It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
What do Christians believe about the end times? How do those beliefs affect our views of speculative stories, especially science fiction?
John Otte on Jun 20, 2012 ·
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So in this week’s (admittedly lengthy) video, I talk about different eschatological views.
Every time I read/hear something like this, I find myself being none of them and just a strange melange of most of them!
Like… historicist-wise, I point to the Kings of the North and the South in Daniel and say “Selucids and Ptolemies” where Tim Lehaye-Jenkins says Russia or swhatever they said for that.
I always thought that the Matthew ones were always things that happened soon, like with the temple. I didn’t know people really looked to that prophecy in the future when Titus destroyed the temple very soon after.
But I also always thought the ones in Revelation itself were all in the future and not about Roman persecutions like I’ve heard people say.
(AND yes! Someone finally says the truth about the Bonnet-section, er I mean, the Christian fiction section…)
When it comes to end times stuff, I’m sort of a preterist-futurist-idealist mix. For example, I think that Revelation had a lot to say to the first century Christians and it’s very helpful to look at it from that viewpoint. But I also think it has a lot to say to future generations as well, both in general terms and also to the “last generation,” whenever that may be.
I guess preterist bent comes from a quote I read from a hardcore preterist once: “The Bible was written for us but not to us.” Which means that the Bible was primarily written for the original readers. It may speak to us in the 21st century, but to truly dig into it, we have to get into a 1st century mindset to see what it would say to them.
At least, that’s my two cents on it. 🙂
My main confusion with end times involves descriptions of Christ’s return that seem to contradict in details. I’ll even be a good Church Brat and provide references.
Matthew 24:36-41 But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-1716 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
But now I understand why the one group is the vocal majority–they have a story of the end times, with plot and events and conclusion.
Side note: Amen regarding Bonnet Books!
Ugh. Don’t even get me started on the rapture thing.
I agree with you about the vocal minority. The fact that they do have a “story” to tell helps them communicate their doctrines very well.
From my amillennialist standpoint, our “silent majority” status also comes from the fact that we a-ers have ceded the field for a long time. We don’t put out as many books and because our doctrine is “boring” (in terms of story-like content). It’s a shame, because we do have a lot to say but because we’ve kept quiet for so long, a lot of people don’t listen.
On the surface, it does seem like a very cool story. It’s more sell-able. It also appeals to the types of conspiracy folks — I think we have all known one of these people! — who think the “Nephilim” (Genesis 6) is the central plot point of the Bible (rather than that negligible subplot about a holy, loving God saving sinners and His world).
Hey History Channel Guy (Giorgio Tsoukalos), what’s the Bible’s main plot?
Anyway, the great story, however, is limited only to the Tribulation (with its classic villain, meteors, floods, things turned to blood, human sacrifices and genocides). Where the story falls apart is after Jesus returns and the Millennium begins.
Frankly, the final Left Behind book, no. 16, Kingdom Come, set during a literal thousand-year reign of Christ, was exactly what turned me off pre-millennialism. The whole concept sounds great when it’s a theological outline, but when set to the “music” of fiction, it’s awful and discordant, and simply doesn’t make sense.
Of course, my fault-finding with pre-millennialism may simply be my fault-finding with that particular book. All that to say: the “great story” aspect only covers the Tribulation. Christ’s return, followed quickly by the real New Earth, is a far better story than a prolonged literal in-between “millennium” period in which some sin continues on Earth and Christ’s Second Coming is not nearly the grand finale, to the epic of sin and evil in the world’s history, that we keep thinking it should be.
Any good movie director would make that event the climax. Why wouldn’t God?
Especially when Scripture continually refers to His coming as “the end of the age”?
That first bullet point is one of the key reasons why I’m amillennialist. From my reading of Scripture, any new Temple is completely unnecessary. Given the way that the concept of “Temple” was transformed through the person and work of Christ into something far greater than a physical structure, it seems odd that God would “backtrack” to a shadow when the greater reality has dawned.
Agreed. (And the opposite notion seems to result from incidental low views of the permanent universe-altering and Story-fulfilling effects of Christ’s atoning work.)
However, if that is the case, if God does revert to “shadows” such as the Temple and OT-Law-style animal sacrifices, then marriage — a likely-temporary echo of the reality of Christ and His Church (Eph. 5) — should also persist long after His return. So that would be an assurance to longtime Christian singles, or the happily married.
