The End Signs!
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Masthead Logo Digital Commons @ George Fox University Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations 3-1-2019 The ndE Signs! Are We Getting the Message? Terry L. Rankin [email protected] This research is a product of the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) program at George Fox University. Find out more about the program. Recommended Citation Rankin, Terry L., "The ndE Signs! Are We Getting the Message?" (2019). Doctor of Ministry. 307. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/dmin/307 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Ministry by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GEORGE FOX UNIVERSITY THE END SIGNS! ARE WE GETTING THE MESSAGE? A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF PORTLAND SEMINARY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY TERRY L. RANKIN PORTLAND, OREGON MARCH 2019 Cover cartoon ©2018 by Roy Delgado (used by permission). The image connects to the nuanced meaning of the title, “THE END SIGNS!” Readers may interpret this as a noun phrase only, with “THE END” as the definite article and adjective modifiers of the plural noun “SIGNS.” In its more subtle and potent form as a complete sentence, however, it is composed of a noun phrase as its subject (“THE END” as a definite article and noun) and an action verb (“SIGNS”). The religiosity of the cartoon directly points to eschatological theism as a key component of the dissertation’s theme in both interpretations. The subtitle (“ARE WE GETTING THE MESSAGE?”) emphasizes the distinctive perspective taken in this dissertation, i.e., are we rightly discerning the signs the End is sending and clearly getting their messages—or not? Copyright ©2019 by Terry L Rankin All rights reserved iii SALUTATION Before all else, let me make the acquaintance of my reader, and express my sincere esteem for him and the deep pleasure it is to me to address one so wise and so patient. [W 6:169]1 The best maxim in writing, perhaps, is really to love your reader for his own sake. [W 1:9] … and after all, the only reader to whom I can be of any service at all is the one who will read what I write and will carefully and critically reflect upon it. Him, and him alone, I am absolutely certain of benefitting, though he conclude that I am in the wrong from beginning to end. [EP2: 474] 1 The caricature of Peirce is by David Levine (1926-2009), ©2019 Matthew and Eve Levine (used by permission). Standards for citing Peirce’s writings are in APPENDICES: Abbreviations, Citing Charles Sanders Peirce. iv DEDICATION In loving memory of my parents, Roy Lee Rankin and Anne Frances Arnold, who loved life and lived love, who sowed and nurtured in me love of wisdom, freedom, and others. To my grandchildren, Amelie, Justice, and Bodevan, whose vibrant lives are the joy that defeats my despair, for whom I faithfully hope. To their generation: Please forgive me for whatever horrors my Boomer generation has unleashed upon your being and presence in this life as our legacy to you. Follow Jesus--please God! He is the only Way, Truth, and Life that fully redeems us. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and above all, this undertaking would not have come about without the faithful support, loving encouragement, and gracious sacrifices of my beloved wife, Peggy. She is a vital force that keeps me grounded. Many thanks to daughters Lee Anne and Laura and sons-in-law John and Mark, other family and many friends who were steadfast in their encouragement. Special thanks to Don Bellairs, who provided helpful insights and diligent edification. The sparks that flew between my DMin cohort colleagues as iron sharpened iron were points of illumination that kept me on track. I cherish the friendships that emerged in our journey together. Portland Seminary faculty and staff gave me all the rope I needed to hang myself or to rig the ship on this voyage. Fortunately, it turned out to be the latter. Tim Dolan, Loren Kerns, Cliff Berger, Dan Lioy, Lori Wagner—thank you for your forbearance and tutelage. Two close friends and mentors separately guided my journey to this destination. Jim Fetzer, a philosopher to the core and a force of nature and a force to be reckoned with always; thank you, Jim, for hard-wiring intensional realism into my being and presence in life. Semiotics and Future Studies program Lead Mentor, Len Sweet, nudged, inspired, motivated, and (when warranted) chastened me every step of the way. Without him, the semiotics of resonant harmony of Christian “simplexity” would remain beyond my ken. Thanks to him, the Way, Truth, and Life of being and presence in MRI reality is now my immanent frame. Lord willing, it will become a paradigmatic social imaginary. Above all, I praise and thank Jesus Christ, Lord of lords, King of kings, and name above all names, for drawing me into his Truth and Reality and keeping me on the Way in Truth and fullness of Life. May He be honored and uplifted by this mere apologetic. Maranatha! vi EPIGRAPH We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.2 Anais Nin We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.3 Edward R. Murrow Jesus was, of course, the champion of radical dissent. His opposition to pharisaic hypocrisy, materialism, and legalism constantly resulted in constructive engagement. He came to proclaim news of such sweeping change that everything he did and said (even though in fulfillment of well-known ancient Hebrew prophecies) provoked discussion, often followed by resentment and rebuff because his hearers misunderstood (or understood only too well) the import of his “hard sayings.” Wherever he traveled and taught, his friends were shown the two sides to an issue as they listened. Yet Jesus must often have been discouraged, frustrated by his followers’ misunderstanding and pained by the shallow, uninformed responses of even his own family. He knew the difficult tension of walking alone and telling truth. And those are only a few of the risks of dissent.4 Luci Shaw The role of a preacher is not to provide self-help manuals for the future. It is to elucidate reality and get people to act on this reality. It is impossible to speak about hope if we substitute illusion for reality. If we believe that reality is not an impediment to our desires, that we can have everything we want by tapping into our inner strength or believing in Jesus, if we believe that the fate of the human species is neverending advancement and progress, then we are crippled as agents for change. We are left responding to illusion. This makes everything we do or believe, such as our faith in the Democratic Party or electoral politics, futile and useless. The bleakness of what we face, economically and environmentally, is not a call to despair but a call to new forms of resistance and civil disobedience.5 Chris Hedges 2 Uncertain source. Cf. Garson, “We Don’t See Things As They Are, We See Them As We Are,” Quote Investigator, March 9, 2014, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/03/09/as-we-are/. 3 Edward R. Mrrrow, "A Report On Senator Joseph R. McCarthy," "See It Now" on CBS, March 9, 1954) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgejIbN9UYA. 4 Luci Shaw, The Crime of Living Cautiously: Hearing God's Call to Adventure (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 76. 5 Chris Hedges, The World as It Is: Dispatches On the Myth of Human Progress (New York: Nation Books, 2010), loc.123 , Kindle. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS SALUTATION .................................................................................................................. iv DEDICATION .....................................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. vi EPIGRAPH ....................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................x LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ xii PREFACE ........................................................................................................................ xiii Problem: The Sixth Mass Extinction ......................................................................... xiii Objectives: Resolution and Application ................................................................... xvii Parallax: Assumptions and Perspectives ......................................................................xx Realism ......................................................................................................................xx Threeness ................................................................................................................. xxi Semioticity .............................................................................................................. xxii Historical Trends .................................................................................................... xxiii Leonard Sweet and James H. Fetzer ...................................................................... xxiv Peirce ........................................................................................................................xxv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................