"WANTED: Raiders of the Lost Arc"

     There's been a lot of taking, writing, and shouting about the "right side" and "wrong side" of history, and which "side" you should be on. It strikes me a bit odd that many believers have accepted this false idea of history and who controls it. People believe that history has an arc, and that it can be bent by the efforts of humanity. 
     History does in fact have an arc, but I'm afraid the believing community has fallen prey to error because we've lost our ability to truly "tell time." In this final episode of 2021, we're going on a provocative journey into the two "time zones" of the Bible with the goal of getting our watches set right.

Transcript

“WANTED: Raiders of the Lost Arc”

I was about 16 when a large oil and manufacturing company called “Gulf and Western” bought a struggling movie company called Paramount Pictures. Who could have ever imagined a marriage between those two industries, at least back then. Now, “odd couple” business partnerships are pretty unremarkable and unknown…to be honest. But, Paramount got a shot in the arm financially, which was good because a number of iconic movies exist as a result. One of them, released when I was in my second year of teaching was called, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,”a two-hour, hang on to your glutes journey into an adventure that defied reality, especially the true biblical narrative about the Ark itself. But, ya know, my eyes never left the screen, so…just saying. Harrison Ford was so consistently unbelievable that he became believable by the end.

For a 31-year old father of two, it was epic stuff. For those of you listening that are much younger, I’m sure you have some epic films that define your era. In any case, this podcast isn’t a Christian version of Rotten Tomatoes, it’s an excursion into abandoned spiritual real estate; the places God’s people have been gone from for so long, they’re no longer on our sojourners’ map. I’m Fran Sciacca, the host, and I’m glad you’re with me today. In fact, I’m especially glad. I’ll explain more about that at the end, so please hang around.

Okay, so the phrase, “Raiders of the Lost Ark, when it hits your ears, most likely elicits some activity in your semantic memory of a film you have seen, or at least heard about. But, if you were paying attention to the actual title of this episode, your visual processing machinery should have triggered a “check engine” light regarding the spelling. Now, just for the record, in our era of speed-typing and Siri-typing, combined with no spell checking, most typos are not only excused, they’re expected. But, I’m from an era when grammar mattered and misspellings could cost you a job, so I spell check. Even my texts. Oh man, I wish I could hear what you’re thinking right now…Anyway, put all this on the left side of your mental desktop. We’ll come back to it in a bit.

Before the Civil War, a Universalist preacher and abolitionist by the name of Theodore Taylor made a statement that was only about 70 words long, but continues to be known and used over 150 years later. See if you hear the ancestor of something you’ve heard in your lifetime in these words:

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

About 100 years after Taylor penned those words, another preacher, this one a Baptist named Martin Luther King, Jr., penned words that made a clear reference to Taylor:

Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ arose and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice…”

Six years later, while giving the baccalaureate sermon at a college graduate, Dr. King shortened this statement to, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As a result, some Americans attribute the concept of history having an “arc” and especially a “moral arc” to him. President Obama used a slightly edited version of this phrase the night of his first election:

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day,

It’s become a pretty recognizable phrase, “the arc of history.” And don’t get side-tracked on President Obama not knowing that Taylor said it first. Most Americans think that Abraham Lincoln came up with “A house divided against itself will not stand,” and most Christians have no idea that the phrase about, “the wheels coming off” is from the Book of Exodus. This isn’t an investigative journalism podcast. And, I’m not even sharing all this to focus on the quotes. I’m interested in this idea that history has an “arc” that can be shaped by people as it moves forward into the future. I want us to talk for a few minutes about what that phrase assumes, why it’s wrong or at least anemic, and how it has shaped much of American Evangelicalism. Especially the growing fraternity of Christian Nationalism. And in order for us to do that, we’re going to have to ride the arc of history backwards, to talk to a German philosopher who died about 100 years before Dr. King was born. He has a lot to teach us about the “arc of history.” His shortened name is Friedrich Hegel. Now, before you reach for the dial, or your playlist, let me tell you I’m not a philosopher or the son of one. Much of what you’re about to hear is recent research prompted by a book that has blown me off my chair. That book is, “Reading the Times” by Jeffrey Bilbro. I told a friend recently that if I could somehow do a Matrix-style hose hook-up on every Christian in America, I’d download this book into their brains in a New York second. Anyway, I am a debtor to Bilbro for launching this old brain into some new space. Okay, back to Hegel.

