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When we try to increase mutual understanding through the churches, we often find our Christian efforts treated like imperialist propaganda. A European bishop and respected leader in the ecumenical movement told me that the World Council of Churches has become in measure one more theater of conflict in the cold war. This was certainly evident both at New Delhi and at the Central Committee's recent discussion of the Ghana problem in Paris. The World Council finds it difficult to rebuke the Communist world for fear of "offending" the churches in Eastern Europe. Thus at every turn Western man finds himself frustrated in his efforts to maintain his freedom and identity in the oncoming tide. His appeals to reason are lost in the verbal avalanche that sweeps from the other side. His outlays for needy neighbors are often used to turn these neighbors against him. The words "freedom" and "democracy" and their defense have become confused by the other side's use of the same terms to explain its plan of enslavement. Very little seems to work.

In the face of such a juggernaut what shall we do?

Many Bible students are beginning to search the Scriptures anew in terms of eschatology. Dr. Markus Barth of the University of Chicago recently startled a chapel audience at Harvard University with an address on "The Second Coming of Christ."

The question that many students of the Bible are asking is simply this: Are the present days of crisis prophesied in Scripture? Even a casual investigation would seem to indicate that the Bible warns of a time of turmoil and trouble such as the world has never known. A predicted period of crisis was the burden of Christ's prophetic ministry. He even ventured so far in the Olivet discourse as to look ahead through the centuries and mark out the major movements that would transpire throughout the entire age of the Church. As one theologian summarized His words:

The age would start with bitter persecution of His followers. There would be wars and commotions, but this would be no indication of the imminence of the end. The age would conclude with the return of the Son of Man with power and great glory.

Christ warned the disciples not to be deceived; he exhorted them to possess their souls in patience, and when certain predicted events came to pass to look up, knowing that their redemption was drawing nigh. In this same passage Jesus warned against our "hearts being overcharged with surfeiting." He urged us to be ever watching and praying. He indicated that "those who become involved with the sin of the present order will neither watch nor pray, and their spiritual senses will be overtaken with sluggishness. They will be unable to peer through the darkness of the midnight and catch the first faint glimmer of dawn." There is no doubt in my mind that the great upheavals predicted at the climax of history will be preceded by certain manifestations that indicate their nearness. Spiritual Christians who search the Scriptures will be able to read the signs of the times.

Up to now the Church—particularly in the United States—has tended to live in a dream world. I find that the Church on the rim of the Communist world is far more "aware" than we are.

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October (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52