The Arc Bends: The Purpose of Eschatology—An Easter Meditation

How to cite this article: Joshua N. Tilton, “The Arc Bends: The Purpose of Eschatology—An Easter Meditation,” Jerusalem Perspective (2026) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/35684/].

On several recent occasions I have heard well-meaning people criticize the slogan, “The arc of history bends toward justice.” “History does not bend toward justice,” they say. “History is an ongoing battle between interests and forces and factions.” Sometimes one side wins, sometimes another, but the idea that we’re heading somewhere in particular, let alone heading in the “right” direction, is a myth. “If history bends toward justice, why hasn’t it panned out yet?” they ask. “Every time we’ve been told that progress is being made, it’s turned out to be a disappointing lie.” Science promised us progress into a future without war or disease, but what did it produce? Amazing cures and medical treatments, yes, but also chemical and biological weapons that threaten the very existence of humankind. Technology promised us a world of digital knowledge and the erasure of social boundaries. But it has also delivered cyber bullying, the massive spread of misinformation and conspiracies, and social alienation. With every advancement we’ve made we’ve also discovered its full potential for harm.

But the insidious thing about the myth of progress isn’t so much that it’s wrong but that it lulls us into a false sense of security and complacency that things are always going to get better, which leaves us unprepared and unable to cope when evils arise. Greed and the hunger for power, ignorance and hatred, racism and religious intolerance are not banished to the past; the forces that thrive on them are still very much alive. At times, they are forced to recede back into the shadows, where they breed and multiply until they find a new opportunity to thrust themselves back out into the open. The myth of historical progress from superstition to enlightenment, from the law of the jungle to the rule of law, and from want to prosperity allows evil to catch us by surprise when we should have been watchful and vigilant. If we are seduced by the myth that history is the story of continual progress, then we will be less attuned to the injustices around us and less sensitive to the suffering of others because we imagine that things will improve with the passage of time. The lethargy which the myth of progress is designed to induce renders us impotent in the face of injustices that inevitably arise.

While criticism of the slogan “The arc of history bends toward justice” is sound, the slogan itself is a misquotation of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”^[1] Rev. Dr. King said this not to encourage apathy but to inspire action. Regarding the myth of progress he said, “…[There] is [a] strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills…. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men [and women] willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard wor[k]^[2] time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.”^[3] 

The reality is that history is not the story of progress, it is the story of rise and decline, failure and victory, innovation and decay. One people group vies with another for mastery, one social class strives with another for supremacy, one ideological vision competes with another for political expression. Sometimes one group wins for a day or a season or an era, and sometimes the opposing side wins. Sometimes a catastrophe or a revolution or a technological advancement comes along and totally reconfigures the struggle so that former allies are estranged and long-time foes discover common cause. The pendulum swings and history swerves in directions none could have foreseen. Nothing is static. The only constant is change. What this means for those of us who care about justice is that there is never a time when we can rest on our laurels. We cannot coast along expecting that things will continue to improve.

But if the myth of progress can lead to complacency and unpreparedness in the face of evil, the summons to ceaseless vigilance and endless struggle can also be demoralizing. The human spirit cannot press on forever against the winds of injustice without the hope that the struggle is meaningful in some way. If every gain can be reversed, every victory erased, if every good deed can be canceled and every just decree revoked, then why continue the struggle? Why not just let history takes its course while we snatch whatever pleasures and advantages we can? If the myth of progress lulls us into complacency, the myth of ceaseless struggle for what we think is right in an a-moral universe that neither helps nor cares is a pathway to the cynicism of bitterness and the despondency of disappointment.

The antidote to this hopelessness is eschatology, the assurance that there is a Judge of history who sees to it that justice ultimately prevails. A correct eschatology is neither the empty myth of progress nor the hopeless myth of endless struggle, but the hopeful promise that our striving to nurture justice and our toil to uproot injustice is not in vain.^[4] 

The Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus proclaimed is that God himself participates in the human struggle for freedom and justice. We human beings can join God in the quest for redemption. By doing good to one another—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, welcoming in the stranger—we strike at the heart of evil, not only because these things are good and just in themselves, but because these acts of mercy and justice unlock the power of the Holy Spirit to bring healing, redemption, and peace into our fractured, frightened, and warring world. Cancelling our neighbor’s debts, forgiving the person who has done us wrong, refusing to strike back at our attacker, speaking up for the person who is unjustly maligned, defending the rights of the one who is oppressed, these actions bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. And wherever God reigns redemption springs forth.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is not to be confused with the myth of progress because at the center of the Gospel there stands the cross. The followers of Jesus are confronted by the grim fact that the social, political, and spiritual powers that thrive on and perpetuate injustice will violently oppose the liberation we seek. The corrupt priests Jesus dared to criticize, the Herodian tetrarch Jesus dared to defy, and the Roman overlords who kept them in power conspired to put Jesus to death in a shameful and excruciating manner. They did this because Jesus’ vision of a world in which love, service, and compassion are the rule threatened their world order, where the few have all the power and riches and security at the expense of all the rest.

