I have been having a very long conversation with an Evangelical leader in the area who is a very strong proponent of the Rapture. Basically, the rapture idea developed in the early 1800s by a 14 year old Scottish girl who wrote about a dream where Jesus would gather all believers in the sky. John Darby picked up on it and started promoting it around 1840. In the 1860s it crossed over to the Americas during the US Civil War--a time when a lot of Americans were thinking the end of the World was upon them. Kind of took root in American Religion at the time. On top of this, Cyrus Scofield published his Reference Bible in 1909, shortly before the War to End All Wars aka WWI. It seems every 20 years or so, the Rapture movement seems to come forward, often during a national crisis (at least in America) In my life time, I can remember it during the 60s when there was the Civil Rights Movement, then VietNam. In the 1980s there was the collapse of the Savings and Loans in the United States. Then too, it looked like we might go to war with the Iranians The early 2000s saw another economic recession and 9/11--guess what? It appears again. Recently it seems cycle through more often. Obama becoming President. Trump winning then losing the presidency. etc. A book I often refer people to is Barbara Rossing's The Rapture Exposed: A Message of Hope in Revelation.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of the Scottish girl who influenced Darby.
The Scottish girl who some say influenced Darby would be more accurate. The Wikipedia article on the girl—Margaret MacDonald—explains why “scholars think there are major obstacles that render these accusations [of MacDonsld’s influence on Darby”] untenable.” Among the reasons to discount the claim is that Darby first committed his thoughts about the rapture to writing before MacDonald’s “utterances.”
The point is, no matter who thought of it first, it was dreamt up. It was not taught in the first 1800 (give or take) years of the church.
Prior to Margaret MacDonald, in the late C18th there were the Buchanites, a small Scottish sect who shaved their heads leaving a long ponytail growing from the top of their heads to make it easier for angels to pull them up to heaven. They also wore shoes which could be easily kicked off for the same reason.
A former Orthodox priest who used to serve in Greece told me that many of his parishioners uncritically imbibed anything eschatological that blew in from the US or elsewhere even though the official line was similar to the RC common-place that @stetson outlines.
There are also 'elders' on Mount Athos or tucked away on vario8s Greek islands who regularly predict WW111 or the end of the world.
So no, these things aren't confined to Protestantism.
Sorry to disappoint you @Gamma Gamaliel but at my BUGB Baptist Church I'd say that the majority of the congregation are pre-mils who believe in the Rapture. Part of the reason for that has been a loosening of our Baptist identity as the BU has become more liberal (there is also a large contingent who would be very happy to see us break from the BU - they see them as apostates, and also as a drain on our resources. The idea of interdependence and a little bit of grace to our sisters and brothers who don't agree we us is sadly lacking. Family rows are always the worst.) Also we have a large proportion from majority world backgrounds from charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds for whom this is their standard teaching.
I preach occasionally, but I steer away from End Times speculation so that people won't count that against me when listening to the things I really want to get across. Although that might just be post hoc rationalisation of my own cowardice and people pleasing.
Sorry to disappoint you @Gamma Gamaliel but at my BUGB Baptist Church I'd say that the majority of the congregation are pre-mils who believe in the Rapture. Part of the reason for that has been a loosening of our Baptist identity as the BU has become more liberal (there is also a large contingent who would be very happy to see us break from the BU - they see them as apostates, and also as a drain on our resources. The idea of interdependence and a little bit of grace to our sisters and brothers who don't agree we us is sadly lacking. Family rows are always the worst.) Also we have a large proportion from majority world backgrounds from charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds for whom this is their standard teaching.
I preach occasionally, but I steer away from End Times speculation so that people won't count that against me when listening to the things I really want to get across. Although that might just be post hoc rationalisation of my own cowardice and people pleasing.
Goodness me!
Yes, I am 'disappointed' but can certainly see how this would happen given your congregations background and demography and its disenchantment with the BUGB.
I would charitably say that your stance is one of tact and diplomacy rather than 'cowardice and people-pleasing'.
We often have to 'pick our battles' in whatever church tradition we operate within and wrangling over arcane eschatological theories is hardly likely to help you get across the more pressing points you wish to make in your sermons.
A former Orthodox priest who used to serve in Greece told me that many of his parishioners uncritically imbibed anything eschatological that blew in from the US or elsewhere even though the official line was similar to the RC common-place that @stetson outlines.
I assume these wayward parishioners were just taking the American stuff and repeating it straight, rather than working it into some newfangled in-house Orthodox brand.
In Catholic circles, you had both, ie. people who just mouthed the Hal Lindsey stuff undomesticated, but the more organized groups were usually Marian, based around the prophecies of Fatima etc. The Marians obviously didn't go in for the whole RCC as the ***** Of Babylon stuff, but I believe there was a recurring theme, lifted from the purported Third Secret of Fatima, that "the next Pope will be the Antichrist", presumably because he'd overturn proper Catholic doctrines.
I didn't interpret @Gracious Rebel's comments as suggesting that the evangelistic techniques of the 'Thief in the Night' kind were acceptable - in a 'but I came to faith through it so it must be OK' way.
I can understand though why she feels conflicted about the whole thing.
What I was trying to say, albeit clumsily, was that it wasn't Gracious Rebel's fault that she was exposed to this sort of thing at a young and impressionable age.
One could argue that it says more about her that she has retained and developed her faith in spite of all that.
Thanks GG. That expresses exactly what I was trying to say -)
Thanks both.
I watched the film when in an evangelical Anglican church youth group. I wished we hadn't. And as I recall, a number of our parents were also rather unimpressed (if not outright appalled).
At the time, I think I added it to the list of ways in which churches mistreat young people. But I still have good memories of the adults responsible, even if I also think they made a stupid and harmful mistake in this instance.
@Stetson yes, I don't think they tried to vire the Hal Lindsey and other End-Times stuff into their Orthodoxy but simply let it run alongside. Someone once told me they'd seen some of this material for sale in a Greek monastery bookshop alongside icons, prayer books and prayer ropes etc.
You do get some Orthodox speculation about eschatology, though. I've heard it said that there's a widespread belief that the Anti-Christ will be Orthodox, for instance.
So yes, there are some parallels with the extreme Fatima types within the RCC.
That said, it's not something I hear discussed that regularly, if at all, but I get the impression that some more neo-con parishes in the US are hotbeds for this sort of thing.
Some of these parishes do attract converts from Protestant fundamentalist backgrounds who are looking for something they feel will be even more conservative and 'out there.'
I have been having a very long conversation with an Evangelical leader in the area who is a very strong proponent of the Rapture. Basically, the rapture idea developed in the early 1800s by a 14 year old Scottish girl who wrote about a dream where Jesus would gather all believers in the sky. John Darby picked up on it and started promoting it around 1840. In the 1860s it crossed over to the Americas during the US Civil War--a time when a lot of Americans were thinking the end of the World was upon them. Kind of took root in American Religion at the time. On top of this, Cyrus Scofield published his Reference Bible in 1909, shortly before the War to End All Wars aka WWI. It seems every 20 years or so, the Rapture movement seems to come forward, often during a national crisis (at least in America) In my life time, I can remember it during the 60s when there was the Civil Rights Movement, then VietNam. In the 1980s there was the collapse of the Savings and Loans in the United States. Then too, it looked like we might go to war with the Iranians The early 2000s saw another economic recession and 9/11--guess what? It appears again. Recently it seems cycle through more often. Obama becoming President. Trump winning then losing the presidency. etc. A book I often refer people to is Barbara Rossing's The Rapture Exposed: A Message of Hope in Revelation.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of the Scottish girl who influenced Darby.
