Raptured Away

 

I would like to invite you to debate the so called "special political relationship between the Israeli right and the Evangelicals in the US" in context of the dispensational model, which proposes that a time of turmoil is lying ahead, but that born again Christians will be "raptured" away before it begins. I am particularly interested to know what impact in your opinion, if any, contemporary dispensational thinking might have on foreign policies concerning the Middle East at large and Jerusalem in particular in the coming years.

The alliance between the Israeli right and the Evangelicals is said to have really taken off in 1977, when, after three decades of Labor rule in Israel, Menachem Begin became the first Prime Minister from the conservative Likud Party. But first some more detailed background:

The establishment of Israel in 1948 gave dispensationalism new momentum. The restoration of a Jewish nation was taken as a sign that the clock of biblical prophecy was ticking and we were rapidly approaching the final events leading to the return of Jesus. During the cold war, dispensationalists readily interpreted the Soviet Union and its allies as the Antichrist. Passages such as Ezekiel 38-39 were read as predictions of an impending Soviet attack on Israel. A ten-member confederation--often interpreted as the European Union--was expected to join the Soviet Union in this attack.

When Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham's father-in-law and editor of Christianity Today, wrote in July 1967: "That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible."

By the early 1970s numerous books, films and television specials publicized the premillennial dispensationalist perspective. Hal Lindsay made a virtual industry out of his book The Late Great Planet Earth: it sold more than 25 million copies and led to two films, as well as a consulting business with a clientele that has included several members of Congress, the Pentagon, and Ronald Reagan.

In the mid 1970s at least five trends converged that accelerated the rise of Christian Zionism. First, evangelical and charismatic movements became the fastest-growing branch of North American Christianity. Mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church were declining both in budgets and attendance.

The election of Jimmy Carter; a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher; to the presidency in 1976 increased the visibility and legitimacy of the once-marginalized evangelical movement. Time magazine declared 1976 "the year of the evangelical." Still, the mainstream media seemed confused by the various traditions and polarities within the complex evangelical movement, failing to distinguish between the diverse political and theological voices clamoring to claim the term "evangelical" for their particular viewpoint.

Israel's occupation of Arab lands after 1967 created tension between many Jewish organizations and the mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic communities. Many Jewish organizations, particularly lobbying groups such as the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), turned to the growing evangelical community for support. As Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee stated, "The evangelical community is the largest and fastest-growing bloc of pro-Jewish sentiment in this country." AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added staff to focus on relationships with evangelicals and fundamentalists. The Israeli ministry of tourism eyed evangelicals as a major new market for Holy Land tours and thus a source of revenue.

The fourth factor that stimulated the emerging evangelical Christian Zionist movement's political agenda was the election of Menachem Begin as Israel's prime minister in May 1977. Prior to Begin's election, Israeli politics had been dominated by the secular Labor Party. Begin's Likud Party was dominated by hard-line military figures such as Raphael Eitan and Ariel Sharon, and supported by the increasingly powerful settler movement and by small Orthodox religious parties. Likud constituencies used the biblical names "Judea and Samaria" for the West Bank and employed a religious argument to justify Israel's confiscation of Arab land for settlements: since God gave the land exclusively to Jews, they have a divine right to settle anywhere in Eretz Israel. Evangelicals welcomed the Likud leaders and endorsed their political and religious agendas.

The final development that accelerated the alliance between Likud and the Religious Right was Carter's March 1977 statement that he supported Palestinian human rights, including the "right to a homeland." Likud, when it came to power just two months later; immediately reached out to Christian evangelicals. Likud's strategy was simple: split evangelical and fundamentalist Christians from Carter's political base and rally support among conservative Christians for Israel's opposition to the United Nations' proposed Middle East Peace Conference.

Within weeks, full-page advertisements appeared in major U.S. newspapers stating, "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land." Targeting Soviet involvement in the UN conference, the ad went on to say: "We affirm as evangelicals our belief in the promised land to the Jewish people . . . . We would view with grave concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity."

And to increase your bloodpressure (reach for those pills before you read), Vanity Fair published in its December issue a sensationalist article by Carig Unger under the heading American "Rapture". You know Unger of course, Daily Kos' and Micheal Moore's hero, who penned the controversial book House of Bush, House of Saud, which was also featured in Fahrenheit 9/11.

In the end, no one played a bigger role in thwarting the prospect for peace than the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, who rejected a deal with Netanyahu's successor, Ehud Barak, in 2000. In general, the Christian right has not gone to the mat to fight a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when the peace process finally resumed during the Bush administration, the Christian right made certain its theology was not ignored. In March 2004, according to The Village Voice, a delegation from the Apostolic Congress, a religious group that believes in the Rapture, met with Elliott Abrams, then the National Security Council's senior director for Near East and North African affairs, to discuss its concern that Israel's disengagement from Gaza would violate God's covenant with Israel. As it happens, Netanyahu, for non-theological reasons, shared the Christian right's concern about the Gaza pullout to such an extent that he resigned from Sharon's cabinet last summer and has vowed to challenge him for the prime minister's post.

But this intrusion of End Times theology is of deep concern to Israelis who are not as hawkish as Netanyahu. "This is incredibly dangerous to Israel," says Gershom Gorenberg, a Jerusalem-based journalist and the author of The End of Days, a chronicle of messianic Christians and Jews and their struggle with Muslim fundamentalists over the Temple Mount. "They're not interested in the survival of the State of Israel. They are interested in the Rapture, in bringing to fruition a cosmic myth of the End Times, proving that they are right with one big bang. We are merely actors in their dreams. LaHaye's vision is that Jews will convert or die and go to hell. If you read his books, he is looking forward to war. He is not an ally in the safety of Israel."

Far from being a Prince of Peace, the Christ depicted in the "Left Behind" series is a vengeful Messiah—so vengeful that the death and destruction he causes to unconverted Jews, to secularists, to anyone who is not born again, is far, far greater than the crimes committed by the most brutal dictators in human history. When He arrives on the scene in Glorious Appearing, Christ merely has to speak and "men and women, soldiers and horses, seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin." Soon, LaHaye and Jenkins write, tens of thousands of foot soldiers for the Antichrist are dying in the goriest manner imaginable, their internal organs oozing out, "their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ."

Aside from Unger's bias, I feel that given the events of the past few days and in light of the enormous success of Tim La Haye, the 79-year-old co-author of the "Left Behind" series of these apocalyptic thrillers, this is an important issue to address.

Over to you.

The darling Anchoress immediately picks up on the theme and flies straight into the Twelfth Imam:

[...] the whole question of Iran and it’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who seems to believe that he has been put into office to usher in The Twelfh Imam.

According to Shi’ite teaching, the Twelfth Imam will not require an introduction upon his return. His identity will be self-evident to all, or at least to those capable of recognizing him. One view states that he will rule through a deputy, or perhaps the deputy will precede the Imam’s return. Perhaps the deputy’s identity should also be evident to all who can see.

While Ahmadinejad has not drawn an explicit connection between his desire to see Israel wiped off the map and an activist belief in the Twelfth Imam’s return, the dots are there to be connected once one understands the tyrannical “logic” behind someone who, perhaps viewing himself as a self-proclaimed deputy for the Twelfth Imam, might wish to effect Mahdi’s return. The deputy would promote Iran’s nuclear capabilities for they are key to effecting chaos in the world. The deputy would also purge diplomats, dozens of deputy ministers and heads of government banks and businesses, and challenge the Iranian ruling clerical establishment. All these moves push the regime toward a “coup d’état” (according to one Iranian source) or at least a constitutional crisis. But a constitutional crisis would be a mere stepping stone for a president for whom the Twelfth Imam does not require an Islamic republic to return.