I guess I’m the same one as you. Amillenialist or however you spell it. I don’t really think about theology or doctrine or any other sub-fields when I write, which is why I have stories in 3000 AD that cross the galaxy with aliens, and teething else, basically.
I’ve not seen that episode of Gilligan’s Island.
It’s actually a made-for-TV movie called “Rescue from Gilligan’s Island.” It’s been a while since I’ve seen it. It’s not very good. It’s also in the public domain, from what I understand, hence why I used it.
I think that’s from the made-for-TV movie, the One Where They Finally Do Get Off That Island, and Then Soon Return There to Set Up a Tourist Trap Financed by Mr. Howell. (That movie was even less funny than the show itself.)
(EDIT: Ah. I see there’s an echo in here, and I am it.)
Aha, I’m an amillennialist. I can never remember the name for which view I hold, although I know which view it is…if that makes sense. 😀
Being an optimist, I like the *idea* that the world might continue getting better and better because of the influence of Christianity, but history tells me the world is just kind of the same as (or worse than) it was a few centuries ago.
Oh, I agree. It’d be awesome if postmillennialism turned out to be true, but from where I’m sitting, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The big question for me regarding science fiction and the end times is this:
In a typical space-opera setting with interplanetary and/or interstellar travel, what happens on all the other planets when Christ returns to Earth? Perhaps the Post-Millenial position is the only viewpoint that can accommodate humans living on other planets at all.
Even though I haven’t been faithful to the Premillenial Dispensationalism in which I was raised, I can’t imagine any possibility for humans to actually colonize other worlds, based on my understanding of Scripture. That means it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever get to go visiting very far out in space.
So, if it really is objectively unlikely that humans will ever live on other planets or travel in starships, does that make space opera un-Christian? I’ve been writing a text-based computer game in a space opera setting, where the only possible assumption is that Christianity has been forgotten in the distant past. (Almost all memories of Earth have been forgotten; it would be inconsistent of me to allow the people to remember Christianity when they’ve forgotten just about everything else.) Does this make my story anti-Christian? I hope not, but I don’t think so.
The question remains: Can we write about futures that are incompatible with our own worldview, knowing that those scenarios will never come to pass? This includes not only space opera, but other settings such as many Post-Apocalyptic environments.
I also want to raise the point that one’s belief about the other end of the Bible — Creation — can also potentially affect how one views Christian science fiction, at least space opera. The Young Earth Creationist viewpoint that date the Earth at around 6,000 years old and holds that the existence of human beings on planet Earth is the whole purpose for which all of the universe was created, even the most distant star, seems incompatible with the concept of exploring space. If Earth is the figurative center of the universe, then the distant cosmos is ultimately irrelevant. (This might be related to John Otte’s older series about aliens.) I mention Creationism because there’s a discussion about it going on at the Anomaly.
I’m just speaking for myself here, but I don’t think that any view of eschatology necessarily negates the possibility of future planetary colonization. In my not-so-humble opinion, the parousia represents the ultimate shattering of our fallen reality by the in-breaking of the divine. I would think that such an event would have wide-reaching and instantaneous ramifications. Imagine a bug standing on a massive pane of glass that gets dropped onto a sharp point. The glass would shatter and the bug would know about it instantly, even if the point struck a place where the bug wasn’t. I think (again, my opinion) that that’s what we’ll experience when Christ returns. It doesn’t matter where we are on Earth or in the wider cosmos. When He comes, we’ll know.
As for writing stories with concepts that don’t quite mesh with our theological worldview, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing if it allows us to explore important ideas and themes. But that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.
You’re right; my inability to imagine what Christ’s return would look like from another planet does not negate the fact of His universality. Actually, maybe this does make more sense in the Amillenial perspective.
I’ve never really considered or understood Amillenialism, since I was taught that the Bible obviously and explicitly teaches a literal Millenium. My pastors and teachers were willing to allow room to believe that the Rapture might occur before, during, or after the Tribulation, although the official position is “Pre-Trib.” In all my time at Christian school and Sunday School, Amillenialism was simply never discussed.
How does the nature of Christ’s return affect reality in Amillenialism? Is it an instantaneous evaporation or exiling of evil and rebirth of the whole universe? Or does the Final Judgement still have to occur in literal time?
(By the way, I don’t know the meaning of the term “parousia.” Sorry for my ignorance.)
Sorry for dropping in a Greek term there. Parousia is the Greek word for “presence” and is often used in the NT in connection with Christ’s return. It’s become a synonym for the Second Coming.