The Scottish girl who some say influenced Darby would be more accurate. The Wikipedia article on the girl—Margaret MacDonald—explains why “scholars think there are major obstacles that render these accusations [of MacDonsld’s influence on Darby”] untenable.” Among the reasons to discount the claim is that Darby first committed his thoughts about the rapture to writing before MacDonald’s “utterances.”
The point is, no matter who thought of it first, it was dreamt up. It was not taught in the first 1800 (give or take) years of the church.
Prior to Margaret MacDonald, in the late C18th there were the Buchanites, a small Scottish sect who shaved their heads leaving a long ponytail growing from the top of their heads to make it easier for angels to pull them up to heaven. They also wore shoes which could be easily kicked off for the same reason.
Presumably those who partook of kale soup expected to reach heaven propelled by their own nether emissions?
I know you know of which I speak...
Sorry to disappoint you @Gamma Gamaliel but at my BUGB Baptist Church I'd say that the majority of the congregation are pre-mils who believe in the Rapture. Part of the reason for that has been a loosening of our Baptist identity as the BU has become more liberal (there is also a large contingent who would be very happy to see us break from the BU - they see them as apostates, and also as a drain on our resources. The idea of interdependence and a little bit of grace to our sisters and brothers who don't agree we us is sadly lacking. Family rows are always the worst.) Also we have a large proportion from majority world backgrounds from charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds for whom this is their standard teaching.
I preach occasionally, but I steer away from End Times speculation so that people won't count that against me when listening to the things I really want to get across. Although that might just be post hoc rationalisation of my own cowardice and people pleasing.
Goodness me!
Yes, I am 'disappointed' but can certainly see how this would happen given your congregations background and demography and its disenchantment with the BUGB.
To be honest; I don't think it's completely unknown in BU circles, outside particular baptist circles you don't have confessional guard rails, even outside that you have the influence of books/teaching etc from the US, and there are plenty of pockets of dispensationalist thought in the UK.
Some of these parishes do attract converts from Protestant fundamentalist backgrounds who are looking for something they feel will be even more conservative and 'out there.'
But there are home-grown whackoes too, of course.
I feel it's one of those things where you either have *some* teaching, or there's enough out there that people pick stuff up incidentally.
@Stetson yes, I don't think they tried to vire the Hal Lindsey and other End-Times stuff into their Orthodoxy but simply let it run alongside. Someone once told me they'd seen some of this material for sale in a Greek monastery bookshop alongside icons, prayer books and prayer ropes etc.
At my Catholic school early 1980s, the cool-boomer religion teacher spent a class showing us(via overhead slides) the Spire Comicw version of a Hal Lindsey book. At the end, he said "I'm not saying this is neccessarily true, just something to think about." Pretty sure we were never tested on it.
(The other great comic-book rendition of pre-mil theology from that era is Jack T. Chick's Chaos, which totally rips off A Thief In The Night, but with more horrific details. Both versions are really good, quality wise, but I'll tilt toward the Spire comic, as it maintains a bit of the groovy 1960s counterculture vibe, is somewhat more aesthetically pleasing[and NOT just because the artist was a former pin-up man], and takes the interesting approach of showing the events as visions of John, rather than the more verite style of A Thief and its imitators.)
You do get some Orthodox speculation about eschatology, though. I've heard it said that there's a widespread belief that the Anti-Christ will be Orthodox, for instance.
So yes, there are some parallels with the extreme Fatima types within the RCC.
Because, of course, OUR church is so important to the fulfillment of God's purposes that the Antichrist himself is trying to take it away from God's control.
(If nothing else, that claim does sound more plausible at the higher ends of the candle, as opposed to some radio-preacher in rural Wyoming telling people how their ten-dollar donation can help fight Satan's attack on "this vital ministry".)
That said, it's not something I hear discussed that regularly, if at all, but I get the impression that some more neo-con parishes in the US are hotbeds for this sort of thing.
I think I know what you mean by "neo-con", but could you clarify? Without getting into a deep ideological discourse, I'll just refer you to the wikipedia article on "neo-conservatism", and you'll see it has very different ideological and social roots than most forms of conservative Christianity. Though since the ascension of Reagan, they have been electoral allies and de facto foreign-policy allies.
Personally, "theocon" is the word I use to describe theologically conservative Christians who ally with the political right. I use it to describe anyone of that tendency from any denomination, eg. Jerry Falwell(Baptist), Pat Buchanan(Catholic), Ben Carson(Adventist), though without looking it up, I'm not 100% sure if that's correct.
Also not sure if a theocon has to be pro-Israel, in which case, it wouldn't include people like Buchanan(of yesteryear) or Marjorie Taylor Green(of current infamy). Support for Israel is definitely a sine qua non to be categorized as a neo-conservative.
The way I understand the concept of the AntiChrist is it is anything from within the church that is preventing the spread of the Gospel. At one time, the Reformers argued the papacy was the antiChrist, though that accusation has long been squashed.
A thought: besides the religious emphasis of the end times, one can see it also in the secular world. Witness climate change, though the fear of the changing climate may be driving more interest in the rapture now.
I have been having a very long conversation with an Evangelical leader in the area who is a very strong proponent of the Rapture. Basically, the rapture idea developed in the early 1800s by a 14 year old Scottish girl who wrote about a dream where Jesus would gather all believers in the sky. John Darby picked up on it and started promoting it around 1840. In the 1860s it crossed over to the Americas during the US Civil War--a time when a lot of Americans were thinking the end of the World was upon them. Kind of took root in American Religion at the time. On top of this, Cyrus Scofield published his Reference Bible in 1909, shortly before the War to End All Wars aka WWI. It seems every 20 years or so, the Rapture movement seems to come forward, often during a national crisis (at least in America) In my life time, I can remember it during the 60s when there was the Civil Rights Movement, then VietNam. In the 1980s there was the collapse of the Savings and Loans in the United States. Then too, it looked like we might go to war with the Iranians The early 2000s saw another economic recession and 9/11--guess what? It appears again. Recently it seems cycle through more often. Obama becoming President. Trump winning then losing the presidency. etc. A book I often refer people to is Barbara Rossing's The Rapture Exposed: A Message of Hope in Revelation.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of the Scottish girl who influenced Darby.
The Scottish girl who some say influenced Darby would be more accurate. The Wikipedia article on the girl—Margaret MacDonald—explains why “scholars think there are major obstacles that render these accusations [of MacDonsld’s influence on Darby”] untenable.” Among the reasons to discount the claim is that Darby first committed his thoughts about the rapture to writing before MacDonald’s “utterances.”
The point is, no matter who thought of it first, it was dreamt up. It was not taught in the first 1800 (give or take) years of the church.
I am not sure that is true. I seem to remember that mediaeval depictions of the End Times sometimes show something that rather resembles the Rapture. Text is easier to reference, so I picked Chrysostom as a random example of a well-pre-1800 theologian and lo and behold, in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4 he seems to envisage a physical lifting in to the clouds. Or here is Aquinas on the same passage distinguishing those in a cloud with Christ from those "left behind" on Earth. So the first two mediaeval theologians, one Eastern one Western, that I thought to reference both have something that looks very much like the Rapture. I am sure there are differences between their ideas and Dispensationalism but I do not think the idea of a physical "catching up into the clouds" came out of a clear blue sky (as it were) in the 1800s.
