Third, there are the "already, not yet Christians." They are the Biblical realists. They focus equally on the two comings of Christ, on what He has done and what He is going to do, living in the tension between Kingdom come and Kingdom coming.

They want equally to glorify Christ and to humble sinners at the same time. On the one hand they are determined to explore and experience to the fullest possible extent everything that God has said, done, and given in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, they keep their feet on the ground. They acknowledge the continuing folly and weakness and sinfulness of Christian people until the second coming.

More confidence and more humility

My desire is for more Christian confidence in the already, a determination to enter fully into everything that is possible for us today, and more humility before the not yet, acknowledging that much ignorance, much sinfulness, much physical frailty, much ecclesiastical unfaithfulness, and much social decay will continue as symptoms of a fallen world until Christ comes again.

And it is this combination of the already and the not yet, of Kingdom come and Kingdom coming, of the look back to the past and the look on to the future, of Christian confidence and Christian humility that characterizes authentic BBC.

"Balanced, Biblical Christianity" is taken from the "Social Witness and Action" (Spring 1995) issue of Mission & Ministry, the quarterly magazine of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. Subscriptions may be ordered for $16.00 a year (four issues) from: Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, 311 Eleventh Street, Ambridge, PA 15003. Inquiries may be made to the editor, David Mills, at DavidMills@tesm.edu.