an ethical, global authority to regulate financial markets as demonstrations against corporate greed continued to spring up in major cities across the globe” (uk.reutres.com/article/2011/10/24/Vatican-economy-idUKL5E7LO1LS20111024). While a Vatican spokesman clarified that the document is not an expression of the pope or the papal magisterium and does not carry the weight of church dogma, it nevertheless bears “an authoritative note” from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (http://www.newsmax.com/EdwardPentin/Vatican-Global-Finance-Plan/2011/10/25/id/415693). I have reviewed the document, posted at the official Vatican news website (www.zenit.com). It is laudable that Rome raises her voice over the plight of the economically disenfranchised. In doing so she sympathizes with the populist Occupy Wall Street movement that has gone global over the last few weeks. And it certainly is within the purview of a church body to call the world to economic equity. But central to this Vatican proposal is the formation of a “supranational authority” (also called the “world Authority” in the document) to guide and lead the world toward a more equitable banking and economic policy and practice. And it is precisely the language of a “universal jurisdiction” and a “central world bank” that concerns me and should concern others who are watching for the apocalyptic endgame. The document proposes that the United Nations become the initial vehicle for economic reform, “on the way to creating a world political Authority.” Who or what that world Authority is beyond the U.N. is not identified in the proposal. But for students of Revelation 13, the prediction that at the end of time there will be a resurgence of the geo-religio-political power of the Dark Ages gives cause for pause. “And all the world marveled and followed the beast” (Revelation 13:3). Those who suggest the Vatican’s proposal is simply an economic policy recommendation need to reread the document: “In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics—which is responsible for the common good—over the economy and finance” (Zenit, emphasis supplied). So whose definition of “spiritual” do you suppose Rome envisions for the world, whose “primacy” does she seek to restore? Cardinal Peter K. A. Turkson concludes this document, surprisingly for apocalyptic watchers, with a discussion of Babel! “The image of the Tower of Babel also warns us that we must avoid a ‘unity’ that is only apparent, where selfishness and divisions endure because the foundations of the society are not stable. In both cases, Babel is the image of what peoples and individuals can become when they do not recognize their intrinsic transcendent dignity and brotherhood” (ibid). But apocalyptic watchers know that Babel is in fact the image of “confusion,” of the human attempt to replace God with itself, of Babylon’s fateful amalgamation of pagan self-worship with a vestige of divine truth. It is that Babylon that Revelation warns will rule the world in the end. And for that reason we who live in the Fourth Watch of history should hardly be surprised with the Vatican’s offer to the world this week. As Jesus warned, “Let those who have ears hear” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 19; 3:6, 13, 22).
- ‹ previous
- 39 of 59
- next ›