As I understand the links you have referenced, both Chrysostom and Aquinas did look forward to a time when Christians would be lifted up into the clouds to meet Christ as he returns the second time, true. But it is not a two stage event, where there will be a period of additional tribulation for what? seven years or is it a 1,000 years? That second stage was what is dreamt up.
There are a number of ways to understand 1 Thessalonians 4. The one I favor comes from the Roman custom that when a dignitary would be approaching a town, the town's leaders would go out to meet him before he or she reaches the city limits.
A 16th century Jesuit promulgated something akin to later ideas of The Rapture, which I've heard neo-Calvinists chuckle about as well as give as a very good reason to reject it ...
I don't think the idea of the redeemed being 'lifted' to Heaven was a particularly outrageous idea prior to the eschatological speculations of the early to mid-1800s.
What was different from the 1830s/40s onwards was the way some kind of timetable was constructed with charts and phases and so on and so forth.
The Puritans are generally cut some slack for not getting into dispensationalist views but any cursory reading of 17th century history shows that their eschatology could be over-realised in the extreme.
Heck, for many of them the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 punctured the notion that the reign of the 'godly' had begun with Protestant England joining its co-religionists on the continent to topple the Papal Antichrist and usher in the return of Christ.
The Diggers Levellers and so on all had their own versions of this.
'Babylon has fallen, has fallen, has fallen,
Babylon has fallen to rise no more!'
Poor old Milton was beside himself when things didn't work out according to plan.
As far as Orthodoxy goes, there are beardy-wierdies who are as convinced the Pope is the Anti-Christ as any Paisleyite style Ulster Protestant.
Those who say that the Anti-Christ will be Orthodox are well-meaning. At least they aren't saying that the Anti-Christ will be Jewish.
Yes, I've heard some anti-dispensationalist restorationist Protestants say that.
At any rate, I was very much under the impression that all the dispensationalist jiggery-pokery had all but disappeared within the UK evangelical scene apart from among some die-hards.
From what Anna_Baptist and ChrisStiles are saying it seems that may not be the case.
As an aside, here is a free study guidebased on the book of Revelation of a Lutheran understanding of the end of times.
Questions addressed are
What does Revelation really say about the end of the world?
Aren’t the dragons, beasts, and creatures just a metaphor?
What does “666” really mean?
Is the end near?
What will happen when Jesus returns?
What will heaven be like?
I'd imagine the Lutheran view would be similar to that of the historic Reformed Churches and the RCs and Orthodox.
The stuff we've been talking about developed from the 'Astbury Conferences' and the early Brethren movement in the UK and the Millerites and other millennial groups in the US.
It all came out of a background of social change and political turmoil- the great Reform Bills, a second French revolution and the later 1848 revolutions across Europe.
So the first two mediaeval theologians, one Eastern one Western, that I thought to reference both have something that looks very much like the Rapture. I am sure there are differences between their ideas and Dispensationalism but I do not think the idea of a physical "catching up into the clouds" came out of a clear blue sky (as it were) in the 1800s.
The difference is that those older theologians saw that as part of the process of the Second Coming, as opposed to a separate event where the faithful are taken away from the Earth for a period of time (so in this instance Gramps is correct). That seems heavily indicated in the Chrysostom source you link.
As I understand the links you have referenced, both Chrysostom and Aquinas did look forward to a time when Christians would be lifted up into the clouds to meet Christ as he returns the second time, true. But it is not a two stage event, where there will be a period of additional tribulation for what? seven years or is it a 1,000 years? That second stage was what is dreamt up.
There are a number of ways to understand 1 Thessalonians 4. The one I favor comes from the Roman custom that when a dignitary would be approaching a town, the town's leaders would go out to meet him before he or she reaches the city limits.
FWIW, I believe I may have heard or read Orthodox commentary that makes a similar point about the civic dignitaries thing in relation to 1 Thessalonians 4.
I well remember a conference called 'On Revival' which I attended back in 2003 in which a US Presbyterian PhD student was joined on the platform by his supervisor the late Dr Andrew Walker (Pentecostal turned Orthodox) for a Q&A session where they jointly held their ground against dispensationalists in the audience.
They did so very deftly and graciously.
Whatever else it illustrated it reinforced my impression that dispensationalism doesn't come from the mainstream 'thrust' of the Christian tradition in its RC/Orthodox or Reformed/Lutheran forms but out on the periphery in wild and wooly 19th century revivalist and millenarian groups.
I'm not saying that those groups were so 'out there' as to be outside the Christian fold altogether. Far from it.
But the same kind of impetus gave rise to more marginal Adventist groups and to overtly heretical bodies such as the JWs and Mormons.
As an aside, I sometimes find that Orthodox clergy from outside the UK assume that all Protestant churches have imbibed this stuff, largely, I suspect because both indigenous Protestant groups and much Protestant missionary activity in their home countries has been infected with this stuff.
They make little distinction between a Kingdom Hall and an independent evangelical assembly.
I was puzzled and somewhat bemused by this when I first encountered it but the more I hear of how particular fundamentalist or conservative evangelical groups have tended to operate in these countries, the more I understand the reaction. There are notable exceptions though and some Orthodox do recognise that.
I'm straying into the kind of territory I was hoping to explore on the thread about contemporary evangelicalism, as by and large, I do think that much Protestant missionary activity is more holistic and nuanced than the stereotypes suggest.
So the first two mediaeval theologians, one Eastern one Western, that I thought to reference both have something that looks very much like the Rapture. I am sure there are differences between their ideas and Dispensationalism but I do not think the idea of a physical "catching up into the clouds" came out of a clear blue sky (as it were) in the 1800s.
The difference is that those older theologians saw that as part of the process of the Second Coming, as opposed to a separate event where the faithful are taken away from the Earth for a period of time (so in this instance Gramps is correct). That seems heavily indicated in the Chrysostom source you link.
Well indeed but this is a rather more subtle distinction. The Dispensationalists linked these three elements - the catching into the clouds, tribulation, the millenium - in a distinctive, perhaps novel way. But none of the three elements themselves were completely alien to scripture or tradition. I mean, it makes it look a lot less wackazoidal, does it not?
Are you saying that the Dispensationalists made it sound less 'wackazoidal' or more so?
I think it's long been recognised that eschatological speculation can lead to excesses. That's the main reason that the Eastern Churches were the last to accept the Book of Revelations into the NT canon. Not until around 500 AD/CE I think ...
Even today Revelation isn't included in the Orthodox lectionary readings but it is cited in theological writings and commentaries of course, plus we often say that our style of worship echoes passages in it.
Not those about creatures with lots of heads or stinging scorpions and so forth, of course.
Be that as it may, I'd have thought the Dispensationalists made it sound more trippy and wackadoolical rather than less.
I well remember sermons in the Brethren where visiting preachers cited that canonical source, The Reader's Digest to support some of their more whacky interpretations - the number of attendees on Israeli tanks, an increase in the vulture population in the Negev ...
I'm afraid I regard the Darby speculations and Schofield Bible stuff as little more than a 'marketing' exercise at a time when Protestant denominations were competing for adherents.
'We've got the biggest chapel / best preacher / clearest insight into biblical prophecy' [delete as appropriate].
Don't get me wrong. I owe a lot to a Brethren fella whose Bible studies gave me a good working overview of the scriptures. That has never left me.