Patrick @ The Paragraph Farmer gives us the Westerners Stockholm Syndrome: "In terms made familiar by movies about the nineteenth-century West, Christians have all been deputized (by virtue of baptism into the Body of Christ, as some of us like to say). That's a commission we ignore at great cost to our own dignity. We kneel to God, not to threats of violence from the imams up the road."

Comments

[Left Behinds]

Kenny, thanks for your explanation. I think you make a good point about not everyone embodying all the logical implications of their beliefs. It sounds like the view that Moyers was describing is at the very least not a common view among dispensationalists.

I don't want to get into global warming, but I can't resist remarking that I'm slightly surprised something you said. I think "the scientific subculture" is of a fundamentally different kind than "a particular evangelical subculture" and that when it comes to scientific questions, people (such as software consultants :) who accept the fundamental tenets of the Enlightenment probably grant more authority to the overwhelming consensus of almost all scientists than they do to people who are not scientists. I do think you're exactly right about a disagreement over the facts being the pertinent issue, but I just wanted to point out this bit of relativism in your argument. ;)

[MarcH]

Dennis Prager (the Jewish author and lecturer) has a "cute" account to explain the kinship of Jewish religious Zionists with Christian Zionists.

Apparently Prager used to get some static from politicaly liberal Jewish audiences on his close relationship with Rev. Falwell. Although they were allies on a number of issues besides Israel, Prager was particularly impressed with Falwell's strong support for Israel.

Prager would tell his suspicious liberal Jewish audience that he had made a deal with Rev. Falwell. Falwell would continue his strong support of Israel until the coming of the Messiah. At that time they would ask of the Messiah, "is this your first time or a return trip?"

I realize this is a variation of a line in Guest's post, but I like it.

[Bruce Rockwell]

Okay, we all know that American evangelicalism is strongly based on "dispensationalism." Fewer know that the key (and by far the most popular) aspect of d-ism is the "pretribulation rapture" - without which spectacular event d-ism wouldn't have a reason to exist. And almost no one has thoroughly researched the very beginnings of the pretrib rapture idea. During the 20th century pretrib promoters exalted and repeated the name of John Darby (of the Plymouth Brethren) so much that practically everyone took it for granted that he was the "father" of d-ism. One reason for this mass assumption was that early 19th century primary documents were extremely hard to locate. But one person with only a B.A. in English was determined to try to find anything at all that would throw light on the earliest development of that latter-day escapist view, a view that would eventually command an octopus-like grip on even the politics of the most powerful nation on earth! A recent web piece entitled "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" reveals newly discovered facts about the exact start and later growth of the same pretrib rapture view that has made millionaries of writers like Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye, neither one of which has appreciated the widespread airing of the shocking revelations of their latter-day view's bizarre history, a history that has been riddled with dishonesty of every type including massive plagiarism, deliberate revisionism of early primary documents that still exist in British libraries, covering up damning evidence of the personal lives of past pretrib promoters, etc. If your curiosity is aroused, go to Google and type in "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" and you will realize why Lindsey, Falwell, LaHaye, Van Impe etc. are now feverishly trying to get every last drop of milk out of their cash cow before it kicks the bucket - yes, the handwriting (of historical facts) is on the wall. Even Grant Jeffrey, one of the cow milkers in Canada, admitted recently that many have lately been abandoning the pretrib rapture view largely because of the newly emerging facts about its relatively recent history! It's now come down to the separation of the sheep and the goats; the sheep are now examining the early rapture documents that are now known to exist while the old established goats, too lazy to do original research, are content to merely rewrite (actually plagiarize) other writers who themselves have long assumed that Darby was the "father" of d-ism. Well, what was he the "father" of? Certainly not the church/Israel distinction (or dichotomy), or the literal method, or the Gentile (or church) parenthesis, or the "Jewishness" of the book of Matthew, or the premillennial view, or even the glorious, any-moment, pretribulation rapture view! For almost a century, all church historians credited someone in an obscure slice of Britain with the pretrib view; none credited Darby. How Darby went from zero to hero is the thrust of "The Rapture Plot" which was penned by the author of the above "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" article, and the whole story of the sinister plot is one of the greatest unknown stories in church history! Key scholars who have endorsed that author's findings are found if you type in "Scholars Weigh My Research." What LaHaye, Lindsey, Falwell fear the most: mainstream scholars taking a long, hard look at the birth of the late great, money-making rapturescape! Bruce

[Secret Rapture]

My Inaugural Address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!

At: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman

Your jaw will drop!

[Kenny Pierce]

Now here's a problem that I've discovered in my understanding of this whole Zionism/evangelical dynamic:

Islam is even less compatible with progressive multiculturalism than it is with evangelicalism; Israel much more nearly conforms to the standards of progressive political correctness than Arafat or Hamas ever contemplated conforming. So why can evangelicals say, "The Israelis have problems but the Palestinians are much worse," but progressives can't seem to?

I keep thinking about this during my daily commute and I don't like my answers because they are all too condemnatory of progressives -- and I think most progressives mean well; so clearly I'm not empathizing my way into their shoes very well. With that HUGE caveat:

I think part of it may be that evangelicals are very comfortable with the vocabulary of sin and evil. Progressivism tends to be very reluctant to use terms like "evil" -- remember how horrified they were when Reagan used the phrase "evil empire"?...even though surely if ever a government had earned such a designation, the Soviet government had. Of course liberals are happy to call certain people "evil," but you pretty much have to be white and rich and probably male in order to be granted that honor. Progressives are much more comfortable, it seems to me, with language like "oppressed." And once you have been designated an "oppressed" people, then progressives seem to talk about you, and apparently to feel about you, as if you weren't responsible for your actions because whatever apparently terrible thing you do, you do as a result of your oppression. The Palestinians are officially "oppressed," Israel is officially the "oppressor," and so the fact that Palestinians drink in hatred at their mothers' breasts and were among the earliest pioneers in the suicide bomb, just doesn't seem to register.

I guess one thing I notice in talking with liberals in general (though there are lots of individual liberals who are exceptions) is that they seem fixated on power. And power plays a paradoxical role in their speech: if you have power, that is prima facie evidence that you are evil, and yet "empowerment" is all but the summum bonum. Israel and Palestine are assigned "evil" and "good" status not on the basis of the actions they have taken (if they were, then progressives would support Israel rather than Palestine because Israel much more effectively lives by the moral standards liberalism nominally embraces). Israel has proved that it can kick Arab ass any time it damn well chooses: Israel, clearly, has the power. And since Israel has the power, it seems to me as an outsider looking in on liberalism, the knee-jerk reaction is that Israel must be the bad guys.

Now, look, I probably have that all wrong. Liberal commenters should leap in and tell me exactly how that's wrong. I'm not even really sure what I'm trying to say.

But insofar as progressives are prejudiced against Israel because Israel is stronger and more competent than any of the surrounding Arab states, it's relevant to observe that evangelicalism (a) looks at the actions of individuals, (b) does not see poverty or oppression as an excuse to practice evil or hate, and (c) does not see the possession of power as intrinsic evidence of malice or evil...

Hmm, I can't seem to get a real grip on where I'm trying to go...guess I'll have to keep thinking about it. But listen, I'm handicapped because I have no patience for the excuse, "I'm allowed to do evil things because I'm an Oppressed And Downtrodden Minority Member," and because my own emotional reactions very clearly do not track with liberals'. So I'm way out of my depth in trying to figure out what motivates liberals to behave and talk as though the state of Israel is a moral leper compared to the Palestinians. We'd be much better served if some liberals were to start trying to explain it to us. And I can't make the invitation any clearer than that.

[Kenny Pierce]

LB,

It does, but I think Moyers is making the mistake of assuming that End Times people work out all the logical implications of their beliefs and then live consistently with those implications. That would be ironic, because Moyers despises "fundamentalists" so far as I can tell, but he could hardly pay them a higher compliment -- since practically nobody works out all the logical implications of their assumptions and then changes their lives to match those implications. A life of such intellectual integrity is very rare indeed, and if End Times people really were that intellectually self-consistent, that would put them miles ahead of, say, Bill Moyers ("intellectual integrity" is not exactly the first phrase that springs to mind when you play word-association and the shrink says, "Bill Moyers").

