Sorry for the delay, I've been rather busy, and I wanted to give you my full attention when I answered this for you.
Okay, again, please don't take this the wrong way. This is kind of a fact-finding mission for me. You mentioned reading the Bible for the first time at 25 - was that in its entirety, or the first time, period?
In its entirety. In 1988-1989, I picked up an NIV Study Bible, and for the first time began with Genesis and read forward to the New Testament.
It was the first time I read the Bible independently of church influence. Although no doubt, preconceptions of my mostly Presbyterian previous experience may have colored some elements of how I saw the Bible, even in my independent reading. Particularly in regard to Bible prophecy.
But mostly it was a completely new world to me. I was most impressed by the consistent structure throughout. Particularly how literary the structure is of books like Isaiah, Song of Songs, and Job. And how the genealogy in Genesis matches up with that repeated in the New Testament gospels.
I don't mean to pry, I'm just wondering in what sorts of study you typically engage in a church setting.
In recent years, I haven't attended church. When I was attending, Sunday services, weekly Bible studies, and Sunday school.
My father was a minister in what's now a fairly conservative denomination, but he was kind of an outlier as he was rather aggressively engaged in urban outreach and - for a white Republican dude from southern Ohio - had a rather unique perspective on the cycle of poverty and systemic brokenness. During my childhood, the fundamentalist faction was starting to gain a foothold in our publications and Sunday-school curriculum, but our universities' religion and theology departments remained solidly centrist, at least by the time I got there (which admittedly was a while ago).
The denominations I attended could be described as fundamentalist and scriptural, and very white-conservative. I have a very limited exposure to black fundamentalists. I'd see my experience as pretty mainstream Protestant in the Presbyterian churches, although no doubt some would see it as "extreme" for its adherence to scripture on issues like homosexuality.
What I'm mainly wondering is this: Did you, in your own independent studies of the Bible, reach these conclusions about prophetic literature without help from dominant voices in your tradition?
I'd say the prophetic portion of what I believed before reading the Bible on my own remained pretty much the same after I read the Bible on my own.
And that my view of prophecy was pretty well established before I read the Bible on my own. I didn't see what I was taught in church to be in contradiction with what I read on my own. It was other parts of the Bible that I saw as not fully portrayed in context when covered in church. With prophecy, I saw that as more fully explained in context with Old Testament portions of Daniel, Ezekiel and other sections that were expanded on in the N T.
You could see these as preconceptions, but reading on my own, I felt they were consistent with what the Bible said in an independent reading.
You stated very unambiguously that the signs of the end times as you describe them are not open to interpretation, but that assertion is sharply at odds with the statements of most credentialed theologians I've read from or studied under.
Yeah, I guess I have to concede that's true, they are open to a degree of interpretation. The view of End Time Bible prophecy and the Antichrist tribulation period, for example, was envisioned very differently during the Cold War years of the 1950's/1960's/1970's/1980's has clearly taken on a different vision of how it would occur in the years of 2001-forward Islamic radicalism. I see the church of the False Prophet (previously a purely European vision of a revived Roman Empire church led by the Pope in the Vatican) to be a more ecumenical global religion of all other religions, potentially including Islam. The Bible describes Christians being beheaded, and beheading has long been a muslim practice. Also, islam envisions its own End Time as a time when a prophesied muslim leader converts the entire world to Islam, and any dissenters "put to the sword" and beheaded. Which creepily gels with Bible prophecy. Their Savior is our Antichrist.
Yes, some (many) aspects could be speculated to be fulfilled in different ways. But again, aspect such as the re-birth of Israel after millennia of being "a nation without a country", a third of the human population killed by fire (nuclear war) a third by famine and pestilence (starvation or radiation poisoning), the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon, the ceasing of sacrtificial rtituals there by the Antichrist when he declares himself God, the reign of the Antichrist period that lasts 7 years (3 and 1/2 years or 42 months of which are prosperous), the earth growing hotter and a lack of water, the mark of the Beast required to participate in the world economy where no one can buy or sell without it, an economic crisis where it requires a day's wages just to eat, the battle of Armageddon, the drying up of the Euphrates River, the invasion of Israel by "Gog and Magog" (Russia) from the north, while there may be some speculation as to whether today's events are the fulfillment of those prophesies, the prophesies themselves are pretty clear.
So to some degree we're in agreement, there is some margin for speculation. But I think when they occur, those familiar with prophecy will definitely know when it's the real thing.
I've heard both sides of the end-times debate, but I think your most recent post actually touched on an important truth - evangelicals have such tunnel vision for the end times that they've conceded almost all influence over the present.
Yes. So convinced they were already living in the end times that they haven't given a counter-narrative to the PC/Cultural Marxist/liberal forces that have been scoring political victories since the 1970's, for 40 years now.