The only takeaway I want you to get about Hegel is that he had a profound impact on how we view history, what we think history is, and how it happens. In his philosophical work, Hegel used what smart guys call a “dialectical” method. For most of us normal folks, that can be simplified sort of like this. Every idea gets challenged by an opposing or different idea, and the result is a sort of new hybrid idea, which becomes an idea of its own, and the process starts all over again. You philosophy folks who are rolling your eyes, just work with me here. In any case, the bigger picture for us is that you end up with this intuitive sense that things are moving. And they’re moving forward. They’re not just happening. And beloved, there’s a huge difference. We have a single word for this enormous idea of Hegel’s and those like him. We all not only know it, we subscribe to it. We call it progress. A lot of really smart people have written a lot of very big books about Hegel and his idea of progress. It’s infiltrated everything from theology to economics.

And this is important, because it’s the engine that drives the notion that history has an arc. And the arc not only is going to land someplace, sometime, it can also be “bent” according to some folks. We have a chance to make sure history’s arc is correct, some tell us. And just for the record, the choirs singing this verse are on the Left and on the Right. The disagreement isn’t whether there’s an arc to history. The disagreement is which direction it’s being bent, and by whom. We’ve come up with really emotive phrases for this notion. Phrases that can summons everything from a vote to a mob. Those two phrases are, “the right side of history,” and “the wrong side of history.” The fact that history has an arc has become axiomatic. It’s assumed. The only remaining question is, which side of history are you going to be on? And that depends, in the minds of those on the Left and those on the Right, which direction your team is bending the arc.

Well, before we go any further. Let me stop the car. I want you to know that there actually is an arc to history, and we’re going there in a moment. But—and it’s a very important but—those who invented what is now known as the “arc of history” were not people of faith. The idea of progress was separated from the world of religion and spirituality by people like Hegel. What they left us, in the words of Canadian scholar George Grant, was a “secular Christianity.” A worldview that uses what it denies as a foundation for what it affirms, without anyone being the wiser. Unfortunately, you cannot ascribe meaning to history in general or events in particular without God. But, the modern secular notion of “progress” embraced by self-avowed Progressives allows them to do precisely that. They affirm that history has not only direction, or an arc, but also that the events of history have meaning. And one can be on the “right” or “wrong” side of history, as a result.

Now before you start to “amen” and pass the collection plate because of what I just said, I need to also tell you that the faith community in America isn’t doing much better. From where I’m standing, it seems clear that a growing sector of American evangelicalism has embraced a view of progress that has as little to do with God as those who claim no allegiance to Him. A “form of godliness that denies its power,” if I may quote a first century radical who wanted to change the world without getting in bed with the politics of Rome. We are witnesseing the growth and normalization of what Grant described—A secular Christianity, but one that uses Christian vocabulary to validate itself.

We who claim kinship to Jesus have had a long history of difficulty understanding just what our relationship to time actually is. Or put another way, how are we to live in the “place” we find ourselves in history, at any given point, or year, or decade, or century for that matter? Entire ideologies, theologies, books, and movements wrestling with this dilemma have emerged over the years. A few are still around. Among them, there are two extremes, the “separation/retreat from culture” of Fundamentalism on one end, and the “identification with culture” of Liberalism on the other end. But probably the two most popular and visible today are the “opposition to culture” of Christian Nationalism and the “transformation of culture” of what’s left of classic Evangelicalism.

I want to suggest to you that at the very center of this confusion is a rather simple cause. I believe that as a group, we have lost our ability to tell what time it is. And when we don’t know how to tell time, we also lose your ability to understand history in general, and more personally, our place in it. I want us to relearn some things that I’m quite sure we’ve forgotten, or perhaps worse, have never known. And the first one has to do with how the view of time given to us in the Bible is richer and more amazing on one hand, and more meaningful and defining on the other. And to do that, we’re going to need to travel back in time a few years…well, more than a few, to be honest.

 One of the many beautiful things about the Greek language is its ability to provide nuance and breadth of meaning to words that typically are limited to one spelling in English. For instance, we use the same word (“love”) to speak of our preferences in ice cream, our enjoyment of a book, our feelings for a friend, an act of passion, and a commitment to a lifelong relationship. A single English word is tasked with the job of communicating all these different meanings, in different settings.

