The last post and the current one are inseparably connected, this is because Dispensationalism was rooted in a particular End Times theory that, in effect, created in itself a novel way to read the bible as a whole. I tried to explain – no matter how unsuccessfully – why I rejected the Dispensational approach to the scriptures and this has resulted in a necessary shift of “End Times” views. In fact, my rejection of Dispensationalism was not simply because the scriptures as a whole failed to make any coherent sense – though that is half the reason; I reject this view also because its’ approach to End Times itself was quite unsatisfactory. Even if Dispensationalism did make some attempt to answer the Big Questions of the last post, it is certainly crushed to powder – in my mind – under the weight of the innumerable “small questions” and interpretative acrobatics which is used to try and answer them. In effect, Dispensational End Times – for me – died the death of a thousand unanswered questions and questionable interpretations.
The first Christian movie I saw after becoming a Christian was a film put out in the ‘70’s called A Thief in the Night, a precursor to the modern Left Behind films. (I find it laughable today that in the film an elderly couple who received the “mark of the beast” was walking around with barcodes tattooed on their foreheads – but I’ll get to that ridiculous notion and its’ contemporary counterparts in a moment.) The movie essentially put the fear of hell in me. I determined in my eleven year old head that I was going to begin digging a giant pit in my backyard, cement the walls and ceiling, cover it with mud and begin stocking up on can goods! I was prepared for the “Great Tribulation”. But then I discovered in Church (thanks to a graphic bed sheet strung up across the platform) that I hadn’t understood the movie correctly. If we are Christians we won’t go through the Great Tribulation because we will all disappear to heaven before it starts. The people in the film who went through the Tribulation were people who knew better and became a Christian after the Rapture… people like my cousin who is now a practicing Homosexual with his “lover”, he used to be a Christian, and so he assured my mom that after he sees her “disappear”, he’ll know that the rapture has occurred and that it will be time to repent (according to Calvinist’ like Charles Stanley, my cousin won’t even need to repent: go ahead Troy, be ‘gay’, and not just in the ‘happy’ sense, because you know, ‘once saved always saved’ - but that's another post).
My mind travelled back and forth over the years between whether Christians will have to go through the Tribulation or not (pre- or post-tribulation). Ultimately I accepted the Pre-Tribulation theory albeit uncomfortably so. For that reason I want to (tongue-in-cheek) define this particular belief system by quoting Jason Boyett in his hysterical book, Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse:
The first Christian movie I saw after becoming a Christian was a film put out in the ‘70’s called A Thief in the Night, a precursor to the modern Left Behind films. (I find it laughable today that in the film an elderly couple who received the “mark of the beast” was walking around with barcodes tattooed on their foreheads – but I’ll get to that ridiculous notion and its’ contemporary counterparts in a moment.) The movie essentially put the fear of hell in me. I determined in my eleven year old head that I was going to begin digging a giant pit in my backyard, cement the walls and ceiling, cover it with mud and begin stocking up on can goods! I was prepared for the “Great Tribulation”. But then I discovered in Church (thanks to a graphic bed sheet strung up across the platform) that I hadn’t understood the movie correctly. If we are Christians we won’t go through the Great Tribulation because we will all disappear to heaven before it starts. The people in the film who went through the Tribulation were people who knew better and became a Christian after the Rapture… people like my cousin who is now a practicing Homosexual with his “lover”, he used to be a Christian, and so he assured my mom that after he sees her “disappear”, he’ll know that the rapture has occurred and that it will be time to repent (according to Calvinist’ like Charles Stanley, my cousin won’t even need to repent: go ahead Troy, be ‘gay’, and not just in the ‘happy’ sense, because you know, ‘once saved always saved’ - but that's another post).
