There are, of course, many different kinds of churches. Not all churches seem to be experiencing the same fate as mainstream Protestantism. It is my judgment, however, a judgment I defend in “Church Matters: On Faith and Politics,” that churches that may currently seem to be flourishing — and that includes churches in the Roman Catholic tradition as well as Protestant evangelicals — are fated to endure the same end as churches in the Protestant mainstream. The church is in a buyer’s market that makes any attempt to form a disciplined congregational life very difficult.
There is another end that may be approaching that has implications for the church — that is, we may be nearing the end of Christendom. Of course “Christendom” is the name used to describe quite diverse forms of societal organization, but what seems to be occurring is that the general societal approval and support the church has enjoyed particularly in America is coming to an end. Of course one of the costs Christians have paid for the social and political status they have enjoyed is not to take their Christian identity so seriously that they might destabilize the social order by, for example, challenging the presumption that war is a necessity if democracies are to survive. Thus I am long on record as thinking the loss of Christendom to be a “good thing.”4
One of the reasons I think the waning days of Christendom to be a good thing has everything to do with the recovery of the eschatological character of the gospel. When Christians begin to think we are at home in the world our sense that we live “between the times” is not only muted but close to being unintelligible. The recovery of the eschatological vision is crucial for how the church understands her relation to the world.
My oft-made claim, a claim that many find offensive, that the first task of the church is not to make the world just but to make the world the world, is rightly understood only in light of these eschatological convictions. Dualities such as faith and reason, grace and nature, creation and redemption are properly to be understood in the light of the church/world alternative. The church/world alternative, moreover, must be under constant reconfiguration because what it means to be church must always be open to the work of the Holy Spirit. Rightly understood, however, the presumption that the church exists so that the world might recognize itself as world is in fact good news.5
From this perspective the loss of the social and political status of the church may have made it possible for Yoder’s account of the “politics of Jesus” to at least be understood and perhaps even be thought to have the ring of truth.6 As long as the church has to act in a “politically responsible” manner she will find it hard to take her own existence as a political reality seriously. Given the eschatological presumptions that shape this book, however, the church does not so much have a political mission as her very existence is a political mission; it provides an alternative to the politics of the world. Such a view may seem counterintuitive, but I think it nonetheless true. In most matters we discover what makes us who we are or should be when we have nothing to lose.
It would serve little purpose for me to say in this introduction what I have said throughout the chapters of this book. But I hope I have said enough to alert and prepare the reader for the eschatological position developed in quite diverse ways throughout this book.7 The chapters in Part One address directly my understanding of the eschatological character of the Christian faith. There is much more that needs to be said about eschatology than I say in these essays, but I hope what I have said is at least the beginning of such conversations. Rightly understood, every loci of the Christian faith has an eschatological dimension, making impossible any isolated account of eschatology. So the “more” that needs to be said about eschatology is the “more” that gestures toward the necessary unfinished character of Christian theology.
As is often the case in the books I put together, the ordering of the chapters is arbitrary. That is a little strong. Better put, there is no clear logical development from one chapter to the next. All the essays are, I think, interrelated in interesting ways, making it possible for readers to begin anywhere. What is only a suggestion in one essay will be developed more fully in another. I have always thought what I have to say, which admittedly many find “hard to take,” might be given a second thought if the reader is trusted to make connections I may well miss myself. I hope that trust is evident in this book.
I could, for example, have begun the book with the essays in Part Two. I chose to begin with the more theological essays not only because they more directly engage Scripture but also because they make explicit the fundamental concepts that shape the book. In particular the first chapter, “The End Is in the Beginning: Creation and Apocalyptic,” can be understood as my attempt to engage the fundamental “methodological” issues at the heart of all the subsequent chapters. In that chapter, for example, I consider the status of natural law for Christian practical reason.8
I am, of course, hesitant to describe that essay as “methodological” because I am quite suspicious of “method.” I hope I have never had a “method” if by method it is meant that one must begin with a theory to determine what can be said. I have always assumed it best to “dive in at the deep end” so that one must sink or swim. But the essays in Part One do deal with fundamental questions concerning the apocalyptic character of Christian eschatological convictions. The third chapter, “Witness,” is important not only because in it Pinches and I explore the witness of the New Testament but also because we draw on recent work concerning the significance of martyrdom for understanding the eschatological politics of the church.
The chapters that make up Part Two deal directly with the political reality of the church. Some readers may find it odd that several of these essays deal not only with the church’s relation with the world but also with issues surrounding the divided character of the church and the imperative of Christian unity. Again I make no claim to have dealt adequately with the ecumenical challenge before us as Christians, but I am sure that the divided character of the church makes Christians far too ready to go to war. That is why the chapter “War and Peace” hopefully serves as an appropriate “summing up” of the first two sections of this book.
There is one theme running through the first two sections to which I feel I need to call attention. I have become convinced that if we are to understand our politics, and in particular the politics of war, we must attend to sacrifice as a crucial practice determining our lives. I have obviously been influenced in this respect by René Girard and Paul Kahn, but even before I had read them Yoder had alerted me to sacrifice as a crucial category. I began exploration of the significance of sacrifice in War and the American Difference, but I think my response in “The End of Sacrifice: An Apocalyptic Politics” to Peter Leithart’s defense of Constantine for prohibiting “pagan” sacrifices helps make the connection between sacrifice and politics clearer.9
There is yet another “end” that some may associate with the title of this book, namely, they may well think, given my retirement, that “the end” that is approaching is my own. Some might even be led to think the title suggests that I might intend for this book to be my “swan song.” Am I trying in Approaching the End to have the last word? That is certainly not how I understand what I am about in this book. Rather than trying to have the last word, I am trying in Approaching the End to write in a different voice.
I do not want to be misunderstood. Those familiar with my work will find arguments and positions in Approaching the End that I have used or taken in the past. But I also hope the reader will find some surprises in this book. At least I know there are some surprises for me in this book. For example,