Chapter 1
Godâs Purpose and Human Destiny: âToo Heavenly Minded?â
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
â1 Thess 5:23â24 NIV
Following the luminous Christ, we hope to fulfill our future in the transfiguring light of God.
âAndreas Andreopoulos, Beloved Son
Lord, what am I becoming? I know Iâm becoming older, but am I becoming wiser, more loving, more forgiving, more gracious, more understanding, in a word, more like You? More God-like?
Am I striving to become by grace what you created me to be, or am I denying and covering over Your restored image in me through selfishness and greed?
Help me to aspire to the highest and the best and to use the power you offer me to become truly Your child as I partake more and more of Your love. Amen.
âAnthony Coniaris, Achieving Your Potential
You are to be a free and true person, going on to the destiny and freedom of the sons and daughters of God. Such people stand above present things and look toward eternal ones.
âThomas Ă Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
Only a heavenly minded Christian faith will do us any earthly good.
âHans Boersma, Heavenly Participation
It would be difficult to overstate the distance between our own time and the nineteenth century, especially when it comes to attitudes about death and resurrection, heaven and hell, and the importance of dying well. However, there is a common expression that conveys a nearly complete misunderstanding of that earlier period, the saying that someone is âso heavenly minded theyâre no earthly good.â
While this expression may fit some Christians and groups, it fails to represent the reality of Christianity in that century of amazing accomplishments. For Evangelicals and others, the nineteenth century was a time for building churches, colleges, and hospitals. There was a deep conviction that Christian faith could shape society and overcome social ills. Methodists and other Evangelicals believed they could accomplish anything by the power of Godâs Spirit. Motivated by a very activist faith, they shared the optimism of their time.
People were indeed heavenly minded, but far from distracting them from practical concerns, their vision of heaven propelled them into movements designed to do a great deal of earthly good. Timothy Smithâs classic, Revivalism and Social Reform, documents the way this worked for Evangelicals before the Civil War. Among those who exemplify the connection between faith and action was James Finley, the Ohio circuit rider who devoted much of his energy to prison reform and to justice for Wyandot Indians. The same spiritually fed activism typifies other groups of that time.
Later, as Evangelicalism in particular divided into Fundamentalist and Modernist camps, the connection weakened as those who emphasized âthe old-time religionâ grew pessimistic about the possibilities for change and devoted themselves to an increasingly disconnected, otherworldly spirituality. Other traditions have their own histories of social involvement, of making a difference in this world while journeying beyond it.
The Coptic Orthodox monk Matthew the Poor once made a powerful connection between Godâs work within us and our participation in the worldâour moral transformation: âWhat is left for us to do is to set the Holy Spirit free to work within us by opening up new possibilities in our behavior and actionsâoffering love to everyone, especially our enemies who curse us, abuse us, persecute us and plunder our property.â Given the long perseverance of Coptic Christianity in a precarious and often dangerous social context, he could hardly have made a stronger statement.
John Wesleyâs ministry offers a further example of spiritual religion ârenew[ing] the face of the earthâ (Ps 104:30 NIV). His mandate for the early Methodist preachers âto reform the continent, and spread scripture-holiness over these lands,â was taken seriously by his movement, on both sides of the Atlantic. Among those Wesley applauded and encouraged was William Wilberforce, whose tireless work eventually brought an end to the British slave trade.
Anyone who experiences genuine transfiguration will not leave the world unchanged. His or her participation in the world becomes different because it flows from what Leslie Weatherhead called âthe transforming friendship.â
As Matthew the Poor wrote, âA person who is transformed in Jesus Christ is converted to the love, life, and light of God. And it is by the conversion of individuals that the world itself is transformed.â When we fail to provide each other with the vision of Godâs heavenly kingdom, we deprive ourselves of the inspiration and destination required for Christian discipleship. Lacking both the fuel and the hope to serve, we lose clarity as to our identity and purpose, and thus limited, we become little more than a mirror to the society around us. The message and experience of transfiguration restores meaning and direction for our lives, molding us and empowering us for todayâs work and for our ultimate destiny. The transforming connection with God offers a place to stand, a vantage point from which to evaluate and act upon the powerful currents of our own culture.
Could it be that today we are so earthly minded we donât think enough about heaven? While there remains a fascination that surfaces with books and films about near-death experiences and visions of heaven, Western churches are focused almost exclusively on this life and this world. There has been a relentless growth of secularism and materialism across our culture, but there is more. No doubt our turning away from thought about heaven is also a reaction against a shallow, self-centered, transactional view of salvation. Thereâs something wrong with viewing heaven as merely an exchange for accepting Christ, a reward for good behavior (someone has called it a âget out of hell freeâ card) or the endless continuation of life as we know it here, for example. In this context, Wesleyâs words ring loud and clear:
Turning away from heaven, or viewing it mythologically, or in ways that are crudely self-serving has created a devaluing of older people, even as medical science extends longevity. Too often people who reach a certain age in our society are regarded as less important, not to be taken seriously. After all, how much do ag...