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Generation Y and Z Confirms Futurism is true

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  • Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
    This is a very western-centric view. The church is exploding in the global South right now. :shrugs:
    That was your argument earlier in this thread and this was my reply...

    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    When it comes to the spread of Christianity, the western world is the one that matters, hands down. But technology is certainly not entirely absent everywhere but the west.

    Also note that Christianity may be thriving in other places (though I haven't looked at recent worldwide stats, so that's a pure guess), but it's under terrible, unprecedented physical persecution pretty much everywhere else in the underdeveloped world. How long do you think that will last?

    It looks as if Christianity in the west will experience a type of "soft persecution," or persecution via censorship until it eventually becomes physical. Though, considering how comfortable we've become with technology and how invasive it's become in our lives, the former may be enough to put tremendous strain on the church here in the west.
    Here in the west (specifically the US, since it's not as predominant in the EU) is the last place Christianity can flourish without the type of persecution its experiencing around the world. What I understand of preterism, there is no accommodation of a great falling away, and Christianity is supposed to spread and dominate the world, not spring up in pockets here and there under persecution pressure.

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    • Originally posted by seanD View Post
      I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's related to eschatology and it is what it is, and a reality we should prepare for...

      Study Finds Many Young Americans ‘Don’t Care’ About God But Christian Leaders Are Hopeful

      (emphasis mine)


      Unless preterists expect a miraculous revival, is "falling away" part of that position?
      Maybe stop assuming that preterism is synonymous with postmillenialism?
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      • Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
        Maybe stop assuming that preterism is synonymous with postmillenialism?
        I guess it's kind of hard not to when the rebuttal of preterists are always like this (and he made this same argument earlier)...

        Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
        This is a very western-centric view. The church is exploding in the global South right now. :shrugs:
        Is Christianity supposed to dominate somewhere else, perhaps an underdeveloped country, and then spur on a global revival from there? Or is KG not understanding the preterist position as well as you?

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        • Originally posted by seanD View Post
          Imagine what it will be like just in the next decade or two when the baby boom Generation dies off. Gen X retires. Then Gen Y and Z take over.

          They take over the House of Representatives. They take over the executive seat. They take over the supreme court. They take over city councils. They take over churches. They take over universities (though that's pretty much complete). Just imagine.

          Even if you don't believe biblical futurism is true, what do you think the world will be like when that happens? I believe that Christianity will pretty much be extinguished, maybe not worldwide, but definitely in the western world. But even if we assume Christianity is still around -- and that's a HUGE assumption -- it won't be anything like the Christianity of the bible or the last remnants of Christianity we know today.
          I don’t think such events would be a big deal - and certainly not a big deal of any eschatological importance. Whether in the US, or elsewhere, events go back and forth. That something precious to oneself fails miserably - perhaps for a long period - does not mean it is of any cosmic importance.

          The US can and eventually will go under, just as all empires have eventually gone under. That won’t mean the end of the world. All powers in the world go under, sooner or later. It is rather unlikely that any power now existing will last as long as Pharaonic Egypt, which lasted nearly 2,600 years. None of us has any way of knowing what any part of the world will be like in 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years. Neither does any of the self-anointed pseudo-prophets who set dates for the Second Coming, or who play Pin The Tail On The Antichrist.

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          • Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post
            I don’t think such events would be a big deal - and certainly not a big deal of any eschatological importance. Whether in the US, or elsewhere, events go back and forth. That something precious to oneself fails miserably - perhaps for a long period - does not mean it is of any cosmic importance.

            The US can and eventually will go under, just as all empires have eventually gone under. That won’t mean the end of the world. All powers in the world go under, sooner or later. It is rather unlikely that any power now existing will last as long as Pharaonic Egypt, which lasted nearly 2,600 years. None of us has any way of knowing what any part of the world will be like in 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years. Neither does any of the self-anointed pseudo-prophets who set dates for the Second Coming, or who play Pin The Tail On The Antichrist.
            US has been the single greatest evangelistic country to the world in the last century, hands down. And the reason for this is because of the religious freedom it allows and its resources, both economical and technological. When Christianity dies in the US (or morphs into something resembling a false Christianity which seems more likely), the lights go out to the rest of the world. Sure, there will undoubtedly be church pockets here and there, but probably under immense persecution like we're seeing now, nothing like the freedom that was allowed here in the states. Unless one assumes there will be some miraculous Christian renaissance in the future, I'd say that's a pretty sound indicator of the "falling away" Paul was speaking of. It would be a falling away event so distinct that you couldn't mistake it no matter where you were in the world.