My mind travelled back and forth over the years between whether Christians will have to go through the Tribulation or not (pre- or post-tribulation). Ultimately I accepted the Pre-Tribulation theory albeit uncomfortably so. For that reason I want to (tongue-in-cheek) define this particular belief system by quoting Jason Boyett in his hysterical book, Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse:
Because the Tribulation will be no fun at all, what with all the destruction and pain, believers catch major air before it all goes down. Which sounds great, but Jesus doesn’t really seem to have gotten the memo about this plan when he details the end of the world in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). Because he makes it pretty clear in this passage that the Rapture follows the Tribulation. Uh-oh. So pretribs ignore Jesus here and suggest that he’ll actually return twice. Once before the Tribulation, to “secretly” take us all to heaven via the Rapture. Then he jets back to his Father’s house to hang out for, oh, seven years or so. When things cool back down at the end of the Tribulation, he returns to earth again—this time in a highly visible, physical sense—to usher in his millennial reign. Nice. (p.115)
I realize that this is a crude articulation of Left Behind theology, but it essentially hit the big points that distinguish it from the other views – the secret Rapture and the Great Tribulation. There is also a mid-tribulation theory, and a theory that suggests that there will be many raptures throughout and a post-tribulation theory. All of these theories have one thing in common: A Seven Year Tribulation! But… what if I told you that biblically speaking, this concept does not exist in the bible! We have so taken it for granted that it is high time we return to the subject: where does the bible speak of a “Seven Year Great Tribulation”. Saying, ‘well there it is in Revelation’ or ‘there it is in Daniel’ is not good enough. Simply put: neither Daniel nor Revelation teach a Seven Year Tribulation. And as far as a “Great Tribulation” goes, the phrase is only used in Matthew – once – and even their there are two factors to consider: 1. the context is clear, explicit and specific: the generation of the disciples, “that generation” will be the ones to go through this tough period, not some future unknown generation! And 2. why is it that no one ever takes into consideration the great conditionality of “IF”? The passage doesn’t even give us a guarantee! It says that IF a specific event happens in winter, and IF someone is pregnant or nursing during this specific event, THEN it will be a Great Tribulation and presumably only for the pregnant or nursig mother or those who endure the winter (unless seven years are to pass without any summer, spring or fall)!
I do not want to get tangled up in explaining all the nonsensical things which Left Behind asserts. I want to move on quickly into why I am Amillennial. But here are a few food for thoughts I want to leave you with before I continue this post in the next blog: Revelation more than any other book in the Bible is dependent upon the rest of the scriptures for interpretation.
Left Behindists always assert that there will be a physical mark of the beast on the right hand, without which no one can buy groceries. In the seventies the mark of the beast was envisioned as a bar code, in the nineties it was envisioned as a computer chip, and in the new millennium it is often seen as a retinol scan (but most often still the computer chip). But the text is clear; the mark will be on the right hand AND THE FOREHEAD. Who on earth would get a tattoo of a bar code or a computer chip on their forehead. Can you imagine grocery shopping and having to run you forehead along the scanner – absurd. In the book of Joshua the Israelites were commanded to bind God’s word to their right and their forehead, indicating that they were to think (head) and do (right hand) what God’s Word said. By Jesus’ day the religious leaders took this spiritual command and made it so literal that they put little pieces of scripture in phylacteries (boxes) and tied them to their heads. Dispensationalists have the same interpretive mind set, resulting in the same error of missing the point of the scriptures!
Could the mark of the beast be indicating those who think (head) and do (right hand) what the beast wants? Wouldn’t this indicate that those who do the things of the Lamb have also a “mark” from God, marking them out as belonging to God? Hadn’t Jesus told the Pharisees that if they were Abraham’s children they would do (right hand) as Abraham did, but in fact they were doing as their father the devil (marked out by their actions). Didn’t God give Cain a “mark” which protected him from others in the world? But it is always God’s children – Abel – who are not accepted and thus persecuted (to buy or sell symbolizes acceptance in a society). As Jesus said, the world loves their own but they hate those who belong to God.
The Left Behind literal interpretational technical has another more serious consequence I just want to momentarily mention: if in the 70’s the mark of the beast was ‘bar codes’, if in the 90’s it was computer chips, and if in the new millennium it is retinol scanners; that is, if interpretation of biblical text is dependent upon forever changing current events then on what grounds does the bible retain any meaning? God’s eternal Word is drained of its substance.
Another ‘obvious’ issue I had as a young Christian – and it always blew my mind that nobody addressed this most obvious ‘hiccup’ of a literal and sequential interpretation of Revelation – involves the “last trumpet”. I was taught to read Revelation in chronological order. Paul teaches that the Resurrection and the “rapture” both occur “at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15). The phrase “last trumpet” presupposes that there a series of trumpets, because how else could there be a “last” one unless there were some before it. In Revelation there just happens to be such a sequence of trumpets, but the “last trumpet” occurs not in chapter 17, 18 or 19, but rather back in chapter 11. And with this “last trumpet” the scriptures proclaim: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever.” And yes that is back in chapter 11.
These represent just two of the countless hiccup’s which I, a late teen early twenty something, easily observed without having to be taught otherwise. If Left Behind theology didn’t tell such a great story it probably wouldn’t be around today accept as a fringe system where it belongs, and as it is it has no respect in the academic halls of credible biblical institutes.
