Ken Hawes knows what Jesus didn't: On Jesus' return in 2060, 5000..or later

The Rev. Ken Hawes   (chaplain at Cabella's, and author of  the forthcoming "Monty Python Theology")  just invited me to a Facebook Event called
"December 22, 2012: You're attending December 22, because the world is NOT going to end on the 21st!!"

I went ahead and RSVped..I hope to make it (:

But as God wills (I love James 4:13-17  ), and if Jesus doesn't return before the party!

Even though the moon turned red a few hours ago, the stars haven't fallen from the sky..

A few more posts on the end:

1)Frank Tipler   (not a Tim LaHaye kind of Christina, but a PhD physicist), in the amazing "The Physics of Christianity"

Christians claim that Jesus will come again, at the end of human history. Two developments in physics suggest that human history will end in about fifty years: computer experts predict that computers will exceed human intelligence within fifty years, and the de-materialization mechanism can be used to make weapons that are to atomic bombs as atomic bombs are to spitballs. Such weapons and super-human computers would make human survival unlikely, and in his discussion of the Second Coming, Jesus said he would return when human would face a “Great Tribulation” of such magnitude that we would not survive without his direct intervention. We will face such a Great Tribulation within fifty years.  (Tipler)

2)Phyllis Tickle, in The Great Emergence, ends the book with a final footnote:

As many readers may know,  many Medieval mystics like Joachim of Fiore would regard that development as nothing less than prophetic fulfillment, inasmuch as they believed  history to be divided into millenial units....to complete the biblical scheme of seven millenia, the era from 4000 to 5000 CE will be the consumm[ation]..(p. 165, whole chapter here)


3)Nathan Hobby, excerpted from a post called Notes on the Return of Jesus:

• How long can the church sustain the hope that Jesus will return, that there will be an(other) eschatological intervention by God in history? The clock has reached 2000 years; there are some of us who can still believe it is only a matter of more time. But what about 10,000 years after Jesus? And if 10,000 years is possible, what about one million years? Would there still be believers clinging to this hope? At some point will there be a strong sense: it’s been too long; we can no longer believe in it? (That has been there since the earliest generations of Christians. But it seems to only have afflicted some in each generation. It is perhaps a sustained conviction of many believers in the liberal stream. {Are there any liberals who believe in the literal return of Jesus?})
• For me, a Christianity without the expectation of Christ’s return has ceased to be one grounded in real hope of God’s will being done on Earth as it is in heaven. If there is no hope for historical intervention – if our faith is only in eschatology after death – our hope seems wishful thinking, so far has it gone from the words of Jesus and the teachings of Paul.
• It might have been 2000 years so far, but no-one has to wait more than one life-span. Once it’s been 100 years, it might as well be 1000 – in one sense. In another sense, we live in our forebearers’ time too. If Christ returns fifty years after my death, or if I can believe strongly he will, that means something different than he may return sometime in the next million years. -Nathan Hobby, Notes on the Return of Jesus

If all that messes you up, click:

"If Jesus doesn't return for ten thousand years.."

and other posts tagged "apocalyptic" below.

See you at the party..one way or another.