So I think that on the question of very long-term solutions, End Times people are pretty much like other evangelicals. There is a distinct difference in perspective between evangelicals and people like Moyers -- but it's precisely that the evangelicals' perspective is extremely long-term compared to Moyers's. The evangelical perspective (as captured in the common evangelical catch-phrase "it's all gonna burn") is that anything that happens in this life is just a prologue and a warm-up for eternity. As C. S. Lewis pointed out someplace, if atheists are right, then the life of individuals is relatively insignificant compared to the life of civilizations that can last hundreds or even thousands of years. But if Christianity is right, then the entire life span of the Roman Empire was just a momentary blink of the eye compared to a single person's eternal existence.

But even so, I don't think this difference in perspective has much impact on the global warming debate. Where you see this difference is in things like Benjamin Franklin's quotation (posted in ATB's comments a while back along with a number of not-very-bright statements from outright atheists) that "a lighthouse does more good than a church." Well, perhaps it does -- if Christianity is false.

But the global warming thing is, fundamentally, a difference of opinion about the facts (is global warming happening, and if it is, will it actually do more harm than good, and if so, will proposals such as Kyoto actually do any good). Moyers is just as confident that he knows what will happen in fifty years as any End Times-er is -- it's just that Moyers is trusting the prognosticatory abilities of the scientist subculture, while the End Times-er is trusting the exegetical abilities of a particular evangelical subculture. But perhaps Moyers is comforted by the idea that those who disagree with him do so not because he's an ass, but because they are religious fanatics. Not knowing Moyers, I couldn't tell you one way or the other.

[Left Behinds]

Sorry, I meant dispensationalists, not eschatologists.

Oh, and when you say that "of the relatively large number of Bible Belters I've personally known who obsessed to a greater or less degree over the End Times, I can't think of any who were made less politically active," that's not inconsistent with what Moyers was claiming. He was claiming that their beliefs affect how they feel about very long-term issues, such as what will happen hundreds of years from now (hence, global warming and storage of nuclear waste might not be very troubling for people who believe we're in the End Times or Last Days, even if they don't know precisely how close to the Rapture we are).

Does that make sense?

[Left Behinds]

Kenny, thanks for your very thoughtful reply. Be warned, I may quote you in the future. ;)

From your analysis, I'd say that moderate eschatologists wouldn't discount near-future costs such as budget imbalances 70 years in the future, but they might discount long-term costs such as climate change hundreds of years from now. This is just speculation based on your speculation, of course.

If you're curious, here is the Bill Moyers essay I was talking about, as well as another in The Grist, both of which have been widely circulated:

Grist and Moyers

In his argument that "millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse," Moyers oversimplifies (I wonder what he thinks about the evangelical leaders who just came out against global warming?), but it's interesting reading for someone like me for whom these views are very alien. Along those lines, I have appreciated reading this entire thread.

[Nasty_Ninety]

I don't think (at least I hope this is the case) that most evangelicals vote the candidate of their choice based on eschatology. I am more inclined to believe they vote for the candidate of their choice based on morals... This is to say that they vote for that candidate… the one they HOPE will most closely represent what their beliefs are. I heard a speech a while back... the speaker said (and I think it is true) that the government basically represents the common belief of the people of a given nation. It's a scary thought as to what America really is anymore if this is indeed the case. It saddens my heart to think so. We are a nation that is going down the same forlorn path that Europe and Canada has gone down. We are a nation that is desperately in need of another "great awakening". I don't know that this will happen. It certainly is my prayer that it will. We are a nation that really needs to corral the threat that Islam represents to western society within our own borders and yet do it with much more kindness then the imitators of Mohammed would ever do. We know what those who imitate and do the same things as Mohammed did by now... even if there are many who deny it. It's time we stop denying what Islam is about, this coping mechanism is a total failure. ( I decided to proof read my posts before I commit them to your blog since once I post, I cannot change them)

[Gary]

I'm impressed with the discussion here. WOW!!!

The truth is that Christians don't know the exact time that Christ will return to take His believers home. That said, the prophecy of the Valley of Dried Bones is instructive in dispensationalism in this sense: (1) When Ezekiel saw all the bones strewn across this valley, many Christians think that this refers to the Jewish people being scattered all around the world, whether that refers to American Jews, Soviet Jews or Jews living literally all around the world. (2) When the bones come together & flesh covers the bones, eschatology experts believe this is when Israel is 'reborn' as a nation. The secular world would recognize this as 1948 & I see no reason to disagree. (3) The final part of the prophecy, where God breathes His life into Israel doesn't happen until Christ's Second Coming, which happens 7 years after the Rapture.

The Rapture is described in I Thessalonians 4 but Christ's Second Coming is described in Zechariah 12:10. The Jewish people will recognize Christ because He says "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced..." When they see Christ descending onto the Mount of Olives, they'll recognize Him as their Messiah and they'll be grieved that they didn't recognize Him before that.

How does that tie into today? Christ told His apostles that "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place." In other words, He would return within a generation after Israel became a nation again. In Biblical terms, a generation is roughly 70 years.

In that respect, we likely are living in the End Times, though we can't be certain of the exact time of Christ's return or Rapture.

What makes me think that Ahmadinejad isn't tied into End Times prophecy, though, is that the Tribulation won't start until a great unifying leader appears on the scene, preaching peace. This leader will defeat Israel's enemies & the world will shout "Peace, peace" but they'll be wrong. The leader who 'rescues' Israel from their enemies will be the one who defiles a new temple built in Jerusalem by proclaiming that he is Christ.

Clearly, Ahmadinejad isn't the enemy that will be defeated because the enemy will come from the north (Togarmah). Most prophecy experts like John Walvoord, Dwight Pentecost & Warren Wiersbe think Togarmah is actually Russia, which seems possible.

How does any of this tie into today's events? Only by telling us to trust in Christ's death on the Cross at Calvary as THE ONLY PAYMENT God will accept for our sins.

I'd doubt that it should have anything to do with policy-making, though.

One last thing: Anyone who thinks that fundamentalist bornagain Christians think that they can hasten Christ's Second Coming are badly mistaken. That time's been set in Heaven since before the world was created. Who are we to influence God's decisions?

[Kenny Pierce]

If you're a dispensationalist but not in the sub-culture that thinks that the restoration of Israel is a sign that we've entered the "End Times," I don't think the fact that Jesus could come back tomorrow makes you think you can ignore what will happen 70 years from now if He isn't back yet; He could have come back in 1790 but today's American dispensationalists are still grateful to the Founding Fathers for taking the time to put together a really solid Constitution.

There was a time when the followers of Hal Lindsay (I think) would have given you a date before which Jesus was guaranteed to come back (if memory serves, it was 1988, because that was forty years from the foundation of the modern Israeli state, because "this generation will not pass away" before Jesus comes back, and a generation in the Bible means forty years, and "this generation" Really Means the generation that was blessed with the sight of the restoration of Israel...something like that, anyway). I don't know what their confidence level is now that that particular deadline has passed...at any rate, of the relatively large number of Bible Belters I've personally known who obsessed to a greater or less degree over the End Times, I can't think of any who were made less politically active thereby. One might expect that to be the logical consequence (and certainly there have been other, similar groups in the past that sold everything they owned as their own particular deadline approached), but I haven't seen that myself. By that same logic they wouldn't bother to populate their 401K's, but I certainly haven't noticed that getting interested in the End Times suddenly makes you less prudent about managing the kids' college fund.

It probably helps that in this particular variation on the End Times obsession, most of those who are convinced that the restoration of Israel puts us in the End Times, don't feel confident that they can fix the precise date of the Rapture yet and therefore think we could still have quite a few years left. (At least now that Lindsay's original deadline has passed.)

