The Future of Christian Eschatology 1

Last updated on: March 9, 2009 at 3:09 pm by Scot McKnight

The Future of Christian Eschatology 1 2009-03-09T15:09:40-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is a 5-part series we will post this entire week at about this time. It will unpack a “partial preterist” view of Jesus’ eschatology. Oddly enough, I was interviewed last week by CBS TV in Chicago about 2012. Evidently, some folks are getting riled up about the imminent return of Christ. (I think the interview will be at 10am Wed or Thurs.) Here goes …

Because my life’s story finds itself wrapped around the various

poles of Christian thinking about eschatology, I have in the following
allowed my own story to govern the shape of my thinking about
eschatology. In short, along with many other theologians, my thinking
has moved through several “either/ors”: either pre-tribulation or
post-tribulation rapture and either literal or metaphorical
interpretation of eschatological language. By a strange twist of fate,
my own thinking moved to the metaphorical hermeneutic while many
popular evangelical preachers were packaging once again the older
notion of the pre-tribulation rapture. To adjudicate between the
literal and the metaphorical, one needs to examine prophetic language
honestly and fairly; furthermore, as will be shown below, one needs a
firm grasp of what Jesus was speaking of when he gave the address now
recorded in Mark 13 (and Matthew 24 and Luke 21). I have not footnoted
the paper but have left it in its original public lecture format.

Kris, my wife, is a psychologist and her research for her dissertation was on the process of individuation, or growing into adulthood, for kids who were raised in Fundamentalism. It gave her a solid foundation for understanding, among many other things, me – for I was reared among the Fundamentalists. But I was raised at a time that had lots in its favor, like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and Grease – when it wasn’t Olivia Newton-John and John Trovolta but real kids with tattoos and cigarettes rolled up in their T-shirt sleeve and sporting a pompadour. That environment also gave me a vision of the world to understand disasters like rock music with a theory that the world was going to pot – in two ways, one not metaphorical. I was a bit of a Tom Sawyer so school was a bore; the only that interested me was competition and that occurred at recess. Teachers made us memorize, they weren’t interested in self-esteem, and the politically correct group was still in kindergarten – whining already. My teachers thought I was a rough without the diamond.

But the best thing we Fundamentalists had going for us was the Rapture, and it was coming before the Great Tribulation and it might occur at any minute, and I was ready but most other people weren’t, especially those who attended rock music dances on Friday nights and learned to dance without moving their feet. They were going to Hell, we were taught, and a Fundamentalist’s Hell is all-bad; Heaven is all happiness without fun or pleasure and with lots of prayer meetings and rules that were obeyed without questions being asked. To be ready you had to be one of us, a Fundamentalist, and not one of them, Liberals and Modernists. Back then, the world was a very simple place, filled with people like Donna Reed and Beaver Cleaver and Andy of Mayberry. We had the Bible and we had, right next to it on our bedstands Salem Kirban’s Guide to Survival and Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth. A veritable literary holy trinity. These people taught us a belief that all things prophetic were literal and they did so, to use John Updike’s language, with ‘a spinsterish consistency.’ And they knew the future with rococo detail.

Then I went off to college and read George Ladd’s The Blessed Hope and Bob Gundry’s The Church and the Tribulation, and my heart leapt the gap and landed in their pockets. This meant my teachers were wrong, and that meant also my pastor and my parents. The world was not quite as simple anymore: boys were lengthening their hair and girls were wearing slacks to church and young kids wanted to bring their guitars to church and pastors weren’t sure how to deal with these changes. But, things in the world were still getting worse and it wouldn’t be too long before the Anti-Christ, someone like Gorbachev or Kissinger or the Pope (we were very anti-Catholic), would take over and we’d be raptured – but it would be more challenging this time, because the rapture wouldn’t be until the end of the tribulation. The tribulation didn’t come and neither did the rapture – the verdict on who was right still wasn’t in – so I went to Seminary just in case more history would occur.