I'm not disparaging the likes of F F Bruce or those Brethren who quietly beavered away sharing the Gospel to the best of their ability.
The cosmology of a Chrysostom, an Aquinas or a Calvin was inevitably very different from ours.
I'm not aware that anyone prior to the Dispensationalists devised a join-the-dots schema to plot all this stuff out.
That's not to say that those who thought the world would end in 1000AD/CE or some of the radical Puritan sects didn't have an over-realised eschatology - the Fifth Monarchy Men anyone?
But I am saying that the Dispensationalists did bring something novel to the party.
It's interesting to hear that their legacy seems to have lingered on at a popular level.
I'm afraid I regard the Darby speculations and Schofield Bible stuff as little more than a 'marketing' exercise at a time when Protestant denominations were competing for adherents.
As you have already made clear. It would be nice to get beyond this into something a little more nuanced, for example the why and the how of his influence. Looking at wikipedia:
Darby became a curate in the Church of Ireland parish of Delgany, County Wicklow, and distinguished himself by persuading Roman Catholic peasants in the Calary district within this parish to abandon the Catholic Church. The gospel tract "How the Lost Sheep was Saved" gives his personal account of a visit he paid to a dying shepherd boy in this area, painting a vivid picture of what his work among the poor people involved. He later claimed to have won hundreds of converts to the Church of Ireland. However, the conversions ended when William Magee, the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, ruled that converts were obliged to swear allegiance to George IV as the rightful king of Ireland.
Darby resigned his curacy in protest. Soon afterwards, in October 1827, he fell from a horse and was seriously injured. He later stated that it was during this time that he began to believe that the "kingdom" described in the Book of Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament was entirely different from the Christian church.
Over the next five years, he developed the principles of his mature theology – most notably his conviction that the very notion of a clergyman was a sin against the Holy Spirit, because it limited the recognition that the Holy Spirit could speak through any member of the Church. During this time (1827–28) he joined an interdenominational meeting of believers (including Anthony Norris Groves, Edward Cronin, J. G. Bellett, and Francis Hutchinson) who met to "break bread" together in Dublin as a symbol of their unity in Christ. By 1832, this group had grown and began to identify themselves as a distinct Christian assembly. As they travelled and began new assemblies in Ireland and England, they formed the movement now known as the Plymouth Brethren.
...
Darby travelled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. He gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hope of the church (L'attente actuelle de l'église). These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy. America did not embrace Darby's ecclesiology as it did his eschatology, which is still being propagated (in various forms) at such places as Dallas Theological Seminary, and by authors and preachers such as Hal Lindsey and John Hagee.
One of the intriguing aspects is how an interdenominational meeting of believers breaking bread together as a sign of unity in Christ morphed into a distinct movement. With reference to the other thread, maybe this kind of thing is one of the characteristics of evangelicalism.
I follow a Fundamentalist YouTuber (Mike Winger) because he's always good to listen to and seems a nice guy and I like to keep up, though I'm very far from him theologically. Anyhow, he's currently on the warpath over a recent prediction of the rapture in (first Sept 23/24 i.e. a few days ago, revised to something like 6-7th Oct, i.e. in a few days.
I honestly wonder how important these are. I can admire his concern for those who may do silly things, like give everything away, but I wonder how many there are? I would bet few if any on this Ship have even heard about it.
As regards Restoration, I was nearly in the Tony Morton branch (Cornerstone) and I've been trying to find out how that finished up. The official view there was definitely Post Millenialist. The book "The Puritan Hope" by Ian Murray had become a read fad and was the influence behind it.
We never got fully involved. Like most Restorationist groups (e.g. NAR in so far as it exists) are too focused in on there view of end-time revival, and whilst I quite like their optimistic view of the future, they tend to think on nothing else. So it became boring, in the end, because all the emphasis was on this narrow area.
Sorry, I did not make myself clear. What I mean is that when I first heard of the Rapture - and I imagine this would be the reaction of the majority of people whether Christians or not - my reaction was "What??? this idea of people being caught up into the air at the end of the world is completely absurd; where on earth did that come from?". Not because "oh this ought to be associated with the Second Coming itself rather than with some earlier stage of eschatology" but because it seems intrinsically bizarre, like something out of Scientology. And I think this is why belief in the Rapture is widely mocked both inside and outside the Church.
However actually many eminent theologians over the centuries have accepted what we find the weirdest and least appealing bits of the Rapture idea - the physical lifting into the clouds and the difference between those "caught up" and those "left behind". Sure, they disagreed about exactly when this would happen and how it related to other aspects of the End Times. But to me it makes the Rapture seem less of an alien, cult-like intrusion into Christian theology and more of a re-packaging of and re-emphasis on some ideas that have been knocking around in scripture and tradition for a very long time.
I s'pose what I was trying to say in response was that given that 1st century cosmology can have both Christ disappearing into the clouds at the Ascension and 'the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God' in Revelation, then that's the sort of language these things are framed within.
It's unclear whether the early Christians would have taken these things literally or figuratively but it must say something that the Eastern Churches had qualms and reservations about including the Book of Revelation in the NT canon lest people get funny ideas.
I follow a Fundamentalist YouTuber (Mike Winger) because he's always good to listen to and seems a nice guy and I like to keep up, though I'm very far from him theologically. Anyhow, he's currently on the warpath over a recent prediction of the rapture in (first Sept 23/24 i.e. a few days ago, revised to something like 6-7th Oct, i.e. in a few days.
I honestly wonder how important these are. I can admire his concern for those who may do silly things, like give everything away, but I wonder how many there are? I would bet few if any on this Ship have even heard about it.
As regards Restoration, I was nearly in the Tony Morton branch (Cornerstone) and I've been trying to find out how that finished up. The official view there was definitely Post Millenialist. The book "The Puritan Hope" by Ian Murray had become a read fad and was the influence behind it.
We never got fully involved. Like most Restorationist groups (e.g. NAR in so far as it exists) are too focused in on there view of end-time revival, and whilst I quite like their optimistic view of the future, they tend to think on nothing else. So it became boring, in the end, because all the emphasis was on this narrow area.
I was involved with the West Yorkshire end of things and there was a parting of the ways between them and Tony Morton's group in Southampton.
I don’t know the details but I think Cornerstone ended in tears.
'The Puritan Hope' was definitely promoted as a must-read but looking back and in the light of observations by @chrisstiles I now wonder how many of us actually read it.
The particular slant on an upbeat eschatology was very much a feature of the Bible Weeks and tended to run alongside, in Bradford's case at least, some unwelcome and unwholesome influences from the US prosperity-gospel merchants - although there were dissenting voices.
When the whole thing fell apart some people went down that route.
@pease, I am certainly open to a more nuanced evaluation on Darby et al but I think we have to set some of this against the background of an incipiently 'capitalist' and 'market-driven' approach within 19th century evangelicalism.
I may be exaggerating to make a point. But there's a point to be made.
I follow a Fundamentalist YouTuber (Mike Winger) because he's always good to listen to and seems a nice guy and I like to keep up, though I'm very far from him theologically. Anyhow, he's currently on the warpath over a recent prediction of the rapture in (first Sept 23/24 i.e. a few days ago, revised to something like 6-7th Oct, i.e. in a few days.
I honestly wonder how important these are. I can admire his concern for those who may do silly things, like give everything away, but I wonder how many there are? I would bet few if any on this Ship have even heard about it.