But neither is the Gospel merely the myth of perpetual struggle, for the prophets and the apostles proclaim that God brings the struggle to a final conclusion, in which inhumanity and injustice are finally abolished and the perpetrators are forever condemned, while faith and humanity are vindicated and a just peace is established that never comes to an end. Knowing that the struggle is not eternal and that the victorious outcome for justice is guaranteed is what buoys us up when the struggle seems hopeless, it’s what strengthens our spirits when our bodies are exhausted and when all our best efforts seem puny and ineffectual amid the overwhelming tsunami of human need. The eschatological promise of victory endows each person’s struggle for freedom and justice with eternal significance. Every task faithfully discharged, every danger risked, every kindness shown, every truth courageously spoken plays its part in the final victory because the redemption of humankind is not an inevitable outworking of history, it is the outcome of human participation with the divine.

Neither are the fruits of our labor to be enjoyed only by far distant generations, while those who wept and bled and died in the struggle never live to see the realization of their hopes and dreams. The promise of the resurrection is the that sojourners who never made it to the Promised Land—be they caregivers who never lived to see the tears wiped from every eye, or peacemakers who never lived to see all swords are beaten into plowshares and all guns melted down into paperweights—will live again to see the fulfillment of all our hopes and enjoy the delights of redemption together with the faithful from the beginning to the end of time.

To inspire this hope is the purpose of eschatology. This hope is what gives us the strength and the courage and the vision to struggle for freedom and peace and justice today. Eschatology is not for the purpose of divining the future in order to know the dates and events and the portents of the times. Such idle speculations are for those who sit on the sidelines pretending to be important without contributing to the cause. But those who are engaged in the struggle for justice and freedom already know that the hour is late and the days are short and the time is ripe to strive for what is good and true and right. Those who are striving for redemption do not need a sign to tell them that the Kingdom is at hand. They would not have been struggling for peace and justice in the power of the Spirit had they believed otherwise. The eschatological promise of victory is for those who, in the midst of the struggle, become overwhelmed by the enormity of the cruelties they face, who are staggered by man’s inhumanity toward man, whose faith in the promise is shattered by the apathy and the silence and the willful ignorance of those who refuse to lend a helping hand. For them, the eschatological hope of victory is the lifeline that keeps them from drowning in the depths of grief. Without this eschatological assurance the apostle in his prison cell, the martyr in the arena, the prophet in the wilderness, the rescue worker in the midst of disaster might finally succumb to a sense of lonely futility. The struggle can bring the faithful very low, into places where the darkness is so deep and the suffering is so intense that with Jesus on the cross they shout out, “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” It is then that those who pursue the way of the Kingdom must cling to the eschatological promise to save them from despair.

The Gospel of the Kingdom does not give us license to sit out the struggle, to rise above it all because we already know that it’s all going to turn out for the best. The Gospel of the Kingdom gives us hope in the midst of the struggle that our striving for justice and freedom and peace is not in vain.

History, maybe, has no arc. Maybe it does not lead in any particular direction. Or maybe it only shows that no matter how pure and good our intentions at the start of the venture, human nature, with its tendency to sin and its capacity for cruelty, will out. But history plays out in a universe of God’s creation, and he has a purpose our history cannot frustrate. He has determined that the struggle for justice will neither end in futility nor drag on forever. He decided the outcome of the struggle and delivered his verdict when he raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating not only Jesus and his teachings but all those who strive for the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Notes

1. This quotation appeared in several of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons and speeches including his 1967 address, “Where Do We Go from Here?” See James Melvin Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 245-252, esp. 252. ↩
2. While the printed text in A Testament of Hope reads “word,” Dr. King’s recorded version has “work.” ↩
3. The quotation comes from “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” (1963) in Washington, A Testament of Hope, 289-302, esp. 296. ↩
4. There is a third myth, the “myth of the good old days,” which I refrain from discussing here. While the myths of progress and perpetual struggle are forward-looking, the myth of the good old days looks backward to an idealized past. The myth of the good old days is also a counsel of despair, rooted in the belief that society is hopelessly corrupt and in a state of ever worsening degeneration. While the myth of the good old days feeds upon nostalgia, it is impossible to turn back the clock. Eschatology offers a remedy for this way of thinking, too, by turning our attention back to the present struggle for justice, freedom, and peace for all humankind, a struggle which is not fruitless because the Judge of history has delivered his verdict in advance. ↩