When the World Ends

What is the point of the Church?

It can be the institutionalized body that keeps the gospel message alive through passing it along families and bringing in new converts.  It can be more of a social club whose purpose is to provide a space for those with common interests to gather and do things together.  It can be something of a support group for disparate and similar people to support one another in the name of a binding doctrine.  It can be a place for those with common hopes to work towards an end (eschatology style, meaning the end of time and not something more temporal like lets build a shelter together) goal.  It can be a mix of all these things or a few of them or maybe you think none of the suggestions I have put forth are correct.

But grant me, if you will, my last definition and disagree with me on it at the end if you still want to.  When I think of this primarily eschatological argument, I am immediately drawn to think of the sorts of Anglo-Evangelical ideas that believe in the literal translation of Revelations, the rapture that will come when all have heard the message of Christ, the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem, etc.  We need not get into all of the theological and political ramifications that those particular beliefs have produced.  Instead, if we focus on eschatology in a different way, it is possible to understand and see a hope for end things that is not explicitly about end things at all.  Rather, the end things are more of a way to focus our attention acutely on what is actually happening before us right now.

To offer up a metaphor, lets say that I was someone who believed the end goal of my life was to have children to carry on my good name, and any person worth a damn should do the same (I am in the stage of my life where children ages 5-18 annoy me to death so this is just a metaphor).  That does not mean that the steps I take in the time between now and my demise are merely about this end goal.  The person I fall in love with, I should be in love with (hopefully) from start to end, and with a love that is for love's sake and not just so that I can die knowing there are other human beings that have my unusually large palms.  This is why I would argue against reductionists who see human action as primarily a matter of biology, neurology, etc.

Ok, I hope you're still with me.

All this is to say that my biggest concern with Occupy Wall Street has been that it will lead no where.  What will come of this?  What if it all fizzles away and the rich CEOs are only spurred on to fight harder for the status quo?  What is the end goal suppose to look like? 

If you ask me, I see in the eschatology of Occupy Wall Street the same sort of eschatology that the Church does know, and if not, should know.  An end where the meek inherit the earth, the ones who hunger for justice are satisfied, and those who mourn are comforted.

There are theories of culture, and movements, and organizing that can be used to show why these seemingly shepherdess sheep who are hanging out together in parks and street corners are building the ground swelling for true change.  I hope that is true.  But I also see an eschatological hope in play here.  This is a not a moment merely for an end that is hoped for, where success and failure are defined by consequences.  It is a moment because of an end that is believed in.  And that doesn't make it any less valuable.

-Tim