I have mentioned Tom Krattenmaker, editorialist for USA Today, under the topic of “Evangelicals and Sports.” I’ll be doing more of that in the days ahead. However, I consider our differences in that arena somewhat mild and less important than in the area of a recent editorial: “What if the end isn’t near?” (August 23, 2010). The subtitle comment of the article tells the basic thrust: “Too many evangelical Christians welcome the biblical rapture with an unsettling eagerness. This fatalistic view serves neither fellow humans nor the planet. A new breed of believers thankfully is taking another path toward Jesus.” In general, I read the editorial as a gigantic caricature of my own pre-trib rapture view which I consider to be main stream among my kind of evangelicals.
The article goes on to champion the work of Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, founder of the Two Futures Project, who is attempting to get evangelical Christians to “join the nuclear abolition cause.” The article bemoans the fact that many evangelicals who hold the pre-trib rapture are enamored with end times stuff and are therefore not willing to engage the needs of the world such as abolishing nuclear weapons and helping the environment. This article reminded me of an event that occurred when I was an aerospace engineer working on F-16s for General Dynamics in Ft. Worth while I attended Dallas Theological Seminary. A fellow worker came to sit down in my cubicle and told me that Christians were responsible for pollution. He was a member of the Sierra Club and had rather strong feelings about this. When I asked him why he thought this way, he gave me two reasons: 1. Christians use the cultural mandate passage in Gen. 1:26-28 to give us the right to rape the planet; 2. Christians believe Jesus is going to come back and jerk us off this planet so we don’t care about fixing anything that is wrong. This was the first that I had encountered that thought. It is interesting that at the time I had been a pre-trib rapture kind of Christian for 8 years and had never heard that in any of the churches I was involved in. I have encountered it since, but I don’t view those who shun all social activism as representing the majority of Christians who believe strongly in the Second Coming. I feel so strongly about the caricature of this article that I intend to make several posts highlighting various facets that I think need to be explored along different lines instead of the in-your-face drubbing that is given.
Among the issues I want to explore in future posts are the following:
1. How many pre-trib Christians hold different views of nuclear weapons and environmentalism from the author’s because of factors other than biblical views of the end times;
2. The generous use of overstatement throughout the article;
3. Unwarranted assumptions and limited options that are sometimes given (why are there only two futures? why not 3 or 4? are we really dealing with all the possibilities?);
4. The false charge of fatalism in light of the true nature of the doctrine of imminency;
5. The use of fringe views or minority views instead of scholarly and thoughtful presentations of the pre-trib perspective;
6. As a corollary to # 5, the futurism of the pre-trib view which does not allow for predictions of the future in a true pre-trib perspective. In other words, the article seems to be unaware that it is being critical of historicist misrepresentations of the pre-trib perspective rather than the pre-trib perspective itself.
7. As a corollary to # 1, the idea that the article (may) assume that current political environmentalism is what the Bible teaches about care for the created order.
#1 by Tom on October 13, 2010 - 2:10 PM
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As for #5: “The use of fringe views or minority views instead of scholarly and thoughtful presentations of the pre-trib perspective.”
Given the disparate views within dispensationalism, I’m not sure how you qualify which are “minority” and which are “scholarly.” There are differing views even amongst dispensational thought leaders.
Tom
#2 by Mike Stallard on October 13, 2010 - 3:11 PM
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Thank you Tom for your comment. I did acknowledge in my post that there is diversity within the dispensational camp. Yet, the article in USA Today seems to portray one strand of the dispensational camp (the strand that overdoses on eschatology) as the majority view. It does not present dispensationalism as a mixed view (although acknowledging not all do the overdosing). This seems strange to me since most of the dispensational churches I speak in “under-dose” on eschatology not overdose on it. Most of them are interested in how to manage money and how to have better marriages (all good things) but not how to understand the future. Perhaps my experience is rare, but I don’t think so. Even if a large number of evangelicals answer surveys about the end times a certain way, I don’t think private lives are being ordered much by eschatological concerns. Disinterest in social issues comes mostly from cultural hedonism that has invaded the churches, not certain theological emphases. There are also other factors in how people come to their views on social concerns. In my follow up posts, I will address each of the points separately which I list in my original post. Again, thanks again for responding. — Mike S
#3 by Tom on October 13, 2010 - 11:44 PM
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Dr. Stallard,
Which strand of the dispensational camp is enamored with the Left Behind series and its eschatological perspective? Is that the minority view or the scholarly view?