And again, not looking to cast aspersions on your faith background here, but I've learned to understand eschatology and revelatory literature - especially the Revelation of St. John - as just that: literature. Both OT and NT prophecies were aimed at the people of God who were suffering from oppression and losing hope and longed for assurance that all would be set right. The OT prophecies can very easily be read as pointing to Christ, while the NT prophecies are rooted in the Second Coming of Christ using language that very neatly parallels the older prophecies. In all cases, the reader was given a metaphor for the present styled as a vision of the future, in which God punished the wicked and unjust, freed the people of God from oppression, and brought about a kingdom governed by righteousness.
Well...
I've always been taught to "assume that scripture is literal, unless it is proven to be only metaphorical". Certainly, the OT prophecy foretelling the circumstances of Jesus birth and life were not mere metaphor, but literally true as well.
I realize you hail from a tradition that holds a far more literal view of these things, and you are likely to disagree strongly with me on this. I don't fault you, and I don't fault your anger if you take particular exception to this. That said, I think most of the political (and they are manifestly political) stances asserted by evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity in America today are built atop a very specific, very literal, and very narrow reading of end-times prophecy.
So far, I agree with you on all points. It cracks me up to watch a Bible prophecy like, say Jack Van Impe (which I basically see as an anachronistic holdover from the 1970's, with an almost game-show quality to it!) where they overstate their case and say "THESE ARE DEFINITELY THE END TIMES!" It's not for them to say that. Only to say these event certainly APPEAR to be fulfilling what was predicted for te end times. Even Hal Lindsey who I mostly agree with sometimes overstates his case, and has been panned on occasion even by Christians for it. Pat Robertson famously said he had a vision from God that something terrible would happen to Orlando, FL because Disney (centered there) endorsed benefits for gays. So I cewrtainly can't disagree there is some policticking mixed in with televangelist prophecy.
It's not adequate for them that the writer of the Revelation was almost certainly speaking of the Roman Empire; they need a new one to pop up because the prophecy has to be for us here and now.
I see your point. But at the same time, there is a prophesied "age of the Gentiles", and the False Prophet rules his church from a "city that rests on 7 hills" as Rome does. Both those point to a Gentile (European) center for the Antichrist and his False Prophet. It is LIKELY the Antichrist comes from Europe, but not absolute. It could also mean someone from a region formerly part of the Roman Empire outside of Europe. But logically Europe, because it has the closest relationship with Israel, which is unquestionable at the center of prophecy.
It's not adequate that Gog and Magog and the 200-million-man army (and even if you could get that many dudes in the same uniform, logistical support would be an utter impossibility) are most likely a metaphor for the multitudes of the known world being arrayed against the people of God; we need it to very conveniently represent the same nations we're at odds with here and now.
Gog and Magog, I've never heard any challenge to the fact this refers to the ancient names for what is now Russia. Which is to the direct north of Israel, foretold to invade Israel.
While not written in stone as the absolute fulfillment of the 200 million in scripture, China HAS boasted they can raise a 200-million man army. I always considered that to not be a purely Chinese 200 million, but a coalition of nations opposing Israel led by China.
People who follow these teachings will find it easy to believe that their time and place is the capital-E, capital-T End Times, and will not only see the twists and turns of an increasingly interrelated and interdependent global economy as the movement of chess pieces between God and Satan (they're not equals, not even close, and the idea that they are owes way more to the Gnostic heresies than Biblical thought), but they'll knowingly or unknowingly play their part as the drama unfolds between their ears. The 80s were littered with huckster televangelists screeching that the end was near and that the Soviets were coming to wipe out Israel and usher in Armageddon... right before they started hawking books and survival kits and "blessing" jewelry and miracle cures like alligator-suited used-car salesmen. The church cannot allow itself to be so easily manipulated by any charlatan with just enough knowledge of our construction of "the End Times" to be dangerous.
I again concede your point. I always got a chuckle when they said
"we are definintely living in the end Times..." Again, I always edited this in my brain to be
this fits the potential scenario of the end times and I hope that most others do as well. I had a friend named Wayne who I turned on to CEREBUS, and when we'd flip channels and pass one of these self-serving televangelists selling his latest book or gimmick for donations, I'd (referencing Cerebus as Pope in the CHURCH AND STATE storyline) say "CEREBUS WANTS YOUR MONEY!"
He always got a big laugh out of that.
In all seriousness, it was always a stumbling block for me in my own faith, that God would allow televangelists to sell their snake oil like this in the name of Christianity.
But I guess these hucksters are only able to fleece those unfamiliar with scripture who don't do their homework.
Although even guys I like, such as Josh McDowell, John Hagee or Hal Lindsey, could be accused of writing books to enrich themselves. But in these cases, these are people who have dedicated their lives to the study and spread of Christianity and the understanding of our faith, and they do have to earn a living somehow. Many programs that sell books offer them free and pay for their ministry with donations.
I don't know if you are familiar with the
Coral Ridge Hour tv program with Rev. James Kennedy that lasted until he died, and whose services I attended in Fort Lauderdale and I met on many occasions. His was such a church, that offered many books for free. The program ended shortly after his death, although the church lives on.
