A Futurist's View on Christianity

The notion of progress based on reason is a core concept of Christianity and democracies.  "Early church fathers taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to "progressively" increase their understanding of scripture and revelation.  Consequently, Christianity was oriented to the future..." ~ Rodney Stark

It is important to understand the major themes of the bible are not just about one time and place in the past, but about a series of continuous events on a timeline that point to today, and into the future.  An over abundance of focus and romanticism of the past, leads us to diminish the reality of God's work in us and the world today and tomorrow.  

We sit and study the past, lament about the future, but fail to meaningfully contribute to it.  The Old and New Testament times were not the golden eras, the future is.  For us, it is not a matter of sitting on the great stone steps built by earlier generations, but to add to them in our time.