The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

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appleman2006
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by appleman2006 »

Conservative yes. But very pre. I personally would feel very uncomfortable if I had to listen to that view constantly.
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gcdonner
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by gcdonner »

appleman2006 wrote:Conservative yes. But very pre. I personally would feel very uncomfortable if I had to listen to that view constantly.
May Sully be resting in peace now. He survived for decades in just such a situation. I sure miss him.
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appleman2006
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by appleman2006 »

gcdonner wrote:
appleman2006 wrote:Conservative yes. But very pre. I personally would feel very uncomfortable if I had to listen to that view constantly.
May Sully be resting in peace now. He survived for decades in just such a situation. I sure miss him.
Yes. It was so refreshing to find someone that believed like he did in the middle of Lancaster. The irony was that had he been born 50 years earlier than he was he would of been much closer to the mainstream among Anabaptists of his time. As late as 1935 Brunk"s teaching on future things was still very unwelcome by many in the Lancaster conference especially on the conservative end. I find it amazing and somewhat dismaying that today it is the conservative split offs of the Lancaster conference that in some cases have come very close to making it a test of membership to believe in what their great grandparents would of considered heresy.
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Neto
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by Neto »

Josh wrote:Actually, there was a pretty consistent eschatology amongst Christians since the beginning. Holdemans, Old Order Amish, and Eastern Orthodox have the exact same eschatology, for example.

Ideas like the rapture and premillennialism in general are a relatively recent invention. Before John Darby decided to invent his own commentary on what the Bible actually says, most people were content being amillenial or postmillenial.

Occasional fringe cults (like Münsterites) would adopt premillennial views, along with very bad fruit. One of these fruits is a strong appetite for warfare, which I see today in premillennialists who think we somehow need to influence U.S. government policy to somehow make happenings in Israel fulfil prophecy so that Jesus will come back.

Its about as far from living in Jesus' kingdom as you can get.
I had not looked at this topic before, I don't think, and haven't read it all now either, but I'm having a bit of a difficult time with some generalizations like this, Josh. I don't think that the Pre-trib pre-mill people are trying to make (their view of) prophecy come true as much as that they believe that a Christian's duty is to be a friend to the state of Israel (as opposed to, I would say, a friend to the Jewish people, to bring them to the Messiah). I think that if they were attempting to bring (again, their view of) prophecy to fulfillment, they would be advocating the abandonment of political policies that attempt to protect the state of Israel, because the whole-sale attack on Israel is a part of their eschatological view, is it not? (Even though I was brought up in that environment, maybe I've forgotten some of these finer points of their doctrine.) Views like those of the Münsterites would fall into a different class, because they didn't believe in a rapture at all - rather, they took a position which was an attempt to prepare the world for Christ's return to earth to establish his kingdom. (I know there is a technical term for this view, but I cannot quite bring it to mind right now. In more recent times it was generally coupled with the view that world conditions & morality would continually get better, until finally the world would be ready to receive Christ as their king. I think this view was much more prevalent before the world wars, or was this perhaps part of the Great World War, WWI, being seen as The War to End All Wars?)
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Josh
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by Josh »

Well, nobody believed in the rapture before Darby invented it in the 1800s. The Münsterites had many faults, but you can’t pin not adding the rapture to their already heretical millennial beliefs on them. After Darby invented the rapture, belief in it is, of course, almost always found with heretics who teach Jesus is coming on a specific date.

A real blessing for me in the Holdeman world is that we were established before these modern falsehoods took hold in much of the Christian and Anabaptist world. I don’t have to deal with sermons on what latest political event in Israel means some event in Revelation is about to happen.

Instead: Christ is calling all men to repent. Mankind and our relationship to God hasn’t changed since Jesus ascended into heaven and God let the temple be destroyed, despite what many hucksters and frauds would try to teach which try to exploit biblical prophecy for personal gain.
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ken_sylvania
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by ken_sylvania »

Josh wrote:Well, nobody believed in the rapture before Darby invented it in the 1800s. The Münsterites had many faults, but you can’t pin not adding the rapture to their already heretical millennial beliefs on them. After Darby invented the rapture, belief in it is, of course, almost always found with heretics who teach Jesus is coming on a specific date.

A real blessing for me in the Holdeman world is that we were established before these modern falsehoods took hold in much of the Christian and Anabaptist world. I don’t have to deal with sermons on what latest political event in Israel means some event in Revelation is about to happen.