It was out of necessity that I had to deal, albeit shallowly, with a dispensational approach to End Times. Most folk (i.e. the common folk who only read fiction, watch movies and read current event prophecy books) and who listen to pastors – who themselves simply know no better thanks to their traditio – speak as though Left Behind theology is simply the end times theology of the bible and of Christian history. A pastor once sat down with a friend of mine after overhearing that he thought my friend was teaching a mid-trib rapture theory. The pastor tried to correct my friend by tell him that their denomination is pre-trib, not mid-trib. My friend – well versed in the denomination's statement of faith – informed the pastor that their denomination only says that they must be Pre-Millennial, it says nothing about pre-mid-or-post- tribulation. The conversation ended abruptly, evidently because the pastor had no idea what my friend was talking about.
So then, with the Left Behindism behind us, what options remain for the Evangelical Christian?
To be continued…
Derek
I do not want to get tangled up in explaining all the nonsensical things which Left Behind asserts. I want to move on quickly into why I am Amillennial. But here are a few food for thoughts I want to leave you with before I continue this post in the next blog: Revelation more than any other book in the Bible is dependent upon the rest of the scriptures for interpretation.
Left Behindists always assert that there will be a physical mark of the beast on the right hand, without which no one can buy groceries. In the seventies the mark of the beast was envisioned as a bar code, in the nineties it was envisioned as a computer chip, and in the new millennium it is often seen as a retinol scan (but most often still the computer chip). But the text is clear; the mark will be on the right hand AND THE FOREHEAD. Who on earth would get a tattoo of a bar code or a computer chip on their forehead. Can you imagine grocery shopping and having to run you forehead along the scanner – absurd. In the book of Joshua the Israelites were commanded to bind God’s word to their right and their forehead, indicating that they were to think (head) and do (right hand) what God’s Word said. By Jesus’ day the religious leaders took this spiritual command and made it so literal that they put little pieces of scripture in phylacteries (boxes) and tied them to their heads. Dispensationalists have the same interpretive mind set, resulting in the same error of missing the point of the scriptures!
Could the mark of the beast be indicating those who think (head) and do (right hand) what the beast wants? Wouldn’t this indicate that those who do the things of the Lamb have also a “mark” from God, marking them out as belonging to God? Hadn’t Jesus told the Pharisees that if they were Abraham’s children they would do (right hand) as Abraham did, but in fact they were doing as their father the devil (marked out by their actions). Didn’t God give Cain a “mark” which protected him from others in the world? But it is always God’s children – Abel – who are not accepted and thus persecuted (to buy or sell symbolizes acceptance in a society). As Jesus said, the world loves their own but they hate those who belong to God.
The Left Behind literal interpretational technical has another more serious consequence I just want to momentarily mention: if in the 70’s the mark of the beast was ‘bar codes’, if in the 90’s it was computer chips, and if in the new millennium it is retinol scanners; that is, if interpretation of biblical text is dependent upon forever changing current events then on what grounds does the bible retain any meaning? God’s eternal Word is drained of its substance.
Another ‘obvious’ issue I had as a young Christian – and it always blew my mind that nobody addressed this most obvious ‘hiccup’ of a literal and sequential interpretation of Revelation – involves the “last trumpet”. I was taught to read Revelation in chronological order. Paul teaches that the Resurrection and the “rapture” both occur “at the last trumpet” (1 Cor. 15). The phrase “last trumpet” presupposes that there a series of trumpets, because how else could there be a “last” one unless there were some before it. In Revelation there just happens to be such a sequence of trumpets, but the “last trumpet” occurs not in chapter 17, 18 or 19, but rather back in chapter 11. And with this “last trumpet” the scriptures proclaim: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever.” And yes that is back in chapter 11.
These represent just two of the countless hiccup’s which I, a late teen early twenty something, easily observed without having to be taught otherwise. If Left Behind theology didn’t tell such a great story it probably wouldn’t be around today accept as a fringe system where it belongs, and as it is it has no respect in the academic halls of credible biblical institutes.
It was out of necessity that I had to deal, albeit shallowly, with a dispensational approach to End Times. Most folk (i.e. the common folk who only read fiction, watch movies and read current event prophecy books) and who listen to pastors – who themselves simply know no better thanks to their traditio – speak as though Left Behind theology is simply the end times theology of the bible and of Christian history. A pastor once sat down with a friend of mine after overhearing that he thought my friend was teaching a mid-trib rapture theory. The pastor tried to correct my friend by tell him that their denomination is pre-trib, not mid-trib. My friend – well versed in the denomination's statement of faith – informed the pastor that their denomination only says that they must be Pre-Millennial, it says nothing about pre-mid-or-post- tribulation. The conversation ended abruptly, evidently because the pastor had no idea what my friend was talking about.
So then, with the Left Behindism behind us, what options remain for the Evangelical Christian?
To be continued…
Derek
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