As regards Restoration, I was nearly in the Tony Morton branch (Cornerstone) and I've been trying to find out how that finished up. The official view there was definitely Post Millenialist. The book "The Puritan Hope" by Ian Murray had become a read fad and was the influence behind it.
We never got fully involved. Like most Restorationist groups (e.g. NAR in so far as it exists) are too focused in on there view of end-time revival, and whilst I quite like their optimistic view of the future, they tend to think on nothing else. So it became boring, in the end, because all the emphasis was on this narrow area.
I was involved with the West Yorkshire end of things and there was a parting of the ways between them and Tony Morton's group in Southampton.
I don’t know the details but I think Cornerstone ended in tears.
Aiui Mr morton had a moral lapse and the moved abroad. What was left of the network when the dust settled ended up joining pioneer
It's interesting that in a sense restorationism adopted a very brethren influenced ecclesiology but with a different eschatology (or perhaps eschatolgies)
I was surprised to discover that Muslims also believe in the second coming of Jesus and believe that he will defeat the antiChrist, and (I think) reign on earth. They don’t believe in the Rapture though.
Restorationist ecclesiology was very much influenced by the Brethren from the get-go, largely through Arthur Wallis.
Essentially it was a hybrid of Brethren, Pentecostal and independent evangelical influences with a dash of 'Holiness' in there at the early stage (Wally North and co).
The New Frontiers end of things had a more neo-Calvinist flavour imbibed from the FIEC.
It's interesting to look at old copies of 'Renewal' magazine as in the letters pages in particular you can see a distinctly 'restorationist' tone emerging with an emphasis on 'new wine needing new wine skins' and the idea that the historic and 'mainline' denominations would not be able to deliver the 'new thing' they believed God to be doing.
Articles and contributions from Anglo-Catholic and RC renewalists gradually decreased, even though 'Renewal' never really sided with the restorationists.
What we had was essentially a Brethren ecclesiology combined with a modified version of the 'ministry gifts' of Ephesians 4 as espoused by the Apostolic Church, a small Pentecostal denomination that emerged from the aftermath of the Welsh Revival, overlaid with a Puritan eschatology on steroids.
No indeed. The US and UK restorationist movements are two distinct and unrelated things.
I've only been referring to the UK restorationist scene and I should have made that clearer from the outset.
I met some Californians who were from 'The Disciples of Christ' on a hiking trip in the Albanian Alps recently. One of them was quite pleased to see a 'bare' cross inside a village RC church rather than one with an image or carving of Christ on it.
I'd heard of this group but not met anyone from it before. From conversation it appears to have developed from an early split in the US restorationist movement and taken what these people described as a more 'journeying' or 'sojourning' direction rather than a more conservative one.
In UK terms, the 'restorationist' epithet tends to be applied to charismatic evangelical 'House churches' (a misnomer) or 'new churches' which emerged in the mid to late '70s and which became a prominent movement during the '80s and '90s but which were never as large as some estimates initially claimed.
The strand I was involved in probably had no more than 8000 adherents at its height.
New Frontiers was by far the largest and most successful but most of the others have largely fizzled out or morphed into more general forms of independent charismatic evangelicalism.
I met some Californians who were from 'The Disciples of Christ' on a hiking trip in the Albanian Alps recently. One of them was quite pleased to see a 'bare' cross inside a village RC church rather than one with an image or carving of Christ on it.
I'd heard of this group but not met anyone from it before. From conversation it appears to have developed from an early split in the US restorationist movement and taken what these people described as a more 'journeying' or 'sojourning' direction rather than a more conservative one.
The Disciples of Christ—the formal name is the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)—is one of the main groups, or the successor to two of the main groups, depending on how you look at it—that arose out of the original American Restoration Movement, sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement. The followers of Thomas and Alexander Campbell called themselves “the Disciples of Christ,” while the followers of Barton Stone called themselves simply “Christians.” Majorities of the two groups merged in the 1830s. Over the years, they’ve gradually moved from a very loose, associational-style structure to a much more defined denominational structure, but they remain essentially congregationalist in polity.
The DOC are considered a mainline Protestant denomination. Lyndon B. Johnson was DOC, and Ronald Reagan was raised DOC and married Nancy Reagan in a DOC church, but they later joined a Presbyterian church. You might find a look at the website of National City Christian Church, the Disciples of Christs’ “national church” in Washington, DC, of interest. (Many denominations have a church in Washington that has official or semi-official status as their “national church.”) You’ll see it has all the hallmarks of a church of the “Establishment,” and of a church that’s very progressive theologically. Of course, DOC churches elsewhere may not be as progressive. But, as one example, the Disciples of Christ allow each congregation to determine whether to perform same-sex weddings.
Thanks. Yes, I was aware of some of their history but not that they had a kind of 'national' church in Washington DC or that Johnson and Reagan came from that background.
The three people I met struck me as very much 'mainline Protestant' in tone, as it were.
In UK terms I think they'd have fitted in well with the URC.
In UK terms I think they'd have fitted in well with the URC.
From what I know, I suspect you’re right. They’ve been very active ecumenically in the US and were/are members of the Consultation on Church Union/Churches Uniting in Christ. They also have an exchange-of-ordained-ministers agreement with the United Church of Christ and the United Church of Canada.
Yesterday my neighbor told me that a new date has been set for the Rapture. It is October 6th, so there is still hope that we will not be left behind. She did not seem to know who had set that new date.
I was surprised to discover that Muslims also believe in the second coming of Jesus and believe that he will defeat the antiChrist, and (I think) reign on earth. They don’t believe in the Rapture though.
That is indeed very interesting. Have you any helpful links/references for that @Aravis ?
I was surprised to discover that Muslims also believe in the second coming of Jesus and believe that he will defeat the antiChrist, and (I think) reign on earth. They don’t believe in the Rapture though.
That is indeed very interesting. Have you any helpful links/references for that @Aravis ?
Well, there's the wikipedia article "Jesus in Islam". I haven't read it myself, though off the top of my head, I think they believe that his reign on Earth will be for thirty years?
I think I'll still turn up for my flu jab on October 4th, just in case...
If I remember rightly there's an episode in John Wesley's Journal where he comes across an excitable group who were gathering in expectation of the imminent return of Christ.
If my memory isn't playing tricks he laconically observed that he consulted his diary and carried on with his schedule as planned.
Suppose you knew the rapture was going to occur tomorrow. Would you change today's behavior in any significant way? If so, why?
You mean, I have irrefutable evidence that the pre-mil eschatological theory is true, and is about to kick off with the Rapture tomorrow?
Yes, my behaviour would change. Just for starters, I would accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal saviour, and try to convince friends and family to do the same.
In which case you would be doing more than those of us who believe that we have already 'accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour' and, Rapture or no Rapture, aren't doing a great deal to persuade others to do the same.
In which case you would be doing more than those of us who believe that we have already 'accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour' and, Rapture or no Rapture, aren't doing a great deal to persuade others to do the same.
Well, @HarryCH's scenario seems predicated on the standard pre-mil eschatology being provably true, meaning anyone unsaved at the time of the Rapture will undergo the horrors of the Tribulation, with the best case scenario being that they know enough to reject the mark of the beast and attain salvation only after being executed by a portable guillotine squad, and the worst being they suffer seven years of horrific torment on Earth followed by an eternity in Hell. And they have less than 48 hrs. to change course.
Is that how you view the fate of the people you know who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour by your understanding of the concept?