Instead: Christ is calling all men to repent. Mankind and our relationship to God hasn’t changed since Jesus ascended into heaven and God let the temple be destroyed, despite what many hucksters and frauds would try to teach which try to exploit biblical prophecy for personal gain.
Can you define for me what you mean by "the rapture?"
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gcdonner
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by gcdonner »

Neto wrote:
Josh wrote:Actually, there was a pretty consistent eschatology amongst Christians since the beginning. Holdemans, Old Order Amish, and Eastern Orthodox have the exact same eschatology, for example.

Ideas like the rapture and premillennialism in general are a relatively recent invention. Before John Darby decided to invent his own commentary on what the Bible actually says, most people were content being amillenial or postmillenial.

Occasional fringe cults (like Münsterites) would adopt premillennial views, along with very bad fruit. One of these fruits is a strong appetite for warfare, which I see today in premillennialists who think we somehow need to influence U.S. government policy to somehow make happenings in Israel fulfil prophecy so that Jesus will come back.

Its about as far from living in Jesus' kingdom as you can get.
I had not looked at this topic before, I don't think, and haven't read it all now either, but I'm having a bit of a difficult time with some generalizations like this, Josh. I don't think that the Pre-trib pre-mill people are trying to make (their view of) prophecy come true as much as that they believe that a Christian's duty is to be a friend to the state of Israel (as opposed to, I would say, a friend to the Jewish people, to bring them to the Messiah). I think that if they were attempting to bring (again, their view of) prophecy to fulfillment, they would be advocating the abandonment of political policies that attempt to protect the state of Israel, because the whole-sale attack on Israel is a part of their eschatological view, is it not? (Even though I was brought up in that environment, maybe I've forgotten some of these finer points of their doctrine.) Views like those of the Münsterites would fall into a different class, because they didn't believe in a rapture at all - rather, they took a position which was an attempt to prepare the world for Christ's return to earth to establish his kingdom. (I know there is a technical term for this view, but I cannot quite bring it to mind right now. In more recent times it was generally coupled with the view that world conditions & morality would continually get better, until finally the world would be ready to receive Christ as their king. I think this view was much more prevalent before the world wars, or was this perhaps part of the Great World War, WWI, being seen as The War to End All Wars?)
Postmillenialism
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gcdonner
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by gcdonner »

Josh wrote:Well, nobody believed in the rapture before Darby invented it in the 1800s. The Münsterites had many faults, but you can’t pin not adding the rapture to their already heretical millennial beliefs on them. After Darby invented the rapture, belief in it is, of course, almost always found with heretics who teach Jesus is coming on a specific date.

A real blessing for me in the Holdeman world is that we were established before these modern falsehoods took hold in much of the Christian and Anabaptist world. I don’t have to deal with sermons on what latest political event in Israel means some event in Revelation is about to happen.

Instead: Christ is calling all men to repent. Mankind and our relationship to God hasn’t changed since Jesus ascended into heaven and God let the temple be destroyed, despite what many hucksters and frauds would try to teach which try to exploit biblical prophecy for personal gain.
Actually, there was at least one proponent of a rapture theory at least 40 years before Darby (Morgan Edwards, written 1742-44, but published in 1788), though he later repudiated it himself. Then there was a Jesuit priest who espoused something very similar to a pre-trib rapture,Emmanuel Lacunza who published his book in 1812, and then in 1830 it was the young girl (Margaret McDonald), who being part of the Plymouth Brethren, in a spiritual trance, espoused the idea of a pre-trib rapture, which Edward Irving and then JN Darby picked up on and began preaching/teaching this theory. It was popularized through the
Schofield Reference Bible and the world wide distribution the the book "The Coming King" published in 1911, which was sent to preachers, teachers and missionaries freely.
Just a little history lesson...
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JimFoxvog
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by JimFoxvog »

Josh wrote:After Darby invented the rapture, belief in it is, of course, almost always found with heretics who teach Jesus is coming on a specific date.
I've certainly met lots of people who believe in "the rapture" (someone asked: the idea that Christians will be caught up in the air before Jesus returns, usually before a 7-year tribulation) who do not have any belief about a specific date. Usually expected any day, though.
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gcdonner
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Re: The End is nigh, right? CA perspectives wanted

Post by gcdonner »

JimFoxvog wrote:
Josh wrote:After Darby invented the rapture, belief in it is, of course, almost always found with heretics who teach Jesus is coming on a specific date.
I've certainly met lots of people who believe in "the rapture" (someone asked: the idea that Christians will be caught up in the air before Jesus returns, usually before a 7-year tribulation) who do not have any belief about a specific date. Usually expected any day, though.
And yet in the next breath will say that he can't come until the gospel is preached in all the world... Did you know that according to scripture that specific was fulfilled in NT times?
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