True Confession: I Don’t Want Jesus to Come Back
Whenever I read blogs like Jesus Needs New PR or Christian Nightmares or The American Jesus, the posts that most capture my attention are the William Tapley videos or the Nic-Cage-as-Kirk-Cameron in a Left Behind reboot speculations or the dueling live coverage of the return of Jesus.
For some sick reason, I’m drawn to the drama of end times prognostications.
I think this is because I grew up in fundamental Baptist churches that were obsessed with the end times. We would often have eschatology conferences where we would string a bed sheet across the front of the sanctuary and map out with certainty all of the details relating to the end of the world. The details we didn’t know for certain, we would argue about – like where America can be found in the book of Revelation or who the AntiChrist is.
The underlying message of our approach to the end of the world was that everything was getting worse and worse. Life on the planet is spiraling out of control. The only hope any of us had was Jesus returning to rapture us out of the mess. And so, we should look forward to his glorious returning more than anything else in life.
That’s the part that always got me.
I was a good fundamentalist. I attended church with my family without complaint. I was very involved in our church youth group. I worked at our Christian camp. And eventually, I went off to Bible college to become a pastor.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t really looking forward to the return of Jesus. If I was forced to make a true confession then it would have been this: I don’t want Jesus to come back.
What I wanted was a chance to live my life. I wanted to get married and have sex. We decided in Bible college that the cruelest irony would be for the Rapture to happen during your wedding reception – after the “I do” but before the honeymoon. I wanted to have a family. I was (and still am) looking forward to the Cleveland Browns winning the Super Bowl. I always felt guilty that in my heart of hearts, I wasn’t really looking forward to the return of Jesus because I figured that the second coming was going to spoil my life.
More than a decade later, when I went through a profound theological transformation, which I now refer to as a fundamorphosis, one of the things I jettisoned from my Christian upbringing was the pessimistic view of the future and the associated feelings of guilt.
I now embrace an optimistic theology based on hope. Rather than despairing over the problems of the world, I’m trying to be an activist regarding the issues I feel passionately about. Rather than treating people with suspicion and finding conspiracy theories around every corner, I’m trying to embody the grace of suspended judgment. Rather than expressing unwarranted certainty about how the future will unfold, I’m trying to embrace the mystery and enjoy the ride. Rather than thinking I’ve got to wait for Jesus to return, I’m trying to find Jesus in every face and in every day.
And, rather than feeling scared and guilty because of the pronouncements of the William Tapleys of the world and the pessimistic theology of my upbringing, I now see it all as eschatological silliness. And it makes me laugh … a lot.
As your reward for reading this post, here is William Tapley in all of his glory:
The post True Confession: I Don’t Want Jesus to Come Back appeared first on Robb Ryerse.
