upon the “wheel of history;” it grinded on destroying eschatological expectation. As a failed apocalyptic prophet, Jesus brought an end to the conditions for the eschaton. Schweitzer wrote, “he has destroyed them.” Jesus’ failure as an apocalyptic prophet meant that no one could take seriously those conditions. Ethics in place of Eschatology Schweitzer’s work on Jesus’ apocalypticism accomplished two things in western theology. First, apocalyptic returned as a necessary context in which to understand Jesus. Second, apocalyptic was largely considered indefensible. Jesus’ mission was inextricably linked with his eschatology, but because the latter was unacceptable to modern persons, something must replace eschatology if Jesus was to be conceived as relevant. Often, what replaced eschatology was ethics. Take as an example the influential work of Paul Ramsey in his 1950 Basic Christian Ethics. He identified agape or disinterested love as the heart of Jesus’ teaching and he too connected it with eschatology. When Jesus tells us to do something difficult like love our enemy, give everything to the poor, or not even call someone a fool, his “strenuous” sayings depend “on his apocalyptic expectation.” Agreeing with the American theologian Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), Ramsey argued that Jesus’ apocalyptic context is untenable for moderns. We can neither “translate” his love commands from that apocalyptic context without significant loss, nor can we inhabit it. We are caught in a conundrum. Jesus’ ethics arise from apocalyptic expectation, but modern, reasonable people cannot inhabit Jesus’ eschatological world. What is to be done? Ramsey argued that Jesus’ teaching could still have “validity” without the eschatology. The “genesis” of the love commandment in its apocalyptic context had “nothing to do with validity.” What Jesus teaches can be differentiated from how he taught it and still function as a Christian ethics. Ethics can be divided from eschatology.
eschatology draws heavily on Col. 2:15 where Paul tells us that Jesus disarmed the “powers and principalities” or “rulers and authorities” and made a “spectacle” of them. In so doing, he “disarmed” them. The rulers and authorities are now part of an old age. The former age in which they claimed to be gods has been disarmed; they no longer have that kind of power over us. In crucifying Jesus, who was true God and humanity in one person, they were revealed for what they really are, self-absorbed centers of power who reject the things of God. Jesus calls and equips his church to be a sign of the new age, an age in which God’s reign has begun and will be fulfilled in the eschaton. Meanwhile, Christians live in the midst of two aeons, the new age of the church and the old age of the world. The rulers and authorities of the old age remain. They are creatures that serve God’s purposes, but they have been limited in their role. Yoder gives the following interpretation to the role for the rulers and authorities after Christ’s triumph: “The Reign of Christ means for the state the obligation to serve God by encouraging the good and restraining evil, i.e. to serve peace, to preserve the social cohesion in which the leaven of the Gospel can build the church and also render the old aeon more tolerable.” The purpose of the ruling authorities has been limited by Christ’s victory in his crucifixion, resurrection and Ascension. The real politics now resides with the church and all who witness to the new age that has been inaugurated and whose completion we await. Yoder stated, “The point apocalyptic makes is not only that people who wear crowns and who claim to foster justice by the sword are not as strong as they think – true as that it . . . . It is that people who bear crosses are working with the grain of the universe. One does not come to that belief by reducing social processes to mechanical and statistical models, nor by winning some of one’s battles for the control of one’s own corner of the fallen world. One comes to it by sharing the life of those who sing about the Resurrection of the slain Lamb.” The first task of Christians is to act