The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.....

About ten years ago, in November of 2011, I took a lot of sleeping pills.  My goal, at the time, was to fall asleep here on Earth and, hopefully, wake up in the presence of God.  Obviously, I was not successful in attaining that goal and, now, I'm grateful of it.  That mindset, despite believing in God, despite believing the deity of Jesus, the reconciliation his death allowed between man and God, was hopeless and helpless.  It was, ultimately, nihilistic.  I didn't realize it at the time, but upon my ten year anniversary, I've taken the time to reflect on that, because it's a mindset that I don't think has only affected me.

In the time since, I've had encounters with other Christians that have surprised me, disappointed me, and, in some ways, hurt me.  When I was a kid, I grew up in a Baptist church that had connections to a technically "nondenominational" Christian Camp.  When I turned 18, I became a counselor there.  I did it again at 19.  That summer was when I met my future wife.  While that year was the last year I was employed there, it was her first summer of a many-year adventure working for that organization.  Suffice it to say, the people there became a community in my life, a network of people that helped me feel like I was part of the Body of Christ.  I had friends from that community, and having a community that new us both helped the relationship with my wife stay stable for a few years.  One of the things I learned while being connected to that community for the years that I did was that some of the buildings, having been built hastily by the founder of the camp, were not built to last.  I was informed several times that there were things with plumbing or electrical wiring or whatnot, corners were cut for the sake of cost and time.  I asked why and the answer I got struck me as so strange: for some reason, the founders felt like Jesus would be making his second visit to Earth within their lifetimes, starting the official end of the world and the beginning of the End Times.  So, they didn't think it would really matter if they cut corners while building the infrastructure of their organization, because they wouldn't have to worry about them for very long.  

I'll let that sink in for a minute.  

Years later, after I had been married for years, I began to be swayed into the belief that trying to maintain more of a whole-food, plant-based diet would benefit both myself and the environment.  To this day, I believe that animal products are primary contributors to illnesses like diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, hypertension, stroke.  I'm what they used to call morbidly obese, and I thought that if I could change what I eat, then I could save both myself and my family members from having to lose me earlier than any of us were ready for.  I lost my dad to cancer derived, probably, from years of smoking and drinking.  I know what it's like to lose family too early to things that could have been prevented.  I miss him almost every day.  Anyway, when I realized how hard it would be to improve my habits if I couldn't change my surroundings, I decided I would try to decrease the presence of triggering foods that were bad for me and increase the presence of foods that would help make me healthy.  I talked to my wife about changing our diets together, because I knew, since I did most of the cooking, that if she continued to eat all the things I craved but knew I shouldn't eat, then no amount of willpower would keep me from continuing to eat the things that would kill me.  Well, she let me know that she felt no conviction, from God, about eating the things that she did.  She felt like the Bible gave us express permission to eat all the animal products we wanted.  Over the years, I've found this was a common argument among Christians to denounce the practice of avoiding animal products.  

Are you seeing a pattern?  Because I am.  I used to listen to conservative Christian radio, specifically Focus on the Family, which was very much open about their criticisms of liberal politics.  I've heard from multiple streams that the concern for climate change by the left was irrelevant, even if there was solid footing for it scientifically or philosophically, again because Jesus was coming soon and all of our foibles wouldn't matter anymore.  

Once you see it, it's hard not to see the devil-may-care attitude everywhere in conservative Christian ideals.  It's an almost natural byproduct of genuinely believing a few things about God and Jesus.  The first, obviously, is that no matter what you do in this life, if you've said the "sinner's prayer" then you're going to heaven.  It negates any consequences that might arise from irresponsible behavior.  The second is that Jesus is coming back any time, now.  I mean, Obama must have been the antichrist, and the rapture will happen any minute, and all of the conservative, anti-vaxxers anti-maskers will be taken up to heaven to leave the rest of us trapped down here saving lives.  As a person who thinks about a lot a lot of the time, I have so much trouble with this.  I mean, when faced with data and reason, it's really hard for me to empathize, or even sympathize, with people who come to different conclusions out of sheer stubbornness or wishful thinking.  

I have spent years unconsciously putting together an opposing theology.  I used passages from the Bible to attack individual aspects of this nihilistic outlook that I've struggled with.  I'm looking forward, now that I have a better look at the monster as a whole, to finding an overarching philosophy that can be used against the individual faces I come across in everyday life.  I'm going to come back with some of my conclusions, but for now, I think it has to do with the "here but not yet" concept that has been thrown around some theological circles.  The nihilists want to behave as if this world is just fallen and beyond hope, that they're looking forward to when God recreates everything and redeems it, they want to give themselves permission to act as if there are no consequences to their actions.  But Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, too.  It's not just a state of perfection that nature will exist in in the hereafter, it's actually a state of grace we can live in now, now that Jesus has reconciled us to him.  We are already living in the Kingdom of Heaven, here and now.  Now we just need to act like it.