The reason I ask is that this view is by far the most popular amongst pew-sitting dispensationalists and our culture at large thanks to the series’ books, movies, video game, etc.
Perhaps it was to this “Left Behind view” that the author of the USA article was responding…
Tom
#4 by Mike Stallard on October 14, 2010 - 11:46 AM
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Tom, as a member of Tim LaHayes’ Pre-Trib Study Group, I would say that the Left Behind Series has a leg in both worlds. Taken in a proper sense, it is not in and of itself, part of any shallow sensationalizing. It makes no predictions in the novels, etc. It also does not speak against social action. Tim LaHaye’s life would suggest something different. Detractors I think for the most part ignore those aspects of his overall ministry the same way that those who criticize Jerry Falwell never mention his home for alcoholics — they often don’t want to give the other side.
That being said, there are those of a pre-trib persuasion who are unbalanced and would use the Left Behind Series in ways that LaHaye and Jenkins would never intend (this is not to say that I agree with LaHaye on all fine points). That is the nature of the beast. What I don’t want to do is to treat all of the pre-tribs as if they are radicalized with no care for the world they live in. I think to treat them that way is way over simplified. I traffic almost exclusively in pre-trib circles and the USA Today article describes something that I only encounter on the edges. It is my experience that makes me see the article as off-center. — Mike
#5 by David Roseland on October 16, 2010 - 11:02 PM
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Hey Dr. Stallard,
Wouldn’t you say that the presentation of the rapture we find in 1 Thes 4:13-18 IS sensational? I found, as I’m sure you did, the LaHaye/Jenkins narratives to downplay the “sensationalist” aspect of the biblical doctrines and yet try to answer “What would this really be like?” We saw the same attempt by Cecil B. DeMille with The Ten Commandments film. Whenever the rapture of 1 Thes 4 happens, and the Bible says before the Trib, it is going to be shocking and unprecedented. For those of us who will participate it will be exhilarating beyond words.
I wonder if the detractors are more anti-supernatural than they might let on. The stark, uncompromising SPECIFICITY of Paul in the 1 Thes presentation really seems to divide those who reject the Bible’s authority from those who embrace it and willingly submit to it. With great homogeneity (yet admitting the fringe’s existence), dispensationalists don’t advocate for an unhinged subjectivism that swills the spectacular. Dispensationalists generally reject the ideas of continuing special revelation and that Pauline miracles are happening in unverifiable inner experiences. But when the Bible foretells a miracle we should expect it, just as surely as we believe a reported miracle in the Bible actually happened within human history.
Another thought on the Two-Futures project: Disarmament has always evidenced a really non-biblical view of human fallenness. Someone who seriously considers lowering our defenses, whether they be household, community, state, or national, must certainly believe man can be reformed through social action. Yet history has taught us nothing (I should end the sentence here) if not that we do not reform man through human means. The nuclear argument is generally that man will destroy himself with nukes, contradicting all the prophecies of the Bible concerning future things. This must be, at its core, an anti-supernatural agenda. As we should expect, the root of the bad idea is bad theology.
#6 by Mike Stallard on October 19, 2010 - 6:46 PM
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David,
It is certainly true that the rapture is a sensational event beyond our current human experience. However, as you can probably tell, I use the term about something else. Sensationalizing prophecy to me is mostly asserting that current events are fulfilling specific prophetic passages in the Bible when there is no basis for doing so. Later I will make a post talking about genuine futurism which I think goes against the grain of sensationalizing.
I think I am in total agreement with you about the naivete of those who want unilateral disarmament or even bilateral disarmament relative to nuclear weapons. It matters not to me whether the person is a liberal or an evangelical, he tends to deny the true nature of humannkind — namely, the evil that lurks within our hearts and in our cultures. There will always be evil people who want to destroy others with whatever weapons they can find. Leaving ourselves defenseless is not an answer (and I would say not a biblical answer since I hold to just war theory). So the idea that the our eschatology keeps us from helping to abolish nuclear weapons is far from the truth. It is my anthropology, my view of man, that has a much greater impact of my understanding of that particular issue.