When I was in Seminary I saw a trend that only now is bringing forth what I never suspected then: nearly all my Seminary teachers were post-tribbers and most of my student peers were as well, but people in the churches were not catching our wave. I knew that my peers would soon populate pulpits and over the next twenty years the whole situation would change. Seminary is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “a lot of young men shut up together, all thinking about their souls [and eschatology].” He then asks, “Isn’t it awful?” (Letters, 132). We shut-up eschatology-thinking seminarians thought pre-tribbers would disappear like the American Condor – but alas they (both the pre-tribbers and the birds) are making a comeback. I should say something about George Foreman but won’t.

Let me explain what I am saying: at the fundamental level, the entire world of academic Evangelicalism shifted in the late ’60s and ’70s from pre-tribbing to post-tribbing. Some, like the Amillenialists weren’t tribbing much at all, but most of us were post-tribbing. But this change was in the Academy, not in the scores who attended evangelical and Fundamentalist churches. Seminaries and those educated there are called to lead the Church and so I knew that time would eventually calm down the fears of the churches and lead them to see the light on this issue. What happened, however, continues to boggle: when my peers got into pulpits, they lacked nerve and courage, and fell prey to preaching and teaching what the parishioner wanted rather than what they knew to be the truth. Instead of sticking up for their beliefs, they decided to teach general things (Jesus is coming again, the resurrection, the millennium) and avoid controversy (and the rapture was for many of them controversial), or they simply switched their minds to appease their congregations or keep their jobs. I know peers who have told me these very things; I shall not give you their names, though I’d like to.

It is this failure of nerve, I am suggesting, that leads to the modern-day craze of reading and believing the pre-trib views and fictional scenarios of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Some 40 million copies of these books have sold, showing us that America is a hot-house for eschatological speculations. These two authors must soon receive the Nobel Prize for Winning Literature. Each of the 40 million copies, descending like locusts on our airports (that’s an apocalyptic metaphor!), has the same theology and it is a theology rendered impotent, so I thought, by George Ladd and Bob Gundry. Alas, this is not the case. Their books didn’t brush a molecule off Hal Lindsay’s sleeve and they are riding the wave to popular beaches. Our moment of glory was as ephemeral as our suntans gained on their beaches. They put us (post-tribbers) to bed just when the party was about to begin.

George Bernard Shaw once sent Churchill two tickets for the opening night of his new play, noting in the invitation: “Bring a friend – if you have one”; to which Churchill wrote back to say he was busy but would appreciate tickets for the second performance – “if there is one.” Well, I must confess we thought there would be no second performance for the pre-tribbers. Alas, guess who plays the part of the fool? This play has more performances than Blue Man Group. Now to quote Samuel Johnson: “I wish there were some cure, like the lover’s leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession” (Life, 328).

What was the case, however, was that the academics of Evangelicalism became increasingly distanced from the lay people of that movement, and this in part because of several factors: first, the “hush-hush” attitude academics had to utilize when in churches because the churches had not changed on eschatology; second, the growing awareness not only of the reasonability of the post-trib viewpoint, but the increasing awareness of Jewish apocalyptic literature which supported new approaches to the eschatological material in the entire Bible as well as the post-trib viewpoint; and third, the development of a flood of literature and scholarship on the historical Jesus that has led to a growing consensus (a slippery and advantageous term if ever there was one!) that the language of Jesus about the future, most especially that found in Mark 13/Matt 24/Luke 21, was to be understood in its Jewish context and not in light of how church people had been interpreting it for nearly a century. (a footnote: the dispensational mode of reading the Bible, its hermeneutic, is a trend that began at the end of the previous century and which took hold through Moody Bible Institute, the Scofield Bible, Dallas Theological Seminary, and famous evangelists and preachers, like Harry Ironside and Billy Graham. End of footnote.)

Jesus

Previous Post

March 9, 2009

A Brother's Wisdom 13

Next Post

March 9, 2009 Salutations and Signatures (by PW)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How did Saul die?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Stoned by Israelites Died of old age Fell on his own sword Killed by Philistines