            None of us has any way of knowing what any part of the world will be like in 10, 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years. Neither does any of the self-anointed pseudo-prophets who set dates for the Second Coming, or who play Pin The Tail On The Antichrist.
            Where did I set a date, or was this just a general gripe?

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            • Originally posted by seanD View Post
              So I thought I'd update this thread in light of what we've seen in the last year, which IMO has been a rapid progression of things that reflect what this thread is about. In fact, it's occurring faster than I thought.

              I think what's happening in America is significant since America is the last bastion of Christian influence in the world. I'm NOT saying it's the only source spreading Christianity globally, but that it's obviously a major regional source because of it's wealth and resources.

              Though I see pockets of Christianity spreading worldwide, I don't really see another country like America that, for the most part, has laws based on Christian principles and that has (or once had) a strong Christian base nationwide. The EU is becoming secular. Obviously China is secular. Russia is secular, though not as predominant as the Asian countries, and of course countries in the mid east are predominantly Muslim.

              So my honest question to preterists is this: How do you interpret all the sociopolitical movements happening in America right now, primarily the Social Justice leftist movement that has become pervasive for at least a couple decades, and that attacks either physically or tries to silence anything or anyone that expresses Christian values?

              What do you think this means in the context of preterism? What is the outcome? Will the church prevail with perhaps a revival in America and wipe out the leftist SJ movement? Or will American churches fall victim to the leftist movements, while another country rises in its place? Will Christianity spread out sparsely throughout the world instead?
              From what I’ve read & watched (as someone with very few US contacts) I’m not sure that the US can really be called Christian. It, or parts of its culture, is very vocal about the importance of being a Christian, and about the Bible - but that is not proof of anything much. It provides plenty of freedom for Christianity - but so does a lot of the world. The influence of non-Christian ideas is at least as prominent: it is not easy to treat dropping bombs as evidence of love of neighbour. All nominally or culturally Christian countries are (to put no more strongly) rather poor at putting Christian principles into practice. That is not by any means new.

              I think a lot of what passes for Christianity in the US is in reality paganism. For instance, lusting after “signs and wonders”. That shows an appetite for the marvellous - but that is entirely compatible with non-Christian religions. There is nothing inherently Christian about such things. Going by the Bible alone, is as good a way of having a pagan mind as any - the Bible by itself won’t depaganise anyone’s mind.

              I think SJWism is a development of possibilities in, and aspects of, the past of the societies in which it has grown up. It may be an unhealthy development, that misapplies the principles it grows from - but that position would have to be argued for. I don’t think SJWism came out of nowhere, and I don’t think it can be dismissed as a a growth entirely alien to the societies it now exists in. The PC movement generally STM to be a sort of non-theistic monasticism, expanded and made “thin and stretched” so as to be a rule for entire nations. Without its Christian vision to inform it, Christian monasticism goes bad - and loses its entire reason for being. That, but “thin and stretched” and secularised, is what PCism does for a nation.
              Last edited by Rushing Jaws; 06-08-2021, 06:18 PM.

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              • Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post

                From what I’ve read & watched (as someone with very few US contacts) I’m not sure that the US can really be called Christian. It, or parts of its culture, is very vocal about the importance of being a Christian, and about the Bible - but that is not proof of anything much. It provides plenty of freedom for Christianity - but so does a lot of the world. The influence of non-Christian ideas is at least as prominent: it is not easy to treat dropping bombs as evidence of love of neighbour. All nominally or culturally Christian countries are (to put no more strongly) rather poor at putting Christian principles into practice. That is not by any means new.

                I think a lot of what passes for Christianity in the US is in reality paganism. For instance, lusting after “signs and wonders”. That shows an appetite for the marvellous - but that is entirely compatible with non-Christian religions. There is nothing inherently Christian about such things. Going by the Bible alone, is as good a way of having a pagan mind as any - the Bible by itself won’t depaganise anyone’s mind.