As for your question about how Christ’s coming will affect reality from an amillennial standpoint, what we believe will happen is something like this:
It’s my contention that somewhere around #4, time ceases to exist, meaning that everything can happen in “no time,” so to speak.
Thanks for the explanation, sir.
This gives me a thought — maybe a good science-fictional way to think of the parousia is as a “Second Big Bang.” Although the Big Bang is generally considered a secularist concept, even some Young Earth Creationists believe in a form of the theory, in which Earth was at the center of the “bang,” and that time was moving slower in the rapidly-expanding universe than on Earth, allowing the billions of years necessary for distant starlight to reach Earth while Earth only experienced six literal 24-hour periods.
If God could use a “Big Bang” to create the Heavens and the Earth in so short a time, maybe the recreation of the New Heavens and the New Earth will involve the literal explosion of the whole universe followed by a second Big Bang. If this is the case, you certainly would notice if you were standing on another planet!
Interesting. As a Young-Earth creationist myself, I’ve seen enough of the stats on the unlikelihood of life to intellectually know the odds against alien life, but it doesn’t stop me from devouring sci-fi with aliens.
This once led to what I once thought was a brilliant theory of mine. It went like this:
Later on I realized — I was still trying to think about this from a pre-everything perspective but tempered by a love for sci-fi concepts — that man could perhaps reach further in the “second heaven” of space, and even colonize planets, and yet be forced to withdraw back to Earth due to some kind of political, financial, and/or cosmic event or cataclysm. Scripture doesn’t say anything one way or the other.
This is why I enjoyed Walley’s first novel(s) (I have yet to read the next two). They compelled me to look at the issue from a different perspective. From some angles, the post-millennialist Christians have not only a better story to tell than the a-millennialists, but a better story to tell than the pre-millennialists.
Anyway, the true glorious age of space travel, which will never end — and which could even involve discoveries of new life on other worlds! — will surely be in the truly eternal age of the New Heavens and New Earth. All of the good desires and expectations beyond science fiction, including the instincts to explore and discover and behold new wonders beyond Earth’s borders, will at last be fulfilled there.
I guess I always figured that if “only the Father” knows, why do we guess? Who is saying that the Myans were let in on the secret and not God’s own son?
“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neitherthe Son, but the Father.” Mt 13:32
Since I first believed 20+ years ago, all I can do is pray that it is SOON. This world is groaning pretty loud.
I didn’t know what all those flavors were before–thanks for the info! I was raised with … whatever one the Left Behind books are, because my parents got saved when I was little, and that was what they were taught. As we’ve all aged, though, we’ve all drifted away from that a bit.
My views changed when we studied Minor Prophets in BSF. They have tons and tons of prophecies about Jesus, and studying how those prophecies actually turned out was eye-opening. Prophecy is like looking at a mountain range in the distance. It looks like one solid mass. But as you get closer, you see the mass is actually a collection of different mountains.
That’s how Messianic prophecy worked, and I’ll bet you that’s how end times prophecy works, too. It’s in layers. Sure, some of Matthew 24 was about the actual temple being destroyed … but there was more to what Jesus said. We’re not going to know everything exactly until the world ends and we all sit around the table at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb and go, “Ohhhh! THAT’S what Revelation was talking about!”
A century or two before Jesus was born, there was this group of Jewish monks who lived out in the desert and made copies of the books of the Bible. (They might have been responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, but my memory fails me at that point.) They knew Messianic prophecy better than anyone else, and their interpretation was that there would be two Messiahs–one to be a priest, and one to be a king. They never dreamed that one Messiah would fill both roles.
I think our current eschatology views are like those guys. We can get close, but we’re not on the money. And claiming that one interpretation is the only right one is just silly.
Although also, the going theory is that the Antichrist will be a Muslim, because Muslims do beheading in a big way. (And their 13th Imam exactly matches the description of our Antichrist.) Which, frankly, scares me to death.
Right, Kessie to all that you said except…. don’t be scared! once we are there we will wonder why the heck we ever liked it here.
In one sense I agree, but in other sense: recall that even in Heaven, some believers are awaiting justice (Rev. 6: 9-11) and all are awaiting the Resurrection, to be “clothed” in their new glorified physical bodies (2 Cor. 5). After Heaven comes the New Heavens and New Earth that John mentioned (Rev. 21, cf. Isaiah 60, 65-66). “Now the dwelling of God is with man,” it will be said (Rev. 21:3).