But my circle of Last-Days acquaintances may not be representative. This lady seems very passionately attached to the view you attribute to Moyers -- though I would pay no more attention to anything Moyers says about fundamentalist Christians than you should pay to anything I say about Zionists, and since this lady is a Jewish convert to Christianity I doubt she grew up among fans of The Late Great Planet Earth. All I can say is that I just don't recognize anybody I personally know in her description, and I have known more than my share of people who invested hours wondering whether the Antichrist would trick people into accepting the Mark of the Beast by embedding computer chips into their hands and foreheads.

[Left Behinds]

Without getting into the validity of these beliefs, I am genuinely curious if dispensationalist thinking undergirds certain attitudes to long-term public policy.

For instance, does the fact that global warming, if it were true, would occur far in future, after the time that certain people believe the Rapture will occur, contribute to not prioritizing such issues? Please don't lecture about the invalidity of global warming. What I am curious about is the relationship between dispensationalist beliefs and public policy that concerns very long-term issues.

Or, does the fact that budget deficits will not come home to roost for 75 or 100 years make them a lot less troublesome to people who believe in an imminent Rapture?

I'm not being facetious, I am genuinely curious, since this is what Bill Moyers and others portray as the belief systems of certain influential figures.

[Kenny Pierce]

Liquid,

For whatever it's worth, I figure a Rapture scenario is the most likely, precisely because of the non-Apocalypse texts you quote. Force me to pick a camp and I'm a pre-trib guy; but I'll be protesting at having to be encamped at all. I'm much more interested in practical implications than in guessing games, and the practical upshot of the rapture passages is the same as the parable of the unprepared virgins and other parables: always be ready because you can be called to account without warning.

I've thought more about Guest's discussion of "a very similar world outlook, a common religious heritage, and similar or shared goals." It reminds me of a conversation I had a while back with a highly valued Tunisian Muslim friend (a good enough friend that my wife traveled to Tunisia in order to attend his wedding). There was a notorious incident in which Israeli troops were bulldozing houses in a settlement they considered to be infested by terrorists, and they gave people two minutes to get out of a house. But a guy on the upper floor was in a wheelchair, and two minutes wasn't time enough, and the soldiers bulldozed the house down around him and killed him. There was much outrage, and Naj was one of the outraged.

What I tried to explain to him was the significance of the two minutes.

What that two minutes showed is that Israel at least recognizes the just-war-theory distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and that it was not their goal to kill crippled non-terrorist Arabs. You can still criticize them freely for not being careful enough, if you want -- but they didn't go out there in order to kill non-terrorist Arabs.

But can you even imagine a Hamas suicide bomber walking into a crowded Israeli supermarket, and announcing that women and children had two minutes to leave? It's absurd on its face -- because the women and children are among the deliberate targets. Hamas wants to kill them. And it's not just that Hamas doesn't play by our rules...it's that Palestinians in general don't even comprehend the moral distinction involved, and therefore genuinely can't understand why we get so much more upset by the suicide bomber than by the bulldozer. Their ethical categories are alien; the Israelis' are not. That the Israelis do not always live up to the ethical code they and I share is unfortunate, but not crippling: I don't either, for that matter. But the Palestinians and evangelicals disagree on the very definition of what consitutes an evil act, and what we despise as evil they extol as heroic.

And as long as that continues to be the case, evangelical support will gravitate toward the Israelis and away from the Palestinians (including, I might emphasize, such Palestinian Christians as are consumed by hatred and vengeance).

[RL]

another very helpful read on this subject-matter(eschatology,
preferably: Biblical-eschatology, as opposed to the newspaper-
eschatology/left-behind fiction variety) is,

"Revelation: Four Views" by Steve Gregg

the author does an objective and dispassionate job of presenting
all four views in a clear and readable manner, and allows the
reader to decide which eschatological-view they wish to
subscribe to.
highly-reccomended.

ps. now that Mr. LaHaye has signed a new $40 million
(yes, $40 million) contract with a new publisher,
his ex-coauthor, Jerry Jenkins, must feel really, really
left-behind !

"Show me the money !!"

[Stefan]

Liquid,
Nah, I don't think I could stomach any biblical prophesy flick staring Kirk Cameron. Sounds like something of the same caliber as “Frankenfish” or one of the other top shelf Sci-Fi Channel original movies. :-) I have read quite a bit about the books though, from fans and supporters to critics. I know some people who really seem to like the books despite my annoying efforts to rain on their parade.

[RL]

equip.org/abouthank/tyndale.pdf

equip.org/response/revelations.asp

[Nasty_Ninety]

First of all I think I will say this, that there are many politicians whose religious affiliation seems to be “evangelical” quite often is just so they can garner votes. I won’t name specific names lest as I blog anonymously I annoy some specific politician and annoy him and thus commit a federal offense. Do a little research on the religious affiliations of numerous candidates vying for the Presidency in recent years and you will see they have affiliations with seemingly evangelical churches. They might succeed, but there are many evangelicals who are disillusioned with many of the seemingly evangelically affiliated politicians. In other words, these men want the evangelical vote, but for the most part they do not represent this constituency at all. I could argue at this point that to discuss such an issue is a mute point.

I don’t know if you noticed that Christians are being slaughtered by muslims in numerous nations around the world. Christians along with Jews are identified by the wahabbis (and other sects of Islam) was the foremost enemies of Islam. I don’t know if many Christians have noticed this, but Christianity and the Bible are increasingly being criminalized in western nations. (Canada is a prime example and we are not so far off from passing similar laws here in the USA) The Bible does talk about a rapture, but that day will not come (as it is written) until an even known as the “Great Apostasy” takes place. It means “the great forsaking of the faith”. Christians are going to be turned into the criminals and be persecuted. I guess it’s like this… for people who reject a Holy and sinless God and the free gift of salvation by faith so that “no man shall boast”, the prevailing attitude for such people can only be one thing concerning Christ. That attitude can be summed up in this phrase “we will not have this man (Jesus Christ) rule over us. Thus… I contend that Christians.. Evangelicals… should not count on a pre-tribulation rapture, but be assured that it is as Christ promised in John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”. Sadly, Evangelicals can vote for candidates whom they hope represent them, I know I vote for the ones whom I hope do, but as for me, I am not so sure there are very many who really do.

[Liquid]

Stefan, I have never seen the Left Behind movies or read the books, some on here say they are not written well...have you seen any of the movies? Are they any good? Since I haven't seen them, and I realise they are just fiction, I was just wondering if anyone had SEEN the movie part of the collection?

[Stefan]

Wow, lots of good stuff here. There isn’t much left to say here that hasn't already been said. Many great links as well. I'll add one quick one from First Things (favorite of journal of mine) and very well done article on premillennial dispensationalism: http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0211/opinion/olson.html There is already a lot to read here but I do recommend it if folks have the time. I think that people must be very careful about Biblical Prophecies because they can have an almost occult fascination. There is a fascination with knowing the future and a quest for the power that comes with it. The end is not even known by the Son but only the Father. Isn’t that the way it was put? All in all, we must not seek to jump start the apocalypse. It is folly to try to force God’s hand.

[RL]

Sane, Spirit-filled, and Sound-Theology at,

desiringgod.org
monergism.com
renewingyourmind.org

in no particular order.

i think that Hank Hanegraaff's novel-series on eschatology
is substantially more grounded in reality(ie. Biblical)
than the hugely-popular and totally-fictional series that is
mentioned in this posting.
(and these books are available at, equip.org)

i also think that our strong support of, and foreign-policy
concerning the Jewish state is based more on her UN based
right to exist, and to defend herself; rather than being
based on pop-dispensational theology.

