Left Behind?

I'm in a Sunday school class and we've decided to study the book of Revelations. Actually, we don't study the Bible, we just read it out look in class, taking panoramic views, and comment to each other applying our minor insights. It's a style that is refreshing compared to the pontificating all-knowing all-boring typical evangelical church classes I grew up with.



I've tried my best over the last 30 years (since I went to Bible College and studied the Bible with fervor) to avoid dealing with the popular notions of what is commonly called the "End Times" stuff. You know, the "Rapture", the "Second Coming", the "Anti-Christ", "666" and all that other queer apocalyptic rambling. This study is called Eschatology. I quit studying Eschatology in my early 20s when I decided that the popular interpretations were all wrong and in fact from any objective sense couldn't be found in the Bible as it was being taught to me.



Well obviously Tim LaHaye just can't die and go away. He's always been a menance to any evangelical trying to maintain dignity. I hate to dis him much - [actually, I like to dis him a lot - its just not very Christian], but his views have had way too much sway in popular Christian culture.



Saying all that to say this: Thanks to joshmag.com I've found that this debate is alive and well and everybody who considers themselves Christians hasn't swallowed it whole. Thank God! Consider this critique of LaHaye's pop eschatology:

This unrecognizable, heterodox puree includes chunks of John's apocalypse, mixed together willy-nilly with the stranger bits of Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets and slices of St. Paul's meditations on death and Christ's warnings of judgment.

Sweet, huh?



Check this guy out if you have the vaguest idea what I'm talking about.