The empty continuity of chronotime is interrupted by a messianic contraction, in a decisive “now” growing from the radical gospel teaching of the “kingdom of God”—that is, of a politico-spiritually charged transformation, immanent to the event of the kairos.12 So then Paul’s point will not have been to menace the community at Corinth with the end of the world. The letter says just three verses later: “For the present schema of this world is passing away …” Schema means “form,” “order,” “schematism”—suggestive both the theory of a worldview and of politico-economic shapes of power. What was to end is a human construction of the world, not “the world” itself. And, he adds, precisely to dispel the paralyzing affect of doom in the face of real crisis: “I want you to be free of anxieties” (1 Cor. 7:32). I want that too.

Keller, Catherine (2018-10-29T23:58:59). Political Theology of the Earth (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture) . Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.