Your broad and deep take on this moment in our culture was masterful [We are the go-betweens, Ken Trainor, Viewpoints, Aug. 27]. It could be a key resource in a high school class with youth who are in that confused, unsettled, even scary stage between childhood and adulthood. They need to know that their in-between state is actually our human condition. Social scientists call it “liminal,” and you laid it out so all can see that this is our current condition in this culture.
Way back in the ’60s, my seminary teachers pointed to believers’ “already but not yet” status that the New Testament describes. Googling “already but not yet theology” leads to sites listing Bible passages on that theme. The passages cited there are descriptive: believers are already fully and forever God’s blessed children in baptism, but not yet beyond the grip of sin while in this life.
For myself, a couple of other passages are more helpful because they are personal, speaking to our lived experiences. Our lives keep on being confused and unsettled, lifelong, not just in teen years. So says the first passage, St. Paul’s scathing self-appraisal in Romans 7:14-25. His judgment is that we — not just Paul — have “not yet” arrived; we’re always on the way, lifelong. The “already” finally shows up, to our relief, in his pointing to Christ as our rescuer in v. 25. That’s God’s last word on the matter.
A deeply comforting passage in 1 John 3:1-2 is deeply personal: Already, we are God’s children. Take great assurance in that. And the best is yet to come. What a wondrous experience we are promised: being fully and forever in God’s love!
Fred Reklau
Oak Park