Where Hope Prevails 

As he looked backward, what Rieff saw dimly was the biblical doctrine of creation. Had he reached for the wealth in that Christian doctrine, he might have grasped the enigma of humanity—of our created goodness and fallen badness—along with the Bible’s rich teaching about human flourishing. Moreover, what Rieff yearned to see in the future can only be found in a fully Christian eschatology, in its powerful and beautiful vision of Christ’s consummation of the kingdom. Only a Christian eschatology, rooted in the atonement of Christ and awaiting his triumphant return, can provide both a vision for the future and the power to work toward it. We don’t merely need a heavenly vision; we need divine power to bring heaven down to earth.
This is what Christianity, and Christianity alone, offers. The resurrection of Jesus declares that where death seems to have the final word, the ending is not ultimate. God will restore the earth, and his kingdom will prevail. What he created, what he mourned over as it reveled in deathworks ranged against him, what he pursued and redeemed—this he will restore, from top to bottom. And what finally grounds our hope—a hope that, sadly, seems to have eluded Rieff—is that we’re privy to this finale before the finale. Though we live in the muddy middle of the script, we’ve caught a glimpse of the last scene.
As those who know the end of history’s story, then, Christians can engage in cultural activity with a humble confidence. As dark as it may seem, the realm of culture will one day be raised to life, made to bow in submission to the King. Since Jesus will gain victory and restore the earth, we remain confident. And since it will be his victory, we remain humble.
The 20th-century missionary theologian Lesslie Newbigin aptly captured this idea of Christian hope and action, even amid a culture of death:
[A transformed society] is not our goal, great as that is. . . . Our goal is the holy city, the New Jerusalem, a perfect fellowship in which God reigns in every heart, and his children rejoice together in his love and joy. . . . And though we know that we must grow old and die—that our labors, even if they succeed for a time, will in the end be buried in the dust of time—yet we are not dismayed. . . . We know that these things must be. But we know that as surely as Christ was raised from the dead, so surely shall there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And having this knowledge, we ought as Christians to be the strength of every good movement of political and social effort, because we have no need either of blind optimism or of despair. (Signs Amid the Rubble: The Purposes of God in Human History, 55)