From “Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart” by Brian D. McLaren
The Bible seems to raise, as I see it now, two probing questions. First, how do we learn a good and loving way of life – shalom for the ancient Jews, the kingdom of God for the indigenous Jewish prophet Jesus, eloheh for the Cherokee, amahoro and ubuntu for many African peoples – when we are dominated by a death-dealing civilization that is winning its way toward collapse? And second, how will we live after the end – in the aftermath of the current dominating civilization’s inevitable collapse? How might future generations make a new beginning after the collapse of the current civilization, if humans survive at all?
Let me state it as clearly as I can: The real horizon in biblical literature is not the end of an individual life at death. Nor is it the end of the space time universe. It is the end of whatever shortsighted and small-hearted civilization currently dominates the world.