Long before the Apostle Paul was born, the Greeks had multiple words that were expressions of our English word, “time.” But two of them have very special—I’d say even crucial—significance for us as believers in the modern era. Both make frequent appearances in our New Testament. They are kairos and chronos. You should have had a couple dash lights come on in your brain when you heard that second one. It’s the root of a family of familiar English words: chronological, anachronistic, chronic, synchronize, and chronicle to mention a few.

Chronos is linear time. It’s the Emperor of the modern era. You cannot turn your eyes anywhere at any moment and not be reminded that you live on a conveyor belt of sorts.  Every aspect of our lives is ruled, measured, predicted, and determined by chronos. From dating SuperBowls, to measuring Olympic times, to download speeds, and acceleration rates of new Teslas, we’ve become creatures tethered to time and the devices that provide it. We’ve also come to value—perhaps too much—the present more than the past. That’s why, according to those who are studying and writing about what we’re becoming, “the news” has become much more than a source of helpful information. It and those who deliver it to us, have slowly become our source of truth about the world in which we find ourselves. And the reason this is so vital to recognize, according to one scholar, is that “the way we tell time provides the standard by which we judge an event’s significance….” Or put another way, if we are living and thinking within the circle of chronos, then what we determine to be most important, and why, will be dictated by its effect on life in the present.

This becomes important for the believing community because in a very real way, chronos as we understand and embrace it, began with the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin in Genesis 3. It was because of their choice to disregard God’s minor limitation on their freedom that death entered the world. There was for the first time, an actual terminal point for each of us. I also believe that our obsession with chronos and its suction on us are at least partially due to the long half-life of Adam and Eve’s choice. Its actual power as the impersonal, tireless, transient, tyrant we find ourselves chained to, is inseparable from that unfortunate day in the Garden. In any case, we are stuck with chronos and stuck in it. That creates the struggle of living our lives aware of its limits without becoming blinded to its limitations. Chronos isn’t all there is to “telling time.”

The Bible also speaks of another kind of time called, kairos. When kairos make an appearance in the Bible, it’s almost always connected to words that point to a quality of time, not a quantity (i.e. length) of time. So, you see phrases like, “time of testing,” “the present time,” “the times of the Gentiles,” “the appointed time,” “a favorable time” and “the fullness of time.” These “times” cannot be added to your calendar. These “times” are broad and special. There’s something very unique being spoken of, or coming in the future. Something that God Himself is directing. Two very similar passages from the pen of the same writer capture this stark difference beautifully:

But when the fullness of time [chronos] had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,… (Galatians 4:4 ESV)

In this passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians the phrase, “when the fullness of time had come” is a reference to the Incarnation—the birth of Jesus—in space and time. Or put another way, the entrance of God into chronos time and space. And we know from other passages the specific chronos details. Luke unpacks the historical debut of Jesus in even more detail.. He “locates” Jesus’s birth in a narrow window of chronos that aligns with the reigns of seven different people!

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. (Luke 3:1–2 ESV)

Chronos is time marked by seasons, new moons, wars and treaties, and the rise and fall of rulers and empires. This is the view of time we are most comfortable with because it’s visible, measurable, and useful. And because in our digital age, the entire planet is synchronized, it’s easy to assume chronos  is all there is. However, when Paul wrote to a different group of believers in Asia Minor, even though he appears to use the same phrase that he used with the Galatians, his actual choice of words is very significant:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time [kairos] , to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (Ephesians 1:7–10 ESV)

Paul is clearly not talking about something on God’s calendar here. He’s referring to the entire sweep of God’s redemptive purposes. The cascade of theological words in this passage is exhilarating, as it should be. It speaks of the redemption of a lost human race, the riches of grace, the lavishness of God, the purposes of God, and the mystery of God once hidden and now revealed. “Time” here has more to do with eternity than Hallmark. In fact, this phrase, “a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth,” is a one sentence summary of the one Story of the One God.