                I think SJWism is a development of possibilities in, and aspects of, the past of the societies in which it has grown up. It may be an unhealthy development, that misapplies the principles it grows from - but that position would have to be argued for. I don’t think SJWism came out of nowhere, and I don’t think it can be dismissed as a a growth entirely alien to the societies it now exists in. The PC movement generally STM to be a sort of non-theistic monasticism, expanded and made “thin and stretched” so as to be a rule for entire nations. Without its Christian vision to inform it, Christian monasticism goes bad - and loses its entire reason for being. That, but “thin and stretched” and secularised, is what PCism does for a nation.
                To clarify, I don't mean the US government, since the US is for the most part secular. I'm referring to the general church in the states. The church in the US has had the most influence in the world in the last century because of its freedom and its resources, whether its missionaries, bible distribution, charity, preaching the gospel, etc. That's a fact. What country (that even allows religious freedom) can match that? The only country that might allow at least a semblance of religious freedom (though that isn't saying much) with the same amount of resource is Russia, but how influential has the church in Russia been to the rest of the world? What country is going to pick up that mantle when Christianity in the US dies out? No country. As I said before, pockets of Christianity will spring up here and there, and will struggle under persecution because they don't have the freedom nor the resources the US has, nor the support offered by the west.

                Everything else you said about SJWism, no offense, but I can't make out what you're talking about.

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                • Tim Pool (who's left leaning) uses the Rittenhouse trial as an example of the message I was trying to convey in the OP about how screwed Christian Americans will be when millennials take over society. In fact, at 5:40 of the video, it's almost as if he was reading my OP.

                  What's interesting is that he sees exactly what I see only from different perspectives. I see it from a religious perspective and sees it from a non-religious one...

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                  • Originally posted by seanD View Post
                    Tim Pool (who's left leaning) ...
                    Nothing in that vid sounded "left-leaning." I'd never heard of him before, so I Googled. About half the hits said he's a leftist, the other half said alt-right or right-wing extremist.

                    So maybe he's a confusenik.
                    Last edited by NorrinRadd; 11-12-2021, 04:12 AM.
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                    • Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post

                      Nothing in that vid sounded "left-leaning." I'd never heard of him before, so I Googled. About half the hits said he's a leftist, the other half said alt-right or right-wing extremist.

                      So maybe he's a confusenik.
                      The "woke" cult left calls him an "extremist" because he's not of that loony fringe. You know how they classify everyone something that they themselves are -- extremist, racist, white supremacist, grifter, etc. Though he has been moving farther and farther right in his views as a result of that loony fringe, like many other liberals repulsed by that cult fringe.

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                      • This is what I was trying to convey in the OP summed up in one video...





                        These are the folks that are going to completely take over America in the next 10-20 years. They already pretty much have a firm grip on our school systems. But what you do you think is going to happen when they completely take over our federal government, law enforcement and court systems?

                        I'll tell you what will happen (barring a miracle Christian revival in the western world by the hand of God himself), this will happen...

                        But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.

                        13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony.

                        14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:

                        15 For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

                        16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.

                        17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.
                        The reason I know this will happen, and that no hope in some so-called political conservative revival will stop it (save an actual divine miracle) is because there are supernatural forces behind it, which is why it's so powerful and influential, yet so unscientific and cult-like nutty.

                        So if you live in America, and find it absurd to believe we're in the last days or that there will even be a "last days," and you believe you'll be living fat and happy in the land as a Christian in the next 10-20 years (unlike other Christians outside of America) as you are today, you're gravely fooling yourselves.

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                        • Originally posted by seanD View Post
                          This is what I was trying to convey in the OP summed up in one video...





                          These are the folks that are going to completely take over America in the next 10-20 years. They already pretty much have a firm grip on our school systems. But what you do you think is going to happen when they completely take over our federal government, law enforcement and court systems?

                          I'll tell you what will happen (barring a miracle Christian revival in the western world by the hand of God himself), this will happen...



                          The reason I know this will happen, and that no hope in some so-called political conservative revival will stop it (save an actual divine miracle) is because there are supernatural forces behind it, which is why it's so powerful and influential, yet so unscientific and cult-like nutty.

                          So if you live in America, and find it absurd to believe we're in the last days or that there will even be a "last days," and you believe you'll be living fat and happy in the land as a Christian in the next 10-20 years (unlike other Christians outside of America) as you are today, you're gravely fooling yourselves.
                          I tend to lean toward Gordon Fee's eschatology. I believe it would be called "Partial Preterist" or "Orthodox Preterist." He takes Revelation as primarily written to and about the Early Church (1st and early 2nd Centuries), with only the last two chapters still future.

