New Creation: A Primer on Living in the Time Between the Times

New Creation introduces readers to the thrilling, biblically-based vision of a whole world created by and to be redeemed by God. Written at an eminently accessible level, it shows how endings (or eschatologies) animate our lives. It rehearses the biblical story from an eschatological angle, emphasizing that Christian eschatology entails a politics. It then delves into how eschatology affects the priesthood of all believers, peace-making, prayer, and creation (including the rocks and trees, dogs and bees, and maybe even sex). With a light hand, it provides biblical cultural background where needed. Throughout, it connects theological groundings to present-day life, Christian discipleship, and contemporary issues. Here is a view of eschatology that bypasses escapist Rapture theology and puts forward a robust, exciting life now and in the age to come, very different from New Yorker cartoons featuring the afterlife as a bland, boring affair of strumming harps on clouds. ""New Creation is simply a wonderful book about a crucial topic in Christian life: hope. We Christians are so conflicted about eschatology, while our secular age is wrapped in future visions of destruction. Clapp cuts through speculative debates to clarify what it means to hope in the God who acts. He may surprise you with his gleanings from Scripture and culture on crucial matters like peace, prayer, creation, and sexuality. I found myself buoyed by hope in Christ while reading these pages."" –Alan G. Padgett, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota ""I try to read everything I can by Rodney Clapp. His writing has been instrumental in the radicalization of my own theology and life. This book is extra special because he's written it in a way that is readable to theological rookies and veterans alike. It is both simple and beautiful, and characteristically profound."" –Shane Claiborne, Founder, Red Letter Christians ""Rodney Clapp has a knack for making complex subjects not only clear, but exciting. Touching on topics like zombies, the heat death of the universe, and sex in heaven, he adeptly guides the reader through the core biblical vision of God's desire to renew the cosmos and restore human flourishing. His reflections on the implications of this vision for living in the present are especially inspiring. This is a book to share widely with others."" –J. Richard Middleton, Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College ""What I love about Clapp's book New Creation is that he succinctly brings together a host of fellow travelers in dialogue with all of Scripture to dispel any notions that eschatology is merely about what happens in the end. In fact, what makes this book essential for disciples of Jesus is what Clapp does to help us see the implications of eschatology for our lives now in everything from sex to politics, climate change to Black Lives Matter, and all else that has to do with contemporary life. He accomplishes what he sets out to do–to demonstrate that eschatology is the key to understanding the biblical story into which we have been baptized."" –Dennis Okholm, Azusa Pacific University, Author of Learning Theology through the Church's Worship ""Rodney Clapp has done it again. He has paired a rigorous Eschatological Imagination with the ambiguities of apocalyptic times. His insistence on humans being story manufacturers who are desperate to experience and interpret those stories is not a new revelation, but his amplification of the critical importance of narrative is noted and appreciated. Combining insights from popular culture, Scripture, Church History, with a Pacifist Kingdom Theology, Clapp issues a primer that instructs and inspires. More than a standard operating primer, he has proposed a 'guide for the perplexed' and a 'manifesto' for flourishing in manically disturbed times. As one who has recently been through 'the valley of the shadow of death, ' I found reading New Creation a witness