Looking Back To See The Future

There are two ways to see the future. One is to receive a vision of all time and all reality. The other is to study the past for patterns that are timeless. The first is granted to only a tiny percentage of the population for only the most specific of purposes; the second is open to anyone for the general purposes of edification and wisdom... Recipients of the first include John the Beloved on Patmos Island so he could write the Apocalypse for the Christian Church; Dante Alighieri of Italy so he could complete his moral, political, spiritual and (eventually) his artistic journey; Julian of Norwhich so she could write the Shewings and minister the love of God to humanity. The first is for great saints with great callings. The second is available to any mediocre sinner like myself, who cares to put in some work. The first is given to sometimes unwilling prophets and fore-runners. The second is available to any willing person with some free time and ten bucks for good books at Borders. (Heck, these days, you don't even need to pay!)

As the year begins, we look forward with many questions, with some anticipation, and some fear. As we sail into 2008, what timeless patterns can we discern in the annals of history, to give us insight, comfort, conviction, and hope?

1. The final victory belongs to Jesus Christ and his Bride. To quote John Mark Reynolds, "Christianity is always losing... But it's always losing to someone new." The tides of modernism are swelling to a final pitch. Individualism in philosophy and morality is universal; the only agreement that is politically correct to have with another person is to the insane notion that each of us can (and should) disagree about notions of truth and goodness. The only common ground we have is that we both want to independently come up with our own notions of truth and goodness without discussing them with each other or the ancient thinkers. We are not foolish enough to try this in areas of medicine and biology, even car mechanics, but when it comes to matters of life and death of the self, we throw reason to the wind.

The blind faith in evolution has clouded the intellects but sparked the imaginations and fervent emotions of scientists and other entrepreneurial thinkers who more and more look to technology as the cure for whatever ills beset us as a race. But whatever alternatives to the life of Christ, He remains a faithful germ of sanity inside our latest and insanest innovative "cures." Likewise, whatever the developing opposition to the life of Christ, he remains invincible and unflappable above the melee, and his people, the New Isreal, experience safety under the shadow of his wings. If killing the master did not even stop him, then why would resisting and slandering and oppressing his followers work?