Thus, today, while there in Heaven with Christ is far better (Phil. 1:23) than here, someday here on the New Heavens and New Earth will be even better than either today’s Earth or Heaven.
Well said. It’s fun to wonder and speculate, but I’ll never trust anyone who claims to “know” exactly how it’s all going to work. The Jews *knew* Christ was going to be a literal king. God will surprise us, I’m sure. Looking forward to it.
“…and I feel fine.”
Did you use that song as background music? I need to watch your video. Then I need to watch the REM video because I can’t get that song out of my head now…
Then my work here is done. 😀
🙂
Heading over to YouTube now. Ack…make it stop…
You know, I have never heard this viewpoint phrased quite like that, but for a while I’ve suspected it was the assumption behind dispensational pre-tribulation belief. That was my default view for a long time. It was only more-direct study of God’s sovereignty and His single plan for Israel and the Church — which rules out any kind of “plan B” notion — that overthrew it in my mind. Israel was, and presumably still is, a means to a greater end: being “a light to the nations” (Isaiah).
That need not mean that God is finished with “original” Israel, of course; the Apostle Paul in Romans 11 was quite clear that He expected original-Israel one day to embrace its Messiah. But that’s a far cry from referring to the Church as “plan B,” out loud or as a hidden presupposition, and treating original-Israel as plan A.
God doesn’t do plan Bs. Neither the Church nor Israel are afterthoughts.
In your view, John, do some pre-everything folks believe what they do without accepting this “plan B” belief? Or is such a belief foundational to that view?
Of course, thanks for another great overview of crucial issues. I’m glad I was finally able to return to the video and finish it!
I’ve never seen anyone with the pre-everything view that didn’t have the “plan B” belief and, IMHO, I don’t think it’s possible to have one without the other. The idea of the Church being Plan B is so foundational for a pre-millennial plan (i.e. getting back to fulfillin’ them prophecies ’bout Israel!) that I can’t see how you could separate them.
By the way, The Third Millennium, and to a large extent the following two books The Fourth Millennium and Beyond the Millennium, counts as one of the worst works of fiction I’ve ever read. I do not say this lightly. Yes, underneath it the theology is orthodox and the Gospel is there, and for that I’m grateful. Yet the books’ — and particularly the first book’s — overemphasis on Israel, and terrible dialogue and characterizations, makes the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. look like Flannery O’Connor.
In my defense, I only read the first because I was bored and wanted more end-times fix, and the second and third because I was morbidly curious. More thoughts are here.
So for those of you who have this on watch, any thoughts on the next video/post? Should I keep doing eschatology stuff? Is there any interest in that? Because, like I said in the video, I can rant with the best of them. But it’s no fun if no one wants to see it. 😉
Yes, please continue. I’m already leaning toward a-millennialism as a default position, because pre-everything-ism seems to compromise God’s sovereignty and the thrust of His Story, and post-millennialism means we can’t look for His coming at any time and seems to compromise man’s depravity and inevitable direction with Him. So you have a chance to close the deal, Pastor, at least for this former pre-everything-er.
Sometimes I wonder that if Christians enjoyed speculative stories that are easily, joyfully regarded as fiction, they wouldn’t be tempted to opt for abject speculation about end-times events (or spiritual warfare, or “near-death experiences”) that they claim must be real or else they’re not worth imagining. That, however, is only a theory.
One final thought, for now. The Biblical doctrine of the resurrection, which is easily forgotten in our distraction by shiny objects such as meteors, temples and Beasts, is essential in all this. And a simple deduction from this doctrine overthrows pre-everything-ism, and any kind of “splitting” Christ’s coming into two phases.
Thus:
Finally:
This is almost an exact reverse of the same question about death and suffering in the beginning: Scripture forbids any implication that death/suffering preceded Adam’s and Eve’s first sin in the created Garden that God called “very good.”
Christians keep messing up that whole issue of how sin got here or how God has won, and will win, over it permanently. Maybe it’s because we doubt His power.
Of course, if a pre-everything person as I once was shows up here and wants to argue, that’s fine with me! Maybe I’ve missed something. And even if we still disagree, that can be done in grace and we are certainly brothers/sisters in Him! In fact, I sometimes believe that God left some of these questions open just so we could have a much “safer” series of doctrine discussions that aren’t that essential. Imagine how much more trouble we “church brats” would get into otherwise. …
I would say that the best view on it is from CS Lewis, who basically suggested his understanding of Scripture was that the end should always be kept in view as to how we live and as a warning to not fall into sin. However, those who think they know the exact details in surety as too many of today’s Evangelicals in the “prophesy-expert” industry as I’ll call it, do.