"Knowing Scripture" by R.C. Sproul
(a highly reccomended introductory-read on hermeneutics)

"Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God ?"
by Dr. Keith A. Mathison
(highly reccomended)

the majority of Jews who are familiar with pop-dispensational
theology find it to be very vulgar, offensive, and
unpalatable (and i don't blame them for this fact).

[Liquid]

Guest...you are right on about how Ahmadinejad thinks about the west and he is on a mission...I have been told straight up by muslims that America is considered a Judeo-Christian nation to them and in that sense we are just a "sect" of Judaism so they hate us for not only 'supporting Israel' but they hate us as we are "people of the book" and are in their minds 'infidels with our Jews running Washington.'

[Connecticut Yankee]

Hi Alexandra--

I'm not sure whether either of these two resources will be helpful to you or not. But here goes: 1) In the fall of 1999 the FBI had a Project Megiddo that investigated the possibility that domestic terroristgroups might have something planned for the year 2000 (on the basis of apocalyptic/eschatological speculation). The full text of the 1999 FBI report is here: http://www.cesnur.org/testi/FBI_004.htm

Second resource: Boston University has a Center for Millennial Studies that, among other things, defines its purposes as "Provide analyses to media, researchers, academics, policy makers and anyone else interested in impartial, accurate and timely information about apocalyptic and millenarian manifestations:
Raise public awareness of the patterns of millennial behavior, to provide historical perspectives, and to offer prognoses about current millenarian activity." Home page URL:http://www.mille.org/index.html

Two articles from the Center that you might like to read: Richard Landes on "The Social Bermuda Triangle: Jews, Modernity and Apocalypticism" http://www.mille.org/people/rlpages/socialtri.html

and David Cook on Muslim Prophecies about the Downfall of the United States http://www.mille.org/scholarship/papers/ADAM.html

I think you'll find a lot of information as well as food for thought in these sources.

[Liquid]

Wow...great post and comments! I know that many love to debate the "end times" and "the effect of people's beliefs on foreign policy" but I still smile just the same, because I find calmness and peace in my heart just knowing that people are thinking about "the end" and "the coming of Christ" where it be over policy or future policies. It's all Good!

I believe that God made a covenant with the Israelites and that he had requirements for it too. I think alot of policy comes into play in part by in Genesis 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall ALL families of the earth be blessed.

I also believe that today's 'man made' borders will be overruled by what God's deal 'was and is' when it comes to his blessings. I believe it is God's land despite the policy arguments and the wars over it. I also believe that Israel has a right to exist so if that makes me a zionist...hahahaha so be it! I agree with Guest though that the meaning of Zionism has evolved into many things from what it initially was!

When "Weekender/Jeff" said, "Bell's quote had absolutely NOTHING to do with the writer's statement that "dispensationalists were certain that the end was near." Bell was simply stating that we were seeing biblical prophecy being fulfilled."

I totally agree with that, because there is no doubt that much faith was enforced when this prophecy came true and many hearts were filled with joy that indeed God's words are true!

Seems there has always been a type of spin on any 'end of the world theory' and over time where it has been theology or political it's brought much division and disappoinment to many, it has been used negatively many times to mislead others into cults and others into not thinking for themselves even after having God's word was available to them. My heart does go out to anyone (political or nonpolitical) that has gotten confused or tried to "push" God's time table; only to find that it doesn't work to try to do that.

We wait and we watch

As far as the rapture, I cannot make fun of anyone that has the conviction to wait and or to watch. We are told to do both and even repent. For me personally, I will not ever support the ideas that say "it will be on this date or in this hour will be the time" nor would I ever support those that might say "Christ is here or there" because one only has to stay with God's word to know the truth. None of us will ever HAVE to be "told" when Christ returns.

Matthew 25:13 tells us: Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

Revelation 1:7 reminds us: Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

So it's been foolish for those that have done as much to think you have to know the exact hour or be alerted by someone's direction to go here or there to see Christ coming back...because EVERY eye shall see Christ with their own two eyes!

Now when I do hear people say, "Every generation thought or thinks that it is the last generation living in the last days" I always kinda find that to be a parable on it's own because who is to say that each generation in their faith building hasn't had these thoughts put upon them to think such for a reason? Maybe there is much to gain in entertaining that thought in our own spiritual developement, because as in reality if you are a believer; we are on God's time clock and working for his purpose...not our own. Maybe it's important to think about an end to all this life here as we know it and "end time" talk is part of that process! Maybe the talk leads to hope! I am sure that the Jews and other victims that experienced the Holocaust thought it was the last days for them. I can't imagine the strength they had to come up with to comfort one another during that time! Imagine getting tatoos on your arm and hands? How could the mark of the beast not enter one's mind at that time? If you were to be forced to get a tatoo or microchip today wouldn't you think as much? How would you find comfort? Where would you go for that comfort?

So I cannot mock anyone that is watching and waiting and hoping for God to "spare them a tribulation" because we are told to comfort one another with the promise that (those that belong to christ) will rise even out of the grave and those alive will meet up in the air with Him.

1 Thessalonians 4 promises: 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1Cor 15:51 tells us: Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

There are also the scripture in Matthew 24 about the two shall be in the field and the one shall be taken and the other left. Whether that is "the rapture" or not, I understand the urgency through those scripture to be ready when Christ comes back! Honestly, it would be great, if you are still around, to miss out on all the horrible things that are to come.
Rev 3:10 does give support and hope: Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth.

I mean really think about it...maybe the rapture is a mystery on it's own...if it does happen, can you imagine what will go through everyone's hearts and minds if suddenly there are car accidents and no one is found at the steering wheel of millions of cars? Imagine mothers are walking around screaming in tears looking for their children or at work half of your co-workiers at the office are gone? Imagine if that did happen and people all over the world just disappear all in one day? How would that be explained? I am sure there would be some athiest scientist quick to give some "global warming" explanation of the freaky vanishing, heck, I could even imagine some democrats blaming it on Bush! LOL

Anyway, I am sure there are alot of scripture to base escaping wrath of the tribulation via a "rapture" but the bottom line is that we should be ready right now, because if we were to die in our sleep tonight, then today would be our last time to make any decision for preparations. So, in essence, "our end times" could all be wrapped up into the next few hours for all we know.

As far as hanging out on this earth, we are not even promised tomorrow here. We can vote in leaders and once they are in there is no guarrantee who is going to become corrupted, they are going to make decision that might not have anything in comparison to what we had hoped. We vote alot by and on faith alone. We pray that God guides and protects our leaders and our nations into doing His will.

So we wait, we pray, we repent, we watch, we wait, we repent, we watch,...
we pray some more!

BTW...I find my own urgency to think on these things in these two scriptures:
Luke 36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man
1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

[Kenny Pierce]

Antimedia,

I agree on the approach to Revelation, by the way. Essentially:

1. God wins eventually.

2. It gets ugly first.

3. You want to be sure you're on God's side; so straighten up and fly right, even when it's gotten ugly.

Everything else is special effects pyrotechnics... ;-) Exaggerating a little, but not much.

Oh, my own opinion is that the sole reason the Four Horsemen were included in the Apocalypse, is to provide us with a catchy moniker by which to remember Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden...but perhaps that opinion shows undue influence of my Roman Catholic buddies...

[Kenny Pierce]

Guest,

[grinning] Within moments of posting that first comment, I told Alexandra in an IM conversation that my comment was a comment coming from fully recognized ignorance of Zionism on my part, and mostly calculated to spur you on to explaining to us what Zionism really was. It seems to have been extraordinarily successful, and I am grateful indeed for the treatise, which was enlightening as always.

