The Collateral Effects of the Delay of Jesus’ Parousia on the Message, Mission, and Worship of the Church

Seminary Room N235

The Christian church adopted critical ontologies partly because Jesus’ parousia was delayed. Hence, the church filled the absence of Jesus by actualizing his presence sacramentally making the mission of the Church secondary, while worship primary. With the passing of time, the primacy of worship became even more emphatic after Kant’s metaphysical embargo, which caused the language of faith to become meaningless outside its community. The logic goes as follows: (1) the church adopted critical ontology because of Jesus’ delayed parousia, (2) Jesus’ delayed parousia can be actualized if, and only if, the church goes out into all the world with the message, (3) but the critical ontology makes the church’s claim valid only inside the community of faith, (4) thus, the church does not claim anything meaningful in the world, and does not accomplish the necessary condition for Jesus’ parousia. This logic primarily affected mission (the meaning of faith outside the community) rather than worship (the meaning of faith inside the community).The meaningfulness of the Seventh-day Adventist orientation is the re-eschatologization of Christianity. Recognition of the void of the parousia makes the adoption of human conceived ontologies unnecessary.