As for the exact views, well, we can consider them, but that is about it. Some ideas we are told enough to be certain on, such as sin, the need for a Savior, the Trinity, and so forth. Other ideas, well, not so much. Eschatology falls into that latter, not so much, category. Discussion is the best we can hope for until we see the truth for real.
That said, I hope that pre-millenialism is true, or else that I’m DEAD before the Tribulations starts, but there is a historical fact against it. It’s relatively new. Just a century or two old. For most of history, amillenialism and post-tribulational Rapture were the dominant views, with amillenialism being the more common of the two. Admittedly this is my own bias towards trusting older and orthodox, and distrusting (downright contemptuous towards) newer and non-orthodox at work here, but really, a question? How likely is it that Christians had it wrong for over 1,800 years, and we got the whole doctrine right recently. I’m glad to be among such theological giants. *Sarcasm*
Nice overview.
I was a pre-millennialist who by late high school had started believing some of the eschatological prophecies had a dual meaning to them: Some seemed to fit Israel in the more immediate and the last days in the distant future. I no longer think there’s a rapture prior to the tribulation, primarily because the two references people use for it are contextually describing the suddenness of everything. Moreover, they could easily be describing the resurrection of the dead, which makes more sense because the dead are supposed to rise first. The dead cannot rise first if the rapture zaps the living to Heaven before the resurrection of the dead. Honestly, the last time I skimmed through Revelation,the time line seemed amazingly simpler than most make it out to be.
Anyway. Yeah, in middle school I was listening to an end times radio program in which the two hosts spent several hours a day explaining why we were already in the latter days.
And I’ve read the Third Millennium and Left Behind up through the book preceding the Glorious Appearance.
At any rate, one thing I found interesting is that several of the OT prophets describe what, in all fairness, could be a human descendant of David. That is…pure speculation.Just thought it was interesting. I mix up Zephaniah and Zechariah, but it’s one of them.
On Nephilim & Genesis 6: I can’t remember who posted on it here, but the more I look at that chapter, the less I think it’s possible for those hybrids to be demonic. I cannot think of one place in Scripture where demons are referred to as “the sons of God.”
Jews don’t believe that, so it makes sense that they would continue to want their system restored. Either way, start to finish Scripture discusses in great detail the great Temple in Heaven. Of course, I heard one argument that Ezekiel sees what he does because it’s what he’d understand. But he saw far weirder than that, so I dunno.
I can’t even remember that. It’s kinda moot anyway if there is an exact 7-year period (which I also no longer believe, because then you can figure out the exact date that no one is supposed to know; say what you want about Third Millennium, but they did think that part through).
That always drove me crazy. I like what Bill Meyers did: it was two contemporaries.
Huh? Can’t they just call it…. “Egypt”?
Miscellaneous aside: I so love Gilligan’s Island. I know a pastor who used it to discuss the seven deadly sins. Gilligan turned out to be Satan.
Personally, we got his first coming wrong; I have absolutely no doubt we’re going to get his second one wrong. I don’t think Satan is going to use anything that’s going to be akin to wearing a big neon sign saying “here is the antichrist” and “here is the mark of the beast” – he isn’t stupid and I think we’re insanely asinine to think he is. Scripture teaches he’s going to blindside the saints themselves; that means he’s going to have to do better than computer chips and tattooed initials.
Me being who I am, I think the Christian sci-fi community has barely scratched the surface of the possibilities if we’d call toss out the preconceptions. Know?
On Young Earth Creationism: I happen to be a literal-six-day creationist, since there’s no ceiling on how long the earth is going to exist, well, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have made sense for God to tell Adam to subdue Neptune at the time. But for as long as we’re here, our job is have dominion over the earth. I don’t see why that can’t extend as far into space as we’re able to get. It seems more in line with Scripture to continue filling the world we live in and subduing it – no matter how big it gets.
Yeah, I tend to be the same way.
Your peeve may be the rapture, but mine is this subject. Rather than growling at the screen, I”ll just let the dog lie.
Oh, this is all fun and games to me. Keep it up. If I’d thought soon enough, we could have collaborated on the antichrist post.
Okay, I got a bit lost toward the bottom, but here she is. 0=)