LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

In Christian theology, the term “eschatology” refers to the branch of study focusing on the end times: the final judgment and apocalypse referred to in the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible. When speaking in eschatological terms, we often talk about the “now and not yet”—the condition of Christian life wherein we are simultaneously already saved by the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross, yet also suspended in a state of sometimes hopeful, sometimes anxious waiting for the return which He has promised us. The paradoxical duality of “now and not yet” describes much of the Christian life, but over the past year it feels more applicable than ever. From a global pandemic, to revived protests over systemic racial injustice and police brutality, to a tumultuous election in the wake of increasing political division, we are all keenly aware of the weight of what it is to be living in between the now and not yet. 

In my own life, the last few months have pressed me to consider what it means to hold fast to hope in the waiting. I have no reason to believe that our current global problems will simply resolve themselves, that we will someday reach a state of blissful utopia this side of paradise. As Christians, we reject the post-Enlightenment humanism that tempts us to think that if we just harness the capacity of our collective human striving in the right way, in the right time, in the right places, we can fix the brokenness in the world: do-it-yourself salvation! Politicians and world leaders promise us that through better policies, new technologies, and innovations in medicine, a more perfect society is achievable. It’s a nice message, but I think the Bible offers us something better. 

I would be falling into a millenia-old gnostic heresy if I outright denied the central importance of Christianity as an embodied faith, one firmly, physically planted in both our individual bodies and the tangible geography that hosts them. After all, God sent His son in a physical body to die for our sins, sins that carry a physical weight and importance—and a physical consequence in the form of death. Those sins demanded a tangible repayment in the form of the blood of Christ. This is to say that we have a real and pressing mandate to care for the physical world and people around us. We ought, indeed, to care for the health and preservation of the earth, to care for human bodies—sickly bodies, migrant bodies, imprisoned bodies, Black bodies—through the politics, technologies, and medicines we have and will create. 

But we must also carry with us this ultimate truth: that “Heaven and Earth will pass away,” but God’s word—the living, breathing promise each of us carries as part of His body—will endure forever. [1] We carry this truth in the broken-yet-still-saved world between Jesus’ first coming and His ultimate return, in between the fallen Eden of old and the New Heavens and New Earth to come, in between physical death and final resurrection. So how do we act in the meantime?

The following collection of articles, poems, and even a short story cannot answer definitively any of the great mysteries of faith. Instead, we hope to offer you something in between the anxiety of questions and the arrogance of answers: a chance to join us in the practice of our faith, which we know to be an “assurance of things hoped for” and “conviction of things not seen.” [2] If anything, living our lives in the in between reminds us that even these seemingly-infinite interrims will ultimately pass away, until only the love of our God remains—and nothing, “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [3]

Sincerely,

Brooke Lindsey
Editor-in-Chief

SOURCES

[1] Matthew 24:35 (ESV)
[2] Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)
[3] Romans 8:38-39 (ESV)