The time has come for a true awakening and a decision to turn our minds around on basic value-questions

There is a risk in letting the analysis of a problematic situation stop at the present time. Life goes on. The future comes with new postulates. The Christian faith is basically imprinted by hope and confidence. It puts its trust in the creator of the uni-verse as good and mighty. It was the experience of Jesus Christ as risen from the dead that made it into a separate faith tradition of its own. "Where, o Death, is your victory? Where, o Death, is your sting?" became its watchword. Christian faith is a Sun-day faith for the very reason that it celebrates every first day of the week as a day of the victory, through the resurrection, over evil, sin and death.

Nevertheless – or precisely because of that – there are reasons to describe our time by using the word kairos. That is the bibli-cal expression for a God-given moment in time which demands that we take a stand and that we act. One also can use the idea of a teschuvah, which means conversion in the sense of a true awaken-ing with a decision to turn round in a new direc-tion. Not least when it comes to the attitude of the rich world to the poor, there is a need for a manifest turning round. There have to be other moral values than those that dominate our time, in order to do some-thing about the inordinate burden of debts on the very poorest of the earth.

Reconciliation and trust

Further than a plea to accept a "kairos" for our generation, to see the need of a general and all conclusive "teschuvah", con-ver-sion, the church cannot go. The plea in question is to be found in the apostolic words: "We implore you on Christ's be-half: Be reconciled to God". That is, when all is said and done, what is most important. Those who live reconciled to God have a trust in God and the values of God as the very starting point for meeting the future.

There is by necessity a certain tension between the analysis of our own time and the heritage of divine revelation that is pre-served by the church. The biblical heritage points further than what can historically be confirmed. It offers a vision of what is to come. The direction is towards the Kingdom of God, the possibility of fulfilment under the reign of God. It is precisely this which Christians assert – their right to witness to for the sake of faith, hope and trust.

Christian faith is characterized by an expectation of the future. The pattern is to be found in the Lord's prayer: "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". What is most near at hand is attached to a hope for the life of the coming world: "Our daily bread give us today, and forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." That is a longing for a divine order of things to be established on earth – now. For daily bread to be available for all. For debts to be written off, those between human beings and those between us and God. And for us not to be tempted to give ourselves over to evil.