Progress and the past

Father Jake posts the following snippet from a recent conference. It’s by Peter Gomes, who discussed the conference’s theme “God’s unfunished future: why it matters now” in his talk “Can We Afford a Positive Future?”

“Preach to the future [because] there is no salvation in the past. There is no hope in history.” Gomes warned against a nostalgia that longs for what he said is a non-existent time in the past when all was right. “The only place worth going to for believers is to the place where we have not yet been,” he said. “Preach the future then not as a place of terror and fear and intimidation but as the place where we shall finally be fully known even as we; where we shall see God face to face.”

This is the true Christian idea of progress – not that things inevitably get better in the future, but that only in the future is there any possibility of perfection. Indeed, God has promised that all will be made well when His Kingdom comes in fullness. The past shows us God’s revelation, but not God’s perfection. The past is not where the Kingdom of God is. The past is not the goal, it’s only a signpost to the goal. The goal itself lies before us and, before that day comes, we must work for it. The future is not “a place of terror and fear and intimidation”, but it is a place of hard work and hard loving. The fruit of that work and love, though, will be a Creation made new by a God who we will finally see face to face.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 10:17am on 25 January 2007
Category: Faith, Links