I was surprised to discover that Muslims also believe in the second coming of Jesus and believe that he will defeat the antiChrist, and (I think) reign on earth. They don’t believe in the Rapture though.
That is indeed very interesting. Have you any helpful links/references for that @Aravis ?
Well, there's the wikipedia article "Jesus in Islam". I haven't read it myself, though off the top of my head, I think they believe that his reign on Earth will be for thirty years?
Thank you I should have thought of that. One striking thing - this idea is not in the Quran but is nevertheless widely accepted in Islam. So surely it must have derived from Byzantine-era Christian theology?
I was surprised to discover that Muslims also believe in the second coming of Jesus and believe that he will defeat the antiChrist, and (I think) reign on earth. They don’t believe in the Rapture though.
That is indeed very interesting. Have you any helpful links/references for that @Aravis ?
Well, there's the wikipedia article "Jesus in Islam". I haven't read it myself, though off the top of my head, I think they believe that his reign on Earth will be for thirty years?
Thank you I should have thought of that. One striking thing - this idea is not in the Quran but is nevertheless widely accepted in Islam. So surely it must have derived from Byzantine-era Christian theology?
Well, my guess would be that EVERYTHING the Muslims believe about Jesus, koranic or otherwise, would have come to them through Christian sources of one form or another.
My understanding is that Muhammed began his faith in a polytheistic social environment, so he likely woulda heard some of the popular stories about Jesus and worked them into his repertoire. From totally second-hand impressions of Islamic texts and superficial knowledge of personal-names, I would say he seems to have been particularly taken with the story of Jesus' mother.
What would I do if I knew the rapture was coming tomorrow? Plant a tree.
I don't know if the parable of the stoical rabbi and the Messiah really fits with the worldview that produced belief in the Rapture.
Just for starters, in that story, the Messiah has already arrived, and presumably has no objection to tree planting, so it makes sense that the rabbi should complete that useful activity before greeting him.
That's a little different from thinking that tomorrow God is gonna pull a portion of humanity into Heaven, while leaving the rest on Earth, based on criteria like eg. "If you've ever attended a Catholic mass for whatever reason, then you have fornicated with the ***** of Babylon and are thus stuck here on Earth and will have to starve to death or get executed by the antichrist in order to avoid being tossed into the Abyss forever."
There is likely NOBODY currently posting on the Ship who believes in the Rapture as outlined in pre-mil eschatology. So, if you're a shipmate who has suddenly gotten certain knowledge that the Rapture is tomorrow, then your whole understanding of how the world operates is now completely different from what it was a minute ago, and you have VERY LITTLE TIME to adjust your decisions accordingly.
Comments
Prior to Margaret MacDonald, in the late C18th there were the Buchanites, a small Scottish sect who shaved their heads leaving a long ponytail growing from the top of their heads to make it easier for angels to pull them up to heaven. They also wore shoes which could be easily kicked off for the same reason.
There are also 'elders' on Mount Athos or tucked away on vario8s Greek islands who regularly predict WW111 or the end of the world.
So no, these things aren't confined to Protestantism.
@chrisstiles - yes to all of that.
I preach occasionally, but I steer away from End Times speculation so that people won't count that against me when listening to the things I really want to get across. Although that might just be post hoc rationalisation of my own cowardice and people pleasing.
All this stuff about the Rapture etc. etc. tends, I think, to distract from the more pressing problems that churches really need to get to grips with.
Goodness me!
Yes, I am 'disappointed' but can certainly see how this would happen given your congregations background and demography and its disenchantment with the BUGB.
I would charitably say that your stance is one of tact and diplomacy rather than 'cowardice and people-pleasing'.
We often have to 'pick our battles' in whatever church tradition we operate within and wrangling over arcane eschatological theories is hardly likely to help you get across the more pressing points you wish to make in your sermons.
I wish you all the very best with that.
I assume these wayward parishioners were just taking the American stuff and repeating it straight, rather than working it into some newfangled in-house Orthodox brand.
In Catholic circles, you had both, ie. people who just mouthed the Hal Lindsey stuff undomesticated, but the more organized groups were usually Marian, based around the prophecies of Fatima etc. The Marians obviously didn't go in for the whole RCC as the ***** Of Babylon stuff, but I believe there was a recurring theme, lifted from the purported Third Secret of Fatima, that "the next Pope will be the Antichrist", presumably because he'd overturn proper Catholic doctrines.
I watched the film when in an evangelical Anglican church youth group. I wished we hadn't. And as I recall, a number of our parents were also rather unimpressed (if not outright appalled).
At the time, I think I added it to the list of ways in which churches mistreat young people. But I still have good memories of the adults responsible, even if I also think they made a stupid and harmful mistake in this instance.
I think I could say that it informed my faith.
You do get some Orthodox speculation about eschatology, though. I've heard it said that there's a widespread belief that the Anti-Christ will be Orthodox, for instance.
So yes, there are some parallels with the extreme Fatima types within the RCC.
That said, it's not something I hear discussed that regularly, if at all, but I get the impression that some more neo-con parishes in the US are hotbeds for this sort of thing.
Some of these parishes do attract converts from Protestant fundamentalist backgrounds who are looking for something they feel will be even more conservative and 'out there.'
But there are home-grown whackoes too, of course.
Presumably those who partook of kale soup expected to reach heaven propelled by their own nether emissions?
I know you know of which I speak...
To be honest; I don't think it's completely unknown in BU circles, outside particular baptist circles you don't have confessional guard rails, even outside that you have the influence of books/teaching etc from the US, and there are plenty of pockets of dispensationalist thought in the UK.
I feel it's one of those things where you either have *some* teaching, or there's enough out there that people pick stuff up incidentally.
At my Catholic school early 1980s, the cool-boomer religion teacher spent a class showing us(via overhead slides) the Spire Comicw version of a Hal Lindsey book. At the end, he said "I'm not saying this is neccessarily true, just something to think about." Pretty sure we were never tested on it.
(The other great comic-book rendition of pre-mil theology from that era is Jack T. Chick's Chaos, which totally rips off A Thief In The Night, but with more horrific details. Both versions are really good, quality wise, but I'll tilt toward the Spire comic, as it maintains a bit of the groovy 1960s counterculture vibe, is somewhat more aesthetically pleasing[and NOT just because the artist was a former pin-up man], and takes the interesting approach of showing the events as visions of John, rather than the more verite style of A Thief and its imitators.)
Because, of course, OUR church is so important to the fulfillment of God's purposes that the Antichrist himself is trying to take it away from God's control.
(If nothing else, that claim does sound more plausible at the higher ends of the candle, as opposed to some radio-preacher in rural Wyoming telling people how their ten-dollar donation can help fight Satan's attack on "this vital ministry".)
I think I know what you mean by "neo-con", but could you clarify? Without getting into a deep ideological discourse, I'll just refer you to the wikipedia article on "neo-conservatism", and you'll see it has very different ideological and social roots than most forms of conservative Christianity. Though since the ascension of Reagan, they have been electoral allies and de facto foreign-policy allies.
Also not sure if a theocon has to be pro-Israel, in which case, it wouldn't include people like Buchanan(of yesteryear) or Marjorie Taylor Green(of current infamy). Support for Israel is definitely a sine qua non to be categorized as a neo-conservative.
A thought: besides the religious emphasis of the end times, one can see it also in the secular world. Witness climate change, though the fear of the changing climate may be driving more interest in the rapture now.
