There's a helpful article in today's Christian Science Monitor on Pope Benedict's recent regress to pre-Vatican II days. (Thanks Bill for sending this my way!) Especially interesting to me is his take on the meaning of the "kingdom of heaven." Here's a quote from the article about this.
"Many theologians say the shifts under Pope Benedict aren't simply a small matter of rules, rituals, clarifications, and a tidying up of doctrine. Perhaps one of the most significant, though little noticed, changes has to do with the changing concept of the meaning of the kingdom of heaven. The current pope has a different vision of time and eschatology. Under Vatican II, it was accepted that the coming of the kingdom is possible to experience on Earth and not simply in the afterlife. Vatican II stressed concepts like "becoming," "change," and "newness," and championed social justice and liberty as linked to ideas of grace.
Pope Benedict has begun to roll back such ideas, says Mr. Flinn, the Catholic theologian at Washington University in St. Louis, and his theology is "pessimistic, in the sense that heaven and earth are separate concepts, and that Christ's kingdom can't be experienced here."
"It is the old vertical eschatology," Flinn says. "Liberal Catholics read the scriptures as saying the kingdom is already here, but not yet. The Vatican seems to be saying the kingdom is not yet, not yet, until the end of time, when Jesus returns. Meanwhile, the church is in charge, the pope is the vicar of Christ, and the church has the full truth.""
What's this about? What's going on here? Here's what I think.
- The Pope does not have an adequate understanding of the term "kingdom of heaven" (aka "kingdom of God").
- "Kingdom" does not here mean a place, but is best understood as the "rule" or "reign" of God.
- If the kingdom is a place then of course "it can't be experienced here."
- But viewing "kingdom" as a "place" does not serve to make sense of the kingdom ideas of Jesus.
- The kingdom of heaven can be understood to be both now and future if by "kingdom" we mean the rule or reign of God.
- To begin to study this see George Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom.