I didn't do a very good job of making my own topic clear with that first comment (which is what I get for posting in a hurry while waiting for a software test to run). I was only addressing the part of Alexandra's post that dealt with the End Times crowd -- the sort of people who would put advertisements in papers claiming that everybody in the world should let Israel have Palestine because the Bible said it belonged to them. Now, it's obvious that I wasn't clear whom I was talking about with the term "last-days enthusiasts," because that is not, at all, a synonym for evangelical (I would absolutely describe myself as an evangelical Anglican), or even for "persons who believe in the Rapture." Believing in the Rapture is not quite the same thing as being the sort of person who leads a "Bible study" in which the text is Left Behind rather than Scripture (a phenomenon that briefly swept through American evangelical churches), and most definitely it is not the same thing as being the sort of person who gets all excited because the restoration of Israel means we're living in the End Times. I would imagine, my dear Guest, that on the one hand my sample size is vastly wider than you imagine, but that on the other hand I'm discussing a rather narrower subset of the Christian population than you think. I grew up in southeastern Oklahoma among Baptists and Disciples of Christ; I was deeply involved in the evangelical movement at Princeton as an undergraduate; I've worked with Episcopalians of all stripes for the last twenty years and very closely indeed with a tight-knit group of Roman Catholics (with very widely varying political and religious perspectives) for the last two; my children's godparents come mostly from others in an evangelical Friday evening Bible study that met in our house for ten years and in which the common bonds sprang from my wife's having known several of the other participants as an undergraduate at Rice (and also from a common taste for sight-reading Bach). You would be pretty hard pressed to find a type of American Christian with whom I haven't talked and worked over the last four decades...and what I have found, consistently, across the spectrum of all those denominations and personal takes on Scripture, and throughout all those years, is that the more scrupulous and diligent a Christian is in trying to be faithful to the intent of Scripture -- whether he is a Baptist, a Presbyterian, an American Anglican, or a Roman Catholic -- the less eager he is to announce that specific events of our time can be mapped onto the Apocalypse, thus "decoding" the Apocalypse.

What I was trying to describe is the distinction between the attitude of a Christian who doesn't look at every Middle Eastern headline as a fresh piece to the Apocalyptic puzzle, and those who do, because I think it's a critical distinction. For those of us who do not, we tend to support the nation of Israel rather than the nation of Palestine because, all things considered, the behavior of Israelis is more acceptable to our opinions of what God requires than is the behavior of Palestinians, not because God has granted the Jews title to the land of Palestine. This is, I believe, exactly what you describe as "the deep emotional and theological kinship between the Jewish religious Zionists and the Christian ones...it is a natural outgrowth of a very similar world outlook, a common religious heritage, and similar or shared goals." Or, if you want: we like the Israelis better, 'cause they behave more like we do. (By the way, the implication of calculation was a poor choice of phrasing, not an intentional assessment of Zionists' state of mind; not knowing any Zionists, I can't speak to their state of mind at all.) And my assessment is very similar to yours: if the behavior of the state of Israel were to become as contemptible, in our estimation, as the behavior of the power brokers in Palestine, then much of our support of Israel would be abandoned; and if we were to conclude that Palestinians could be expected to do a better job of walking in God's ways than could the Israelis, then we would be likely to take up the Palestinian cause, or at the very least abandon the Israeli one. The Last Days crowd, on the other hand, not only wants to see the state of Israel continue, but they can't wait to see an earthquake destroy the Dome of the Rock...or a stray Muslim missile land on it, which was a popular hope in the first Gulf War, mostly because of the perceived poetic justice...or whatever. But somehow the Dome will fall so that the Temple can be rebuilt so that the Abomination of Desolation can desolate it...and they are eager for this not because they want Jews to be able to restore Temple worship, but because it gets you closer to the end of the movie, as it were.

So the support of the Last-Days-ers -- which, as simple inspection of the sales figures for the LaHaye books will tell you, is significant (not that everybody who has bought the books buys the thesis too, of course) -- is the most locked-in Gentile support available to Zionists. The support of evangelicals who see the restoration of Israel as a sign of God's continuing favor to His Chosen, but not as a cosmic property deed, is also significant, but it is conditional on Israel's continuing to honor evangelical ideas of right and wrong more effectively than do Palestinians. Thus the paradox that strikes me: the views of more moderate evangelicals are probably less generally offensive to most Jewish people, but their support of Israel is potentially less to be depended on.

Which I think is not that terribly discordant with what you were saying about "evangelicals," by which you clearly mean to include your intelligent and responsible evangelical friends, not just people who think that the "locusts" in the Apocalypse are really military helicopters.

I do think, however, that as long as Palestinians are willing to elect a woman to their government solely because she browbeats her sons into suicide-bombing Israeli women and children, all varieties of Christian evangelicals will continue to support Israel more or less, even if only as the lesser of two evils. So for right now I think that support is pretty solid.

What Alexandra's question, and Kenny's post, have not taken into account is the extreme alienation of much of the Zionist public, and virtually all of the Jewish religious Zionist public, from the institutions of the Israeli state...Perhaps, if more scenes a la Gaza and 'Amona are repeated, the religious Zionists in both countries will simply become so disgusted and appalled that they will both simply wash their hands of the Israeli state.

I hadn't realized that the disaffection was quite so deep. However, I think the religious Jewish Zionists you describe would wash their hands sooner than would the religious American Christian Zionists, because the Last-Days-ers are looking at prophecy rather than behavior, and the rest are constantly comparing the Jewish state to the Palestianian leadership rather than to an absolute standard of justice. Compared to an absolute standard of justice Israel has not exactly had an unspotted record; but compared to the Palestinians...well, there's no comparison. And somebody's going to have the power over there.

These are all rough and sweeping generalizations, of course, with lots of exceptions, but I still think they're reasonably valid.

[dan cameron rodill]

Alexandra,

being more or less eschatologically ignorant (or certainly uninformed about the End Times)I will have to focus more on Present Times. What I see is a War of Civilization that's getting tangled up in the War of the Monotheists. Israel may be the epicenter, the place where both these epic conflicts intersect. Is there any doubt what Israel disappearing down the belly of Islam would mean in this Great War? Arguably, it might be more momentous than the fall of Byzantium-Constantinople to the muslims (1453, wasn't it?) Back then, at least, there was no Islamic Bomb.

Now, if you'll excuse a sudden detour back down to the profane from Comments at gringoman.com....

Alexandra,

Touche! You pierced the pretensions of "Phillip Weezel" even better than I did last year. Wedeen rates a place in the Mujahadeen Hall of Useful Infidels, (hopefully to become another of the spectacular illustrations on your site one of these days.) Another key to his and Edwards taste for psychorabble: The picture of a couple on the beach at radiant Tulum (in 'Gringolandia' on sidebar of gringoman.com) The BAB twins (bourgeois anti-bourgeois) Wedeen and "Professor" Edwards insisted that the scene on the radiant beach at Tulum depicts two men. I sometimes wonder if some Fidelistas forget that the party line has changed and not even Castro keeps the AIDS community quarantined in camps anymore (does he?) I decided to put quote marks around "Professor" Edwards. Not because he worships Stalin's favorite Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. That's understandable for a militant Yankeephobe who claims to be Chilean. In commenting on the post "General Negrete's Suicide" he ignored all the linked material, used no-brainer loon-forum dodge like "extreme right-wing" with no substantiation---all this while claiming that he teaches third-year law students. And what does he teach them? "Critical thinking." {Yes, more quote marks. Couldn't resist.)

Posted by: Dan Cameron Rodill | February 06, 2006 at 05:02 PM

[antimedia]

I note that you said

I am particularly interested to know what impact in your opinion, if any, contemporary dispensational thinking might have on foreign policies concerning the Middle East at large and Jerusalem in particular in the coming years.

as opposed to

I am particularly interested to know what impact in your opinion, if any, contemporary dispensational thinking should have on foreign policies concerning the Middle East at large and Jerusalem in particular in the coming years.

I think it's a difficult question to answer. Obviously the religious right is having an impact on US policy in many areas (and that is no more a bad thing than leftist secularists having an impact - the notion that one group is precluded from influencing the direction of our country simply because of their beliefs is preposterous as well as antithetical to the entire basis of our country.)

