I do not disagree with this. Obviously the Kingdom is not complete.

Zach, the eschaton is already and not yet. This is clear from both scripture and tradition.

As a side note, for as much as liberation theologians are criticized for “immanentizing the eschaton,” their sense of the pervasiveness of human sin is obviously a strong point in their theologies. For as much as they stress the possibility of building the Kingdom in history, they make it quite clear that the anti-Kingdom reigns a lot of the time.

Look, this is one of the major sticking points of Christian theology: which do you emphasize, the already or the not yet. But you have to keep both in mind, or else there will be distortions.

The Kingdom is not yet, not complete and perfect like it will be. Heaven is not Earth.

Of course our work is his work. So let’s not have any more excuses about how the Kingdom is “not yet.” The Kingdom, yes the eschaton, is now if we participate in Christ’s work in history.

It is important to consider whether or not one’s “different emphasis” is becoming a distortion…

If I could pick one thing, I would perhaps prefer a different emphasis in the following passage: “we are called to do in history by transforming history and bringing it into the eschaton”

It is not us, but Christ works in history and Christ will usher in the Eschaton. We participate in this work insofar as we share in His life. We share in his life insofar as we give ourselves to Him. We each share in His life insofar as we are open to receive Him, and this is also to say we are not all equally open. Sanctity is intensely personal and also therefore the in-breaking of the Kingdom depends on the response of each person.

And yes, I tend to focus on the “not yet” when I’m talking about politics because politics includes people outside the Body of Christ. I don’t think this understanding helps to support people in power; I think it is inclusive and better reflects the demands of justice.

Then we have the rather common, “Every thing is grace.”

I suppose you could as well have used the first or second quote and said, simply, “Ditto.”

“For in truth the hereafter is far nearer than the future, far nearer than what we call the present. It is the Eternal found at the heart of all temporal development which gives it life and direction. It is the authentic Present without which the present itself is like the dust which slips through our hands. If modern men are so absent from each other, it is primarily because they are absent from themselves, since they have abandoned this Eternal which alone establishes them in being and enables them to communicate with one another” de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man. trans. Lancelot C. Sheppard and Sister Elizabeth Englund, OCD (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 362.

Schmemann finds one of the great problems is that we have lost this eschatological notion of the church, and this leads to all kinds of denials, such as sacramental denial, in history. It is also used, as you have said, to ignore the responsibility and work which we are called to do in history by transforming history and bringing it into the eschaton — that is what it means to be a Christian, to be one of the royal priesthood – Schmemann even puts it that our very partaking of the eucharist is primarily not for ourselves but for the world.

You tend to focus on the “not yet.” So does that Jesuit you like to read… what’s his name… the one who doesn’t like liberation theology. The problem is that this understanding of the Kingdom is useful to those in power and is used to support injustice. Gotta keep them both in view: the already and the not yet.

No matter what kind of static understanding of reality is pushed on us, though, we followers of the Autobasilea know that the Kingdom is coming because we have seen it present in the struggle for justice.

Or am I insane?