I am not sure that is true. I seem to remember that mediaeval depictions of the End Times sometimes show something that rather resembles the Rapture. Text is easier to reference, so I picked Chrysostom as a random example of a well-pre-1800 theologian and lo and behold, in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4 he seems to envisage a physical lifting in to the clouds. Or here is Aquinas on the same passage distinguishing those in a cloud with Christ from those "left behind" on Earth. So the first two mediaeval theologians, one Eastern one Western, that I thought to reference both have something that looks very much like the Rapture. I am sure there are differences between their ideas and Dispensationalism but I do not think the idea of a physical "catching up into the clouds" came out of a clear blue sky (as it were) in the 1800s.
As I understand the links you have referenced, both Chrysostom and Aquinas did look forward to a time when Christians would be lifted up into the clouds to meet Christ as he returns the second time, true. But it is not a two stage event, where there will be a period of additional tribulation for what? seven years or is it a 1,000 years? That second stage was what is dreamt up.
There are a number of ways to understand 1 Thessalonians 4. The one I favor comes from the Roman custom that when a dignitary would be approaching a town, the town's leaders would go out to meet him before he or she reaches the city limits.
I don't think the idea of the redeemed being 'lifted' to Heaven was a particularly outrageous idea prior to the eschatological speculations of the early to mid-1800s.
What was different from the 1830s/40s onwards was the way some kind of timetable was constructed with charts and phases and so on and so forth.
The Puritans are generally cut some slack for not getting into dispensationalist views but any cursory reading of 17th century history shows that their eschatology could be over-realised in the extreme.
Heck, for many of them the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 punctured the notion that the reign of the 'godly' had begun with Protestant England joining its co-religionists on the continent to topple the Papal Antichrist and usher in the return of Christ.
The Diggers Levellers and so on all had their own versions of this.
'Babylon has fallen, has fallen, has fallen,
Babylon has fallen to rise no more!'
Poor old Milton was beside himself when things didn't work out according to plan.
As far as Orthodoxy goes, there are beardy-wierdies who are as convinced the Pope is the Anti-Christ as any Paisleyite style Ulster Protestant.
Those who say that the Anti-Christ will be Orthodox are well-meaning. At least they aren't saying that the Anti-Christ will be Jewish.
Yes, I've heard some anti-dispensationalist restorationist Protestants say that.
At any rate, I was very much under the impression that all the dispensationalist jiggery-pokery had all but disappeared within the UK evangelical scene apart from among some die-hards.
From what Anna_Baptist and ChrisStiles are saying it seems that may not be the case.
Questions addressed are
What does Revelation really say about the end of the world?
Aren’t the dragons, beasts, and creatures just a metaphor?
What does “666” really mean?
Is the end near?
What will happen when Jesus returns?
What will heaven be like?
Did I mention it's free?
The stuff we've been talking about developed from the 'Astbury Conferences' and the early Brethren movement in the UK and the Millerites and other millennial groups in the US.
It all came out of a background of social change and political turmoil- the great Reform Bills, a second French revolution and the later 1848 revolutions across Europe.
The difference is that those older theologians saw that as part of the process of the Second Coming, as opposed to a separate event where the faithful are taken away from the Earth for a period of time (so in this instance Gramps is correct). That seems heavily indicated in the Chrysostom source you link.
FWIW, I believe I may have heard or read Orthodox commentary that makes a similar point about the civic dignitaries thing in relation to 1 Thessalonians 4.
I well remember a conference called 'On Revival' which I attended back in 2003 in which a US Presbyterian PhD student was joined on the platform by his supervisor the late Dr Andrew Walker (Pentecostal turned Orthodox) for a Q&A session where they jointly held their ground against dispensationalists in the audience.
They did so very deftly and graciously.
Whatever else it illustrated it reinforced my impression that dispensationalism doesn't come from the mainstream 'thrust' of the Christian tradition in its RC/Orthodox or Reformed/Lutheran forms but out on the periphery in wild and wooly 19th century revivalist and millenarian groups.
I'm not saying that those groups were so 'out there' as to be outside the Christian fold altogether. Far from it.
But the same kind of impetus gave rise to more marginal Adventist groups and to overtly heretical bodies such as the JWs and Mormons.
As an aside, I sometimes find that Orthodox clergy from outside the UK assume that all Protestant churches have imbibed this stuff, largely, I suspect because both indigenous Protestant groups and much Protestant missionary activity in their home countries has been infected with this stuff.
They make little distinction between a Kingdom Hall and an independent evangelical assembly.
I was puzzled and somewhat bemused by this when I first encountered it but the more I hear of how particular fundamentalist or conservative evangelical groups have tended to operate in these countries, the more I understand the reaction. There are notable exceptions though and some Orthodox do recognise that.
I'm straying into the kind of territory I was hoping to explore on the thread about contemporary evangelicalism, as by and large, I do think that much Protestant missionary activity is more holistic and nuanced than the stereotypes suggest.
Well indeed but this is a rather more subtle distinction. The Dispensationalists linked these three elements - the catching into the clouds, tribulation, the millenium - in a distinctive, perhaps novel way. But none of the three elements themselves were completely alien to scripture or tradition. I mean, it makes it look a lot less wackazoidal, does it not?
Are you saying that the Dispensationalists made it sound less 'wackazoidal' or more so?
I think it's long been recognised that eschatological speculation can lead to excesses. That's the main reason that the Eastern Churches were the last to accept the Book of Revelations into the NT canon. Not until around 500 AD/CE I think ...
Even today Revelation isn't included in the Orthodox lectionary readings but it is cited in theological writings and commentaries of course, plus we often say that our style of worship echoes passages in it.
Not those about creatures with lots of heads or stinging scorpions and so forth, of course.
Be that as it may, I'd have thought the Dispensationalists made it sound more trippy and wackadoolical rather than less.
I well remember sermons in the Brethren where visiting preachers cited that canonical source, The Reader's Digest to support some of their more whacky interpretations - the number of attendees on Israeli tanks, an increase in the vulture population in the Negev ...
I'm afraid I regard the Darby speculations and Schofield Bible stuff as little more than a 'marketing' exercise at a time when Protestant denominations were competing for adherents.
'We've got the biggest chapel / best preacher / clearest insight into biblical prophecy' [delete as appropriate].
Don't get me wrong. I owe a lot to a Brethren fella whose Bible studies gave me a good working overview of the scriptures. That has never left me.
I'm not disparaging the likes of F F Bruce or those Brethren who quietly beavered away sharing the Gospel to the best of their ability.
The cosmology of a Chrysostom, an Aquinas or a Calvin was inevitably very different from ours.
I'm not aware that anyone prior to the Dispensationalists devised a join-the-dots schema to plot all this stuff out.
That's not to say that those who thought the world would end in 1000AD/CE or some of the radical Puritan sects didn't have an over-realised eschatology - the Fifth Monarchy Men anyone?
But I am saying that the Dispensationalists did bring something novel to the party.
It's interesting to hear that their legacy seems to have lingered on at a popular level.
I honestly wonder how important these are. I can admire his concern for those who may do silly things, like give everything away, but I wonder how many there are? I would bet few if any on this Ship have even heard about it.
As regards Restoration, I was nearly in the Tony Morton branch (Cornerstone) and I've been trying to find out how that finished up. The official view there was definitely Post Millenialist. The book "The Puritan Hope" by Ian Murray had become a read fad and was the influence behind it.
