My apologies to hokie fan for maintaining office hours at a Church without an internet connection. Allow me to redeem myself with this consideration.
The prophecy claims of dispensational premilleniallists (the Left Behind crowd) are really based on overliteral interpretations of what's clearly symbolic material. (i.e. The Revelation to John, Ezekiel, Daniel.)
It's further mistranslated, misunderstood or misapplied by projection from the 1st century C.E. into the 21st century C.E. Dispensational premillenialism -- a.k.a. Christian Zionism -- is all the rage with most of the prophecy specialists teaching that chain of events such as we find in the Left Behind series. It is, however, the least traditional and least followed biblical interpretation. Serious biblical scholars would also argue that it is the most biblically accurate interpretation of the events as described in the Revelation to John.
The most biblical interpretation -- and the most traditional view of the Christian church since its founding -- is amillenialism, that is, non-millenialism. This is the belief that "the thousand years" is merely symbolic for the age of the success of Christianity. The 144,000 is also a symbolic number -- representing a number too great to be counted. But to take Revelation literally? Why? Psalm 90:4 reminds us, For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. What's that -- 8 hours at most? A millenium is just a drop in the bucket against the background of eternity.
The greatest majority of Christians around the world will have no truck nor trade with millenialism -- this includes the Roman Catholic Church with over 1 billion followers, Eastern Orthodoxy with 350 million followers. Add in Lutherans, the Anglican communion, the Reformed tradition, Presbyterians and probably a good deal more Protestant groups.
The Dispensationalist rapture theology has been around only since 1830 when the young Scotswoman Margaret McDonald claimed to have a revelation. A traveling evangelist named J.N. Darby took it on as his own theology and marketed it rather successfully to the 19th century American church while an American preacher named Cyrus Scofield deliberately edited a Bible edition to amplify Darby's theology. McDonald, Darby and Scofield must have figured the Christian church had it all wrong during its first eighteen centuries.
Now to set aside some arguments that millenialists often throw at amillenialists -- that is the greatest majority of Christians around the world -- we do believe in the Second Coming of Christ. In fact, we eagerly await that day. However, what we disagree about is the timetable of the millenialists.
Most millenialists and prophecy purveyors will start with the prophecies of Jesus Christ himself and claim they will soon take place, probably in our generation. Take for instance the prophecies Christ made on the Mount of Olives which end, this generation will not pass away until all these things are accomplished. Jesus said that around 33 C.E. What the prophecy franchisees forget is that these things have already taken place. These prophecies -- and many prophecies, for that matter -- all have to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. For Jews, this would mean the end of the world -- because there was no concept of God's dwelling with the people without the Temple. Jerusalem was indeed destroyed 37 years after Jesus made his prophecies that not one stone would rest upon another -- this happened in 70 C.E. Perfect fulfillment of prophecy.
However, this isn't good enough for dispensationalist premillenialists who transfer most of this prophecy from the 1st century C.E. to the 21st century C.E. and start thinking that Daniel's vision of things flying in the sky must be airplanes or helicopters. All biblical prophecy passages must be interpreted in their historical context and not projected two thousand years later. Why would prophecies exist that only mean something to us, thus rendering them completely meaningless to billions of Christians who have held to these prophecies for 2000 years?
The bad things that Jesus prophecied took place when Jerusalem was destroyed. Amillenialists believe that we can now look forward to the good things He predicted for believers. All of them, including the Rapture -- in which we do believe -- are a part of the great resurrection of the dead at the end of time when Jesus returns. The Church has had it right all along in the Creed, I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.
Amillenialism is pure, sublime and simple and without the additional clutter from overactive imaginations in the last two centuries.
I truly believe that while Tim Lahaye and his millenialist colleagues have the best interests of Christianity at heart, they are doing more damage than benefit to the Christian church. People get so hung up on apocalyptic predictions that they panic and prepare for the end when there is no end. Let's not forget the lunacy that took place toward the close of 1999. There were some Christian leaders who warned believers about "the great Y2K menace." People really thought the end of the world was about to happen because a human measurement of time in existence for less than 2 millenia had reached a multiple of 1000.
There are some violently psychotic "Christian" millenialist groups who are totally pro-Israel and anti-Arab. I emphasize "Christian" in that way, because the majority of Christians in the Holy Land are Arab descendants of the earliest Christians. They are being pushed out of the Holy Land by these millenialist groups who are so excited about getting as many Jews as possible into the Holy Land to assist in the Second Coming of Christ. They have raised money to fund illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and bought up land inhabited by Arab Christians since time immemorial in Jerusalem. Some are so psychotic that they are actively raising money to build a new Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (on the Temple Mount, of course -- never mind that the third most holy site in Islam is there right now) so that the AntiChrist can sit inside it and supposedly bring on the last days and Jesus' triumphant return.
The group "Christians For Israel" is a Christian millenialist group that has repeatedly compared Islam to Nazism in their publications and deny that the God of Islam is the God of Christianity and the God of Judaism. Never mind that God, Allah, Adonai are all the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. "Christians for Israel" raises money to return all Jews to Israel to hasten the Second Coming. By doing so they also accomplish Hitler's dream of making Europe Judenrein. As though Jesus needs us to help him along!
The true heart of Christianity -- the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- gets displaced in favour of amateurish forecasting of the future. What thinking person can believe in a god who would gleefully crash airliners into the ground because he has raptured Christian pilots out of their cockpits?
It is truly sad because these prophecy prognosticators -- most of whom cannot agree amongst themselves -- have massive resources at their disposal. Consequently it is their message that is often heard and many non-Christians wrongly assume that their bizarre interpretations of biblical prophecy are the norm for our Christian faith, when they are clearly not.