Once we retool our thinking to accommodate both “time zones,” other passages of scripture begin to suddenly light up with meaning. For example, this mingling of mystery and history is the first thing one encounters in John’s Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1–14 ESV)

The word, “dwelt” here is skenaō. It’s the word family for the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. It means to “pitch a tent.” Eugene Peterson’s rendering of it in The Message comes very close to the beauty of it: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We banter about the word, “incarnation” to describe this amazing reality like we actually know what it means. We don’t. Oh, I can say that this is a description of the event in which kairos and chronos became interwoven, but at the end of the day, I simply don’t know what I’m talking about. Beloved, we are dealing with eternal matters here, the very tapestry composed of the time and space we inhabit, and that which Paul summarily calls, “the heavenly places.” 

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:8–10 ESV) 

Similar to Luke “locating” Jesus’s birth in chronos, Paul “locates” God’s redemptive purposes in the deepest recesses of kairos—in God Himself! But even more startling is his statement that angelic beings are being “taught” about the purposes of God through us—the faith family living in chronos! If all this seems a bit confusing, that’s a good sign that you’re getting closer to understanding how much more important kairos time is than chronos time.

And this is not a perspective that began with the first Christmas. The prophets were tasked with living within both of these “time zones” simultaneously. They wouldn’t have called them kairos and chronos of course, but they had to be thinking and living within a framework that included both. In the words of one author, 

The prophet, like other men, belongs to his time, yet stands for a terrible moment also outside of temporal order: one foot in the kronos [sic], the other in kairos, his ear to eternity and mouth toward the city, he speaks as he is directed.

Professor and author, Jeffrey Bilbro takes this a step further into our present day and insists that Christians have to learn how to live within both these modes of time. But his reason for this insistence is even more important:

The standard by which we tell time determines to a profound extent what events we see as significant or newsworthy. Indeed, one of the reasons our culture has an unhealthy obsession with the news is because its sense of time is off kilter. If we want to learn how to read the news Christianly, we’ll have to learn how to tell time Christianly.

When I came to faith about half a century ago, there was a cute little phrase circulating about Christians “being so heavenly minded they were of no earthly good.” It was the unbelieving culture’s slam on believers who had withdrawn into their particular conclave, seeking to be insulated and isolated from “the world.” Unfortunately, fifty years later, it appears that this description may need to be turned on its head. A growing sector of modern believers appear to “be so earthly minded they are of little heavenly good.” We seem to have become people wearing the same watch as the one worn by the unbelieving world. In our frenzy to “stay current and informed” we, like Esau, may have sold our kairos birthright for a bowl of chronos. Content and proud to be fluent in the events of our day without any idea of their relative meaning in the larger purposes of God. In fact, to ascribe meaning to the events of history, especially our own day, presumes to have insight into what God is doing. I’m not comfortable making that claim. Are you?

Much of the recent bickering over political candidates, mask mandates, vaccinations, the “right” to gather to worship, and the division among evangelicals over issues of race, gender, and justice, has exposed our ignorance or disregard of kairos, in favor of chronos. We’ve lost the ability to truly “tell time” and it’s produced a divisiveness and disunity that I have not witnessed in fifty years. And if God’s redemptive purposes flow from a “plan for the fullness of time to unite all things…” it is both safe and biblical to say that our family feuding is contrary to the purposes of God, and in the end, puts us at odds with Him. It’s a big deal. Bigger than which bumper sticker you put on your car. It has affected not only how we live, but what the watching world has concluded about God from us as a result. And it’s neither flattering or beneficial.

There’s an unidentifiable quote floating around that goes something like: “A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.” I think that in light of the Bible and what we’ve seen so far, that needs to be  turned on its head, too: “A man with two watches knows what time it is. A man with only one is never sure.” In a very real sense, we should be the people who truly know how to “tell time.” We should be the ones who know how to make sense of the events of our day by giving them their proper meaning beneath and within the larger purposes of God. We are called to live in chronos but our hearts should be driven and buoyed up by kairos. We should, in a sense, have a watch on our preferred hand that has a blank face with no numbers or hands, and a second watch on our less-preferred hand that tells time. Chronos time. The blank face is simultaneously a reminder that we really don’t know what God is doing, and a gentle rebuke that He is sovereign and the events of chronos can have no effect on his “plan for the fullness of kairos.” That’s why the psalmist can pray:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.” (Psalm 2:1–4 ESV) 

Our anxiety, beloved, over the events around us betrays a lack of understanding, or a lack of trust in the unchanging, unalterable, incorruptible nature of kairos. The purposes of God involve us, and we are invited into them as stewards and actors, but what God purposes in kairos can ever be delayed, amended or hijacked by chronos and those who think they are in control. Christian, pagan, or otherwise. To not remind ourselves of this, or not to have been taught it in the first place, quietly squeezes us into living as though chronos is all there is, and as a result, assigning more importance to current events than the people around us, whether they are believers or unbelievers. There are many believers who actually believe that somehow we are responsible for the eventual arrival of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. As if, if we don’t hold the powers of evil at bay, God’s purposes will be thwarted…or at least postponed.

