Christian Pessimism of Culture

From Hendrikus Berhof as quoted by Anthony Hoekema in The Bible and the Future, which is a book that everyone should own because it's probably the *best book* on eschatology out there.

The average Christian does not expect to see any positives signs of Christ's reign in the world. He believes that the world only becomes worse and races in the direction of the antichrist...The average Christian is not aware of the presence of the Kingdom in the world today...Prevalent in our churches is a bad kind of pietism...which limits the power of Christ to his personal relationship to the individual believer, and which sees no connection between Christ and world-events, or between Christ and daily work.. This leads to an ungrateful blindness for the sings of Christ's reign in the present. Expressions such as "we live on the edge of a volcano", "it can't last this way much longer", "humanity is steadily becoming worse", "the end of time is near" are very popular in Christian circles. And they believe that this pessimism of culture...is completely in agreement with Christian faith."

Christ, The Meaning of History, pp 174.