We never got fully involved. Like most Restorationist groups (e.g. NAR in so far as it exists) are too focused in on there view of end-time revival, and whilst I quite like their optimistic view of the future, they tend to think on nothing else. So it became boring, in the end, because all the emphasis was on this narrow area.
However actually many eminent theologians over the centuries have accepted what we find the weirdest and least appealing bits of the Rapture idea - the physical lifting into the clouds and the difference between those "caught up" and those "left behind". Sure, they disagreed about exactly when this would happen and how it related to other aspects of the End Times. But to me it makes the Rapture seem less of an alien, cult-like intrusion into Christian theology and more of a re-packaging of and re-emphasis on some ideas that have been knocking around in scripture and tradition for a very long time.
I s'pose what I was trying to say in response was that given that 1st century cosmology can have both Christ disappearing into the clouds at the Ascension and 'the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God' in Revelation, then that's the sort of language these things are framed within.
It's unclear whether the early Christians would have taken these things literally or figuratively but it must say something that the Eastern Churches had qualms and reservations about including the Book of Revelation in the NT canon lest people get funny ideas.
I was involved with the West Yorkshire end of things and there was a parting of the ways between them and Tony Morton's group in Southampton.
I don’t know the details but I think Cornerstone ended in tears.
'The Puritan Hope' was definitely promoted as a must-read but looking back and in the light of observations by @chrisstiles I now wonder how many of us actually read it.
The particular slant on an upbeat eschatology was very much a feature of the Bible Weeks and tended to run alongside, in Bradford's case at least, some unwelcome and unwholesome influences from the US prosperity-gospel merchants - although there were dissenting voices.
When the whole thing fell apart some people went down that route.
@pease, I am certainly open to a more nuanced evaluation on Darby et al but I think we have to set some of this against the background of an incipiently 'capitalist' and 'market-driven' approach within 19th century evangelicalism.
I may be exaggerating to make a point. But there's a point to be made.
Aiui Mr morton had a moral lapse and the moved abroad. What was left of the network when the dust settled ended up joining pioneer
Essentially it was a hybrid of Brethren, Pentecostal and independent evangelical influences with a dash of 'Holiness' in there at the early stage (Wally North and co).
The New Frontiers end of things had a more neo-Calvinist flavour imbibed from the FIEC.
It's interesting to look at old copies of 'Renewal' magazine as in the letters pages in particular you can see a distinctly 'restorationist' tone emerging with an emphasis on 'new wine needing new wine skins' and the idea that the historic and 'mainline' denominations would not be able to deliver the 'new thing' they believed God to be doing.
Articles and contributions from Anglo-Catholic and RC renewalists gradually decreased, even though 'Renewal' never really sided with the restorationists.
What we had was essentially a Brethren ecclesiology combined with a modified version of the 'ministry gifts' of Ephesians 4 as espoused by the Apostolic Church, a small Pentecostal denomination that emerged from the aftermath of the Welsh Revival, overlaid with a Puritan eschatology on steroids.
I've only been referring to the UK restorationist scene and I should have made that clearer from the outset.
I met some Californians who were from 'The Disciples of Christ' on a hiking trip in the Albanian Alps recently. One of them was quite pleased to see a 'bare' cross inside a village RC church rather than one with an image or carving of Christ on it.
I'd heard of this group but not met anyone from it before. From conversation it appears to have developed from an early split in the US restorationist movement and taken what these people described as a more 'journeying' or 'sojourning' direction rather than a more conservative one.
In UK terms, the 'restorationist' epithet tends to be applied to charismatic evangelical 'House churches' (a misnomer) or 'new churches' which emerged in the mid to late '70s and which became a prominent movement during the '80s and '90s but which were never as large as some estimates initially claimed.
The strand I was involved in probably had no more than 8000 adherents at its height.
New Frontiers was by far the largest and most successful but most of the others have largely fizzled out or morphed into more general forms of independent charismatic evangelicalism.
The DOC are considered a mainline Protestant denomination. Lyndon B. Johnson was DOC, and Ronald Reagan was raised DOC and married Nancy Reagan in a DOC church, but they later joined a Presbyterian church. You might find a look at the website of National City Christian Church, the Disciples of Christs’ “national church” in Washington, DC, of interest. (Many denominations have a church in Washington that has official or semi-official status as their “national church.”) You’ll see it has all the hallmarks of a church of the “Establishment,” and of a church that’s very progressive theologically. Of course, DOC churches elsewhere may not be as progressive. But, as one example, the Disciples of Christ allow each congregation to determine whether to perform same-sex weddings.
The three people I met struck me as very much 'mainline Protestant' in tone, as it were.
In UK terms I think they'd have fitted in well with the URC.
That is indeed very interesting. Have you any helpful links/references for that @Aravis ?
Well, there's the wikipedia article "Jesus in Islam". I haven't read it myself, though off the top of my head, I think they believe that his reign on Earth will be for thirty years?
If I remember rightly there's an episode in John Wesley's Journal where he comes across an excitable group who were gathering in expectation of the imminent return of Christ.
If my memory isn't playing tricks he laconically observed that he consulted his diary and carried on with his schedule as planned.
I may, of course, have got the story mixed up.
You mean, I have irrefutable evidence that the pre-mil eschatological theory is true, and is about to kick off with the Rapture tomorrow?
Yes, my behaviour would change. Just for starters, I would accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal saviour, and try to convince friends and family to do the same.
Well, @HarryCH's scenario seems predicated on the standard pre-mil eschatology being provably true, meaning anyone unsaved at the time of the Rapture will undergo the horrors of the Tribulation, with the best case scenario being that they know enough to reject the mark of the beast and attain salvation only after being executed by a portable guillotine squad, and the worst being they suffer seven years of horrific torment on Earth followed by an eternity in Hell. And they have less than 48 hrs. to change course.
Is that how you view the fate of the people you know who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour by your understanding of the concept?
Thank you I should have thought of that. One striking thing - this idea is not in the Quran but is nevertheless widely accepted in Islam. So surely it must have derived from Byzantine-era Christian theology?
Well, my guess would be that EVERYTHING the Muslims believe about Jesus, koranic or otherwise, would have come to them through Christian sources of one form or another.
My understanding is that Muhammed began his faith in a polytheistic social environment, so he likely woulda heard some of the popular stories about Jesus and worked them into his repertoire. From totally second-hand impressions of Islamic texts and superficial knowledge of personal-names, I would say he seems to have been particularly taken with the story of Jesus' mother.
I don't know if the parable of the stoical rabbi and the Messiah really fits with the worldview that produced belief in the Rapture.
Just for starters, in that story, the Messiah has already arrived, and presumably has no objection to tree planting, so it makes sense that the rabbi should complete that useful activity before greeting him.
That's a little different from thinking that tomorrow God is gonna pull a portion of humanity into Heaven, while leaving the rest on Earth, based on criteria like eg. "If you've ever attended a Catholic mass for whatever reason, then you have fornicated with the ***** of Babylon and are thus stuck here on Earth and will have to starve to death or get executed by the antichrist in order to avoid being tossed into the Abyss forever."
There is likely NOBODY currently posting on the Ship who believes in the Rapture as outlined in pre-mil eschatology. So, if you're a shipmate who has suddenly gotten certain knowledge that the Rapture is tomorrow, then your whole understanding of how the world operates is now completely different from what it was a minute ago, and you have VERY LITTLE TIME to adjust your decisions accordingly.