I believe we first need to admit that there is both chronos time and kairos time, and then ask ourselves which is more important to me, and why, and finally to humbly seek to learn to live within both. That’s the task before us until Jesus returns. Hopefully what we’ve talked about so far has moved us closer to a better understanding of the first two steps. As we seek to step into the Herculean task of “learning to live within” both time zones, It’s both insightful and essential to remind ourselves over and over that there’s a quality to kairos time, but not a quantity. Kairos is not measurable like chronos. And to a certain extent, kairos is not knowable either. This is the picture of “time” that is in Paul’s mind when he wrote Ephesians. It was comprehensive, magnificent, and totally unknowable apart from God making it known. Paul knew that what he now knew, he couldn’t have known apart from God showing it to him. It was, exactly as he says in another letter, “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.” Or, even more soberly, 

“Oh the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34 ESV)

So, at the end of the day we have an ignorance of the reality of kairos, which happens to be the frame within which the redemption of of all creation, the restoration of shalom, and the return of God and humanity to the new Garden called, Jeru-Shalom occur. I don’t think I actually need to say this, but in case you missed it, this should produce a profound and visible spirit of humility on our part. Any manifestations of pride, arrogance, or fear and anger are, unfortunately, damning evidence that we have our watches on the wrong hands, and we’re driven by chronos rather than kairos. And, in closing I have to tell you, if you and I get our time zones wrong, we’ll have to give an account to God when we meet Him for squandering our birthright for a bowl of chronos.

Please take a minute and ask yourself if the events in your newsfeed are regulating your hope. Do you find that anger is always knocking on your door? Do you feel like the world is “going to hell on a greased pole?” Are you always groaning about the life your grandkids are going to inherit? If so, your watches are on the wrong hands. Beloved, “by faith we believe that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is visible was not made out of things that can be seen.” (Hebrews 11:3, ESV). God is still God. His plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in heaven and on earth in Christ is on time. And all things are working together for Him and His purposes. That includes those who hate Him, marginalize Him, and dishonor Him.

Please remind yourself that kairos is real time and kairos is the real arc of history. And it is an arc that can’t be bent. Neither by those who exclude God, nor you. But, it is possible to be on the wrong side of kairos, both in this life and forever. 

Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. It also brings us to the end of The Road to Shalom…at least for a while. I’ve been hosting this podcast now for three years. Forty-four episodes. It’s been a joy, and I am planning to archive the podcast, so it’ll be available indefinitely. I’d encourage you to turn others onto the Road to Shalom if it’s benefited you, or even start the journey over again.

I want to also let you know about something I’m pretty excited about. Early this year, Hands of Hur will be releasing a new book I’ve written, “Are We Losing the Plot? - Returning to the One Story of the One God.” It will contain much of the material in these podcasts, some new material I’ve not taught publicly, and material taken from a book I wrote a decade ago, “So, What’s Your Point?” If you’re receiving emails from me for these podcasts, you’ll automatically be notified when it releases. If you’re not on my mailing list and would like to stay informed, just go to fransciacca.com and use the Subscribe feature on the landing page.

I’d also like to point you to that website. It’s got a ton of free and reasonably-priced resources for small groups, personal spiritual formation, and evangelism. I’ve worked hard all year to migrate nearly 40 years of ministry research and resources to that site. I think you’d be enriched using some of things on it.

Finally, I want to thank all of you who’ve made this journey with me over the past three years. You’re part of the 30,000 listens to the Road to Shalom. It’s my prayer that you’ve been changed—even a little—and not merely taught. To the best of my ability on a digital medium, let me say “I love you, appreciate you, and long for you to be shalom-makers in this life, that you might hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant” in the next life.

Shalom.

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The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice; (Theodore Parker quote history): https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/