I recently came across - I guess my ears were burning - a brief discussion initiated by Stephen Murray about the difference between a ‘narrative-historical’ or ‘narrative-realist’ approach to biblical interpretation and classic Preterism. The question is pertinent, so I will attempt here to outline what I understand by a narrative-realist hermeneutic and how it compares with Preterism, with some final thoughts on how a historical reading can still provide the basis for a dynamic and transformative dependence on the living Word of God.

My name is Andrew Perriman. My wife, Belinda, and I have lived in various parts of the world over the last 30 years: the Far East, Africa, the Middle East, the Netherlands, and now London.

Duncan’s post on the narrative of Revelation has sparked an interesting dispute about the relationship between an emerging theology and preterism. Since the conversation isn’t directly relevant to the post, I wonder if we might explore its implications separately. It’s an opportunity to think a bit about what we mean by an emerging theology and how we might negotiate the boundaries between different dogmatic traditions as well as between modern and postmodern ways of thinking.

The Christian Associates Thinkings group will be getting together in the Hague in October to explore the question of what it means to proclaim Christ as Lord in a post-Christendom, post-modern and religiously pluralist Europe. With that in mind I recently got hold of a copy of a smallish book called The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor, knowing full well that it was not going to be especially sympathetic to an emerging perspective. The chapter on ‘The Church and the Supremacy of Christ’ by Mark Driscoll caught my eye for a particular reason that I will come to later.

I’ve just got back from a fascinating and at times harrowing week in Rwanda and Burundi where I took part in a gathering of ‘emerging’ African leaders, organized by Amahoro Africa. The theme of the conference was ‘The Gospel of Reconciliation’, the 1994 genocide and its aftermath being the inevitable focus for a conversation that broadly addressed the inadequate response of the post-colonial church to the humanitarian, social and political crises that currently afflict East and Southern Africa. We listened to the barely believable stories of genocide survivors and visited a number of sites - churches in particular - where defenceless Tutsis had been slaughtered in their thousands. Even fourteen years after the event it is clear that beneath a veneer of micro-managed social stability anger, grief and fear are still intensely felt. The church has powerful stories of forgiveness and reconciliation to tell, but in the eyes of many Rwandans the church was largely ineffectual when it really mattered, when the frenzied mobs came wielding their machetes to exterminate the cockroaches.

I have been rather bothered recently by the way in which the emerging church - though not only the emerging church - makes use of the concept of the ‘kingdom of God’ to define its mission, the idea being that the task of the church is to extend or build the kingdom of God on earth. Very often there is an implicit polemical aspect to the usage: we build the kingdom of God rather than merely convert people; or we are more concerned about the concrete social dimension of the kingdom on earth than the rarefied - if not mind-numbing - prospect of an eternity in heaven. The phrase ‘kingdom of God’ appears to capture for us something of the down-to-earth political and moral relevance of the gospel that we are so anxious to reintroduce into Christian discourse; and it gives substantial theological justification for this shift in missional focus. But I am not at all sure that this is how the term works biblically.