Here we go again.

In a response to my recent piece on James Tabor’s “failed failed apocalypse of the New Testament” argument, Edward Babinski, one of a number of vociferous ex-fundamentalist critics of conservative orthodoxies, has outlined an obscure but interesting argument regarding Jesus’ belief in an imminent cosmic judgment, based on the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch (1 En. 1-36). I offered a brief response, but on further reflection, I think that any analogy between the Book of the Watchers and the apocalyptic outlook of the New Testament points in quite a different direction. I will suggest that Jesus actually comes off the better for it.

My recently developed narrative missiological model has three main parts to it. During periods of stasis the people of God is 1) new creation and 2) royal priesthood. During periods of crisis those functions tend to be reduced, and 3) a prophetic identity comes to the fore.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the church in the West is facing an existential crisis. Most of the remedial effort has gone into doing things differently—trying new approaches, developing ways of operating that restore confidence, find favour, get attention, etc. Much good theological thought is birthed in the renewal of practice, but it seems to me that the crisis calls for a different type of theological response—to step back and see the big picture.

The standard simplified evangelical understanding of New Testament eschatology is that Jesus will “come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,” the world will be brought to an end, all evil and death will be destroyed, and there will be a new heaven and new earth, “his kingdom will have no end,” etc.; and we continue to affirm that hope, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, in our creeds.

Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22:1-14, like the two parables preceding it, is directed against the chief priests and elders of the people who questioned his authority to pronounce judgment on the temple (Matt. 21:23-27). The leaders of Israel are those who refuse to attend the marriage celebration for the king’s son, and in his anger the king “sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city,” which is an unnerving image to evoke today against the backdrop of the massive Russian advance on Kyiv (Matt. 22:7).

The Hebrew word shalom features prominently in “missional church” discourse. John Franke says, for example, in his Missional Theology: An Introduction: “The restoration of peace or shalom, the all-embracing blessing of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ, may be the simplest, most compelling, and most comprehensive way of articulating the content of the commission given to the church” (35).

This is a story of our times, surely: a person I know slightly, trapped a while back in an evangelical Reformed seminary, drawn to the narrative-historical argument but not sure what to do with it, has now abandoned his faith, identifying as someone who is at best sympathetic to the metaphorical force of the Christian story.