                          But he also believes the Church in America and elsewhere in the West should expect suffering and persecution at some point, because Scripture promises it, and history shows it's the norm. He just doesn't believe we can look at Revelation or other places in Scripture to find a timeline for today.
                          Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

                          Beige Federalist.

                          Nationalist Christian.

                          "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

                          Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

                          Proud member of the this space left blank community.

                          Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

                          Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

                          Justice for Matthew Perna!

                          Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

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                          • Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post

                            I tend to lean toward Gordon Fee's eschatology. I believe it would be called "Partial Preterist" or "Orthodox Preterist." He takes Revelation as primarily written to and about the Early Church (1st and early 2nd Centuries), with only the last two chapters still future.

                            But he also believes the Church in America and elsewhere in the West should expect suffering and persecution at some point, because Scripture promises it, and history shows it's the norm. He just doesn't believe we can look at Revelation or other places in Scripture to find a timeline for today.
                            I heartily agree that we "in the West should expect suffering and persecution at some point, because Scripture promises it, and history shows it's the norm." We've had it way to comfortable and are woefully unprepared for what is coming.
                            "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

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                            • Originally posted by seanD View Post
                              Imagine what it will be like just in the next decade or two when the baby boom Generation dies off. Gen X retires. Then Gen Y and Z take over.

                              They take over the House of Representatives. They take over the executive seat. They take over the supreme court. They take over city councils. They take over churches. They take over universities (though that's pretty much complete). Just imagine.

                              Even if you don't believe biblical futurism is true, what do you think the world will be like when that happens? I believe that Christianity will pretty much be extinguished, maybe not worldwide, but definitely in the western world. But even if we assume Christianity is still around -- and that's a HUGE assumption -- it won't be anything like the Christianity of the bible or the last remnants of Christianity we know today.
                              First: God is still God. Even if you were right, He's still in control.
                              Second: Hogwash. Defeatist hogwash. Dude, all generations tend to become more conservative (general) politically as they age. Even the loony tunes bunch will have peel offs into sanity.
                              Third: Wrong trend. Scientism and modernism are exiting Stage Left. They've created a massive spiritual void and while it's true that the last generations have tried to fill that void with crap, this is NOTHING new. We didn't have a Great Awakening because everyone was already committed as Christians. The upcoming generations are showing every sign of being even more spiritually hungry than their predecessors. God can work with that, even just using us.
                              Fourth: Christianity isn't dying. Don't confuse organized Christianity for the real thing. Methodists schism every fifty years or so. Kinda stupid but that's just people doing church instead of being Christian. On the bright side, it weeds out the chaff.
                              Fifth: God is still God.
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                              • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post

                                First: God is still God. Even if you were right, He's still in control.
                                Second: Hogwash. Defeatist hogwash. Dude, all generations tend to become more conservative (general) politically as they age. Even the loony tunes bunch will have peel offs into sanity.
                                Third: Wrong trend. Scientism and modernism are exiting Stage Left. They've created a massive spiritual void and while it's true that the last generations have tried to fill that void with crap, this is NOTHING new. We didn't have a Great Awakening because everyone was already committed as Christians. The upcoming generations are showing every sign of being even more spiritually hungry than their predecessors. God can work with that, even just using us.
                                Fourth: Christianity isn't dying. Don't confuse organized Christianity for the real thing. Methodists schism every fifty years or so. Kinda stupid but that's just people doing church instead of being Christian. On the bright side, it weeds out the chaff.
                                Fifth: God is still God.
                                I consider the saying that "God is still God" as much a strawman argument as those who say "We should just occupy until he comes."

                                As a futurist, I agree with both and have never argued or suggested against either, yet for some reason those seem to be the go-to arguments whenever eschatology is discussed.

                                I'm sure you're aware that leaning more politically conservative doesn't automatically mean more religious. Christianity likely won't die completely in the world before Jesus returns (though Luke 18:8 is somewhat intriguing), but it will seriously wane. And you can easily see this not just in scripture but in current poll statistics, especially with the younger generation here in the western world. Maybe this has happened before in the past, but you'd have to show me citations as evidence.


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