Specifically with regard to dispensationalism, I don't see how it can have much influence other than to strengthen support for the state of Israel. Obviously, if you believe in the thread that posits a worldwide battle and all the rest of that, including the existence of the state of Israel, then you would support any policy that strengthens and supports the continued existence of the state of Israel.

The rest (the "rapture", the "gathering-together", the resurrections, etc.) is not for us to know. IOW, I completely agree with Kenny on that. I firmly believe that there will be a gathering-together of the saints that precedes the first and second resurrections. Whether or not that precedes a cataclysmic war or not and whether or not many of the other events people claim will happen will actually happen, I'm not smart enough to know (nor do I think anyone else is!)

I once read a book about Revelations that actually made sense to me. Rather than try to explain all the prophecies, the author argued that the purpose of Revelations was to get Christians to wake up and realize they need to live for God NOW, rather than at some time in the future. I like that. I think Christians should be "worried" enough about the future of those they love to speak the truth to them. Life is often much shorter than you thought it would be. Now is the time to speak.

What do the four horsemen and the seven candlesticks and the seven churches mean? I haven't a clue. Nor do I think that God is upset with me because I haven't figured it all out.

[Guest at the Feast]

NB as for the employment of the terms "Judea and Samaria" for the highlands of the mountain ridge: any Westerner- in fact, anyone familiar with Biblical geography- called these areas by that name until the latter part of the twentieth century, when they began to be called "the West Bank" in order to make a political point, in much the same way that Western newspapers have recently begun referring to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by its Arabic name, the "Haram al-Sharif"(usually followed by "which Jews call "the Temple Mount"). No doubt the New York Times will eventually begin calling Jerusalem "al-Quds" and Hebron "al-Khalil," and then it will suddenly become a supposed right-wing political statement to refer to things by their historical designations...

[Guest at the Feast]

OK, Alexandra, I know you put this one up for me. First, I'd like to correct a few things. 1) Israel did not "occupy Arab lands" in 1967; under international law (see the analyses of Prof. Irwin Kotler, among others)it was legally left in control of what is technically known as "the Unallocated Portions of the British Palestine Mandate." That is, legally, the areas today known by the political terms of "the Gaza strip" (a part of Egypt before 1967), and "the West Bank", which wasm like "the East Bank," under Jordanian control before 1967, are legally of undefined status: they are no more Arab than they are Israeli.
2) Kenny's statement that "One does not really expect the last-days evangelicals, bless their hearts, to know very much about ecclesiastical history...." I understand that this has been your own experience, Kenny, and that your presumptions are predicated on that experience; I should like to suggest, however, that perhaps your statistical sample wasn't large enough. My own experience of people who believe in the Rapture has been with highly educated people, for instance a fellow doctoral student at Harvard who not only has a far better command of Greek, Latin, the Patristic writings in the original, and Church History than you or I, but also wrote his dissertation on certain theological ideas of Late Antiquity, did General Examinations in Church History from Roman times until 1400, taught courses at Harvard on Christianity throughout that period, etc. My best friend, for the past 13 years, has been an Evangelical who is a fellow professor of Islamic studies, and the son of an Evangelical theologian. Again, he holds a doctorate from a leading American university. Granted, my statistical sample probably isn't any more representative than yours, but we must recognize that the Evangelical movement is very large and includes both people who are highly ignorant of church history, but also people who are among the educated there are insofar as Church history or any other subject is concerned. I must confess that I have not read the "Left Behind" series, simply because they are of very poor quality, and I don't read trashy books. I think we can all recognize, though, that there is a lot more to Evangelicalism than the "Left Behind" series.
3) There seems to be a great deal of confusion here regarding what Zionism actually is: Zionism is simply Jewish nationalism; the idea that the Jewish people, like any other nation, has a right to a national existence in its historical homeland. In that sense, even the American government is Zionist, and even the European Union pretends to be so. It is therefore incorrect when Kenny states that the "claims of Zionism are based on God's promises to Israel", even with the qualification "albeit only in part." Yitzhak Rabin was a Zionist, although the man didn't believe in God and I doubt if he ever read a Bible in his entire life. Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism as a movement, was completely secular.
I think, Alexandra and Kenny, that you are talking about something else, which is religious Zionism. This refers to people, Jewish or Christian, who look at the statements of the Bible and see in the resurrection of Jewish sovereignty in the historic Land of Israel (an event unique in the annals of human history, incidentally: there is no record anywhere of any other people having kept its national identity- in exile, scattered over the entire globe- over the course of 2,000 years and then returning and reconstituting itself) a fulfillment of Biblical statements, particularly those of the Book of Deuteronomy. Please note that the many Deuteronomic statements regarding Jewish sovereign existence in the Land are not really prophecies in the strict sense: they are factual statements about what will or will not happen to Israel, and to the Land, if Israel chooses "the blessing" or "the curse." Anyone who reads the descriptions of late-19th century travelers to the relevant Ottoman sancaks (e.g. Mark Twain, Reverend Tristram, or any other Westerner of that period), or has seen photographs of what the place looked like before the Zionists got here (in fact, one need only go to, say, present-day Ramallah, where Zionism has not reached), and compares that wasteland with the astonishing physical rehabilitation of the terrain which has taken place since then, can see why people who are familiar with the Bible and do not rule out divine intervention in human affairs would see in all of this a confirmation of the Deuteronomic text. Remember, Evangelicals tend to be very Hebrew-Bible oriented- and the parts dealing with Jewish sovereignty, exile, and rehabilitation are obviously not from the New Testament. I don't deny that Evangelicals have obviously combined this Hebrew Bible awareness with the Book of Revelations- that is the Christian way. But I think that the bedrock of Christian Zionism lies first and foremost in its recognition of Jewish national resurrection as something not in the ordinary course of human history.
As for the Israeli religious Zionists: they regard the resurrection of national sovereignty (or did) in a very similar light to that in which the Evangelical Protestants regard it. In fact, the official prayer for the blessing of the State in all the prayer books denotes Israel as "the beginning of the flowering of our Redemption." So, there is a common theological basis, an intellectual or theological kinship, as it were, between Jewish religious Zionism and Christian religious Zionism. This brings me to the next point:
4) Kenny, you speak of "the Zionists" as looking for allies in some kind of calculating and unified way. This is a mischaracterization, for several reasons: first, "the Zionists" is a camp that includes Tel Aviv hippies with pierced noses who hate religion and view Israel (the type known here locally as "Hebrew-speaking goyim") merely as a secular state to which they feel no more attachment than does, say, a Mexican to Mexico; to a religious Zionist who views Israel as a significant step in God's metahistorical plan; to a Messianist who thinks that the re-establishment of Israel signals the beginning of the Redemption of mankind- not to mention all the different varieties and groups in between. There is no common calculation among these groups; in fact, they rarely even talk to one another, and at the moment these divergent groups appear to be on the verge of a civil war.
What is or has been significant is the deep emotional and theological kinship between the Jewish religious Zionists and the Christian ones. This is not something calculating in the manner that you describe; it is a natural outgrowth of a very similar world outlook, a common religious heritage, and similar or shared goals. Jewish religious Zionists of this stripe have no problem with the specific Christian element of the Christian Zionist vision: they say "Great; let the Messiah come. If he turns out to be Jesus, we'll be the first to recognize him and admit we were wrong. If you turn out to be wrong, you'll freely admit that too. Either way, we shall at last be joined."
What Alexandra's question, and Kenny's post, have not taken into account is the extreme alienation of much of the Zionist public, and virtually all of the Jewish religious Zionist public, from the institutions of the Israeli state since the making of Gaza Judenrein last summer and the current policy of selective and extremely violent enforcement of Israeli building laws against Jews only which acting Prime Minister Olmert currently appears to be pursuing.
Here is where the deep kinship and alliance between Jewish religious Zionists and Christian religious Zionists may well come into play, one way or the other. If there are any more repeats of last week's brutality at 'Amona (which left 1 unarmed 15-year old boy in a coma and several members of parliament with broken bones, head wounds, and the like), particularly if any innocent civilians are killed by a police force acting, shall we say, somewhat zealously on governmental orders, then the Christian Zionists may possibly break ranks with what they view as the unkosher Israeli government and bring pressure to bear on it through the American administration. This, of course, is pure speculation. In fact, events may well take the opposite course. Until the present, Christian Zionism is probably the one factor that has kept the American government, generally, from becoming as pathologically and reflexively anti-Israeli as the UN, the Europeans, the US State Department, and their leftist groupies would like to see the US become. Perhaps, if more scenes a la Gaza and 'Amona are repeated, the religious Zionists in both countries will simply become so disgusted and appalled that they will both simply wash their hands of the Israeli state. If that were the case, then the State of Israel might very well fall; this is, in fact, what the Islamic world is banking on.
The outcome of all this is extremely fateful for the West: as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never tires of saying, Israel is significant only as an outpost of the West; as the battle with Israel goes, so goes his war with the West. Believe me, this touches you much more than you think.

