No, You Can't Change The World

I helped out at Youth Strike for Christ this weekend, a Methodist conference for teenagers in Iowa. I'm not trying to brag by saying that. Honestly, a big part of why I wanted to go was to relax and get out of Kirksville. In the interest of working on being overly critical, I'm going to start by saying what I liked about it. The theme was "Thrive"-- about how we can thrive as Christians because of God's grace and life in community despite challenges. Learning to define success by God's standards and as mediated through community is profoundly important in our individualistic culture. There was a chapel with lots of interesting prayer activities. And the concerts were pretty cool. Plus I liked that they managed to do a service project even in the hotel! So it was a great conference, and I bet a lot of kids walked away renewed and transformed by God's grace.
But. There is a but, in my opinion. Multiple speakers, to include the bishop, talked about how these kids can go "change the world" through their faith in Christ, create a world with no more poverty or bullies or whatever. They were careful to emphasize they can only change the world together in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. But that simply isn't biblical. It fits with the vast theological confusion, even among learned Christians, about eschatology (the end times). Now, I believe sincere Christians can walk away from the Bible with different opinions on heaven, hell, and the parousia (Jesus' triumphant return at the end of history). But if we're reading the Bible seriously, there's some non-negotiables about the end times in there.
1. Jesus is physically returning to earth at a time known only to God the Father.
2. After Jesus' return, there will be a physical, bodily resurrection of the dead.
3. There will also be a new, physical earth created by God at that time where there is no pain and suffering
4. People who permit God no place in their lives will have no place in the new creation
5. Good deeds will be rewarded in this new world
6. We will know God far better than we do now and we will spend time with others in this new creation, including others we knew and loved on earth.
7. Christians have nothing to fear from death but will await Jesus' final return in victory
I'm too lazy to include the Bible citations. Revelation, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians, and Matthew 24 talk about this stuff. There's a lot of metaphorical, confusing language I'm not learned enough to sort out yet. But I think these ideas emerge clearly from the Bible if we cast aside false cultural assumptions. (The book Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright writes lucidly about this stuff, way better than I ever could. Probably one of the most important books I have ever read, and where I learned that stuff.)
My point? No, you can't change the world! The world is doomed! That's the dark side of the good news. This side of history, there will still be wars and rumors of wars. Our spears have not yet been beat into plough-shares. We are still sinners awaiting our redemption. (Sorry, J-Dub, not buying 100% into your Christian perfection stuff. But that's another post.) Until Jesus returns and makes our world and our sinful natures new, the world is heading off a cliff. 
Yes, we can and should work to serve the poor, to improve ourselves and one another, to fight for peace. But we should harbor no illusions that our efforts will totally succeed before Jesus comes to set it all right. To believe that lie is to settle for far, far less than God's best. 
Jurgen Moltmann wrote a deeply unsettling book that speaks to this problem called A Theology of Hope. As a Methodist and a former Lutheran I felt very uncomfortable reading it. Moltmann says a lot of fascinating things I couldn't possibly convey in that book, but a main point is that the Bible is all about God's promises, coming in the future, and awaiting these promises is the essence of faith. John Wesley wanted to talk about the need to live out the good news now. Did he shift the locus of faith too much into the present? I don't know. It is a both/and thing, but I almost hesitate to say that because it's too simple. Hmmm. I need to think more about this. Maybe another post on this issue soon.
Anyway, I just feel the contemporary church is broken in so many ways, and our faulty eschatology impoverishes us spiritually. Kids who are told Jesus will help them get rid of poverty and bullying on earth and change their schools might be devastated when it doesn't come true. As it won't, because Jesus' way is narrow and steep, and there will be no more tears, but not yet. Is this why existentialism, the idea that life is absurd and meaningless and all you can do is try to eek out your own meaning before you die and fade into oblivion, came about? Because Christians naively thought they could make all things new without Jesus' final defeat of evil? If redemption depends on us, redemption will never come. We are called to far more radical faith.
I pray a lot of things, when I am prayerful, for the contemporary church. Among those things is that we will wait seriously for Jesus' return and dare to believe this world is not my home, I'm just a-passin through, a-passin through. Perhaps our affluence, our iPhones and junk food and TVs, have made us forget the depth of brokenness only God can repair in the end. 
He will come again to judge the quick and the dead... We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. 
The new world is coming when Jesus returns in final victory to vanquish evil. No, you can't change the world. Get over it!