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About the Author:
Ralph D. Winter is a senior mission thinker who has been actively involved from the beginning of the massive mission transition from simply thinking in terms of countries or individuals to thinking in terms of peoples. He is founder of the
U.S. Center for World Mission,
and is currently chancellor of
William Carey
International University. |
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The most precarious frontier facing us today is that of a profoundly larger, and startlingly new understanding of our mission, startling in more than one way. Let's begin with a brief recapitulation, tracing, among other things, eight "Precarious Perspectives" on which this frontier of mission is built (see list on page 172).
The Plain Facts
The story of God's work on this planet (and in the whole universe) is apparently a long story. But certain things are becoming fascinating interpretations-at least to some of us who are over 70 and have had extra time to think about it!
Astounding beauty and symmetry is evident in all creation. But there is also violence and cruelty, pain and suffering throughout all of nature. Evidence is mounting that life has been developing on this planet over a very long time. We don't have to accept that idea but we may do best to consider it-call it Precarious Perspective #1.
Furthermore, what evidence we have (which is growing to be monumental) indicates that after most of the smaller and intricate developments of life took place, suddenly in the Cambrian Period we find in the world of animals the first appearance of predatory life forms. From that point on we see nothing but life against life. Few forms of life die a natural death. Something has gone terribly wrong. The average believer does not stop to think whether God would have created originally vicious animals, or if Satan has had any great influence on all life forms. This is Precarious Perspective #2. Listen to Bruce McLaughlin, a science professor with a doctorate from MIT. McLaughlin is also a pastor with an apologetics web site (see www.christianapologetic.org), who is protesting the view of another fi ne professor/pastor, David Snoke, whose article makes God the author of the violence and suffering in nature:
According to Scripture, the universe was originally good and the glory of God is still evident in it (Rom. 1:20). But something else-something frightfully wicked-is evident in it as well. Of their own free will, Satan and other spiritual beings rebelled against God in the primordial past and now abuse their Godgiven authority over certain aspects of creation. Satan, who holds the power of death (Heb. 2:14), exercises a pervasive, structural, diabolic in?uence to the point that the entire creation is in bondage to decay. The pain-ridden, bloodthirsty, sinister and hostile character of nature should be attributed to Satan and his army, not to God. Jesus' earthly ministry re? ected the belief that the world had been seized by a hostile, sinister lord. Jesus came to take it back.1
At the same reference, another Evangelical scientist, Moorad Alexander, protests the same thing:
Animals were either already affected by the Fall of Lucifer or else the Fall of Man affected animals . . . Hence it is more logical to attribute animal pain and death to Satan and not to an omnipotent God. The millennium reign of the Messiah will be characterized by the restoration of the harmony in the whole of creation (Isa. 11:6-9) that was broken not by the sin of Adam but by Satan (Rom. 8:18-22) . . . Snoke's analysis may be partially successful in casting doubt that the Fall of Man gave rise to the viciousness and death in the animal kingdom. However, Snoke does not even mention the [earlier] fall of Lucifer (Isa. 12:14) and so his inference that such features of the animal world were created by God leaves much to be desired.1
Tony Campolo, a professor of sociology at Eastern College, PA gives us one of the most eloquent cases for Satanic distortion of creation (long before Adam) in his book, How to Rescue the Earth Without Worshipping Nature: A Christian's Call to Save Creation. There Campolo refers to Eastern Orthodox theology (which was not affected by Augustinian thinking as much as ours has been) in these words,
Since Satan's fall, he and his followers have been at work perverting and polluting all that God created. Before Adam and Eve were ever created, Satan worked to create havoc throughout creation.2
Is this Precarious Perspective #3, that nature has been pervasively distorted into violence by Satan? And that suddenly at the time of the Cambrian Period (See Figure 1) predatory life appeared for the first time, long before Genesis?
The Bible, in any case, is the one book that recognizes both the beauty and the distortion of creation. Then, early in its pages it reveals a global plan to push back the darkness and evil, to restore the original glory and reconcile all peoples back into an eternal fellowship with God. |
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