[Matt Hunt]

Alexandria,

I’m not sure how I came across your site but here I am. Maybe God sent me! But I do have relevant answers to your questions regarding the Rapture of the Christian Church and how it all works. By the way, Tim LaHaye is somewhat correct and somewhat incorrect. Here is a link to an internet radio show that explains. Download the 1/31 show (here is the link; http://chnradio.com/Archives.asp) to your desktop (save the URL in the mp3 format) and learn what is going on with Israel, God and the Jews, Jesus’ return (during the Feast of First Fruits), and the Little Horn Character from the book of Revelation. The book of Daniel, or better said, his Prophecy really opens up much for us today since Israel came back in the land on May 14, 1948. Hope your “eyes” are open enough to learn much.

[weekenderman]

I was raised in a dispensationalist home and still consider myself to be a "pre-tribber," but I've never been around those who taught that just because we believe in a "rapture" that means we are necessarily living in the "last days" -- although I do agree that we are living in the end times verses "the beginning of times."

One of the quotes in the original post is an example of how those who belittle a dispensationalist view of exchatology take things totally out of context:

"When Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 war; dispensationalists were certain that the end was near. L. Nelson Bell, Billy Graham's father-in-law and editor of Christianity Today, wrote in July 1967: 'That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives the student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible.'"

Bell's quote had absolutely NOTHING to do with the writer's statement that "dispensationalists were certain that the end was near." Bell was simply stating that we were seeing biblical prophecy being fulfilled.

[David]

Kenny Pierce beat me to the punch. Good analysis, IMO. It also shortens my comment considerably, which, since I'm in the middle of doing my annual stint in obeisance to my role as slave labor for the IRS is a help. :-)

The crux of the problem, Alexandra, is your Q: "... what impact in your opinion, if any, contemporary dispensational thinking might have on foreign policies concerning the Middle East..."

Altogether too much, IMO. No matter how little.

The kind of lame, biblically subliterate dispensationalism grown out of folks taking their Scofield references too much to heart is a real problem politically, as well as theologically. The sometime conflation of the political state of Israel with the People of Israel and biblical prophecy can and does cause an unhealthy warping of the public discourse. I see it rear its goofy head it in public discourse (with/about/by politicians) from time to time and in individual conversations with folks I _know_ make it a criterion in the voting booth. *sigh*

Over the years, my eschatological leanings have tilted ever more preterist, when I'm not leaning "pan-dispensationalist" (as in, "It's in God's hands and He'll make it all pan out." *heh*).

But as an anodyne, whenever the topic is raised in my presence, I try to remind those for whom their poor biblical exegesis leading them to view the political state of Israel with some great theological significance concerning "end times" of the scripture Kenny cites above, "The time is not yours to know. The Father has reserved that to himself." (Acts 1:7)

But too often, I feel like I'm just playing the role of King Canute... ;-)

[Kenny Pierce]

Alexandra,

I don't understand Zionists all that well (here's hoping the Guest pitches in to help us with that perspective), but I know the last-days mentality intimately -- though, as will be seen, I am emphatically not in the last-days camp myself. Guest, please correct anything I say inaccurately about Zionism here (not to imply that you are or are not any more of a Zionist yourself than I am a Last-Days-er).

The Left Behind books are:

1. Very badly written.

2. Based on incredibly bad exegesis of Scripture.

That is to say, the Left Behind books are the products of persons who can neither write nor read. Which, I'm afraid, pretty much sums up the entire last-days theological industry.

Let us assume that Christianity is absolutely true and the New Testament is the divinely inspired Word of God (for the sake of argument only, my dear Guest). I note that you will find a Frenchman who despises wine before you find a last-days enthusiast who rejects either of these two propositions.

Then the following propositions appear unassailable:

1. All the Messianic prophecies having to do with Take One, were completely misinterpreted by those who studied them most passionately.

At the very least, this makes it somewhat doubtful that God's purpose in providing foreshadowing prophecy is to enable us to figure out what's going to happen ahead of time; instead it would appear that the prophecy and the event are like a lock and a key, in which the event is not properly understood without reference to the prophecy but also the prophecy cannot be properly understand in advance of the event.

2. Jesus said, as plainly and unambiguously as was humanly possible, that nobody was going to be able to figure out when he was coming back.

One does not really expect the last-days evangelicals, bless their hearts, to know very much about ecclesiastical history...wait, I should say something here. I grew up among last-days fundamentalists and went through at least two or three separate courses in which traveling specialists on End Times Theology came to the church for a four- or five-week Sunday night series on Revelations and Daniel and Matthew 22 (I think it is). The people I grew up with were delightful people and I love them to death, and indeed I admire them much more than I admire, say, lots of the folks I went to Princeton with. They were just not exactly overflowing with educational advantages, that's all.

At any rate, many last-days enthusiasts have no idea that from the earliest days of the church there have always been people who were sure that they had figured out the code and that they knew when Jesus was a-comin' back. It is hardly necessary to observe that -- in accordance with Jesus' own warning -- such persons are collectively batting .000 to date.

Yet if you're a Zionist looking for popular support outside of the Jewish community, I would think you could hardly help but be tempted to climb in bed with the last-days crowd. There is a simple reason for this. Insofar as the claims of Zionism are based on God's promises to Israel (which I understand them to be, albeit only in part), those claims implictly appeal to the following two premises. (a) The promises of the Tanach really were promises from God (a thesis rejected by everybody except Jews and moderate-to-conservative Christians). (b) Those promises have not been temporarily suspended by virtue of the Jews' having violated the Covenant by rejecting the Messiah (a premise rejected by most of those Christians who don't reject the first premise).

Now, the only large group of non-Jewish people out there who accept both those propositions, are Last-Days-ers, who see the restoration of Israel as an act of God, think that they have figured out what God is up to, and are eager to provide Him with their assistance. Thus however much Zionists may dislike LaHaye's conviction that all the Zionists will either ultimately convert to Christianity or else burn in the everlasting brimstone fires of damnation, he and his kind are the only non-Jewish allies who are likely to respond positively to the argument, "It's our land 'cause God gave it to us three thousand years ago."

Of course Zionism has other allies, but those allies must be courted by other arguments, since they generally see the "God gave it to us" argument as a regrettable asininity to be tactfully ignored, rather than as an inducement to assist the Zionist cause. The major advantage of the last-days enthusiast, from the Zionist perspective, is that you have a decent chance of convincing the Last-Days-er that the existence of Israel is The Will Of God, in which case his support is more apt to be passionate and unwavering than the support of somebody who considers, say, that there is a great deal objectionable about the Israeli democracy but it is on the whole preferable to any of the current Arab alternatives, at least for now, and subject to ongoing review as conditions change.

There ya go, Alexandra, my two cents and not worth even that much.