Through the winter and into spring we at Pacific Community Church have been preaching through the book of Revelation. It has been one of the most challenging and stimulating series done at Pacific. I just came across Scott McKnight’s “Converting our Imagination” posts.  They are worth the reading as the series challenges the normalized assumptions about interpreting Revelation.  The posts are summaries and responses to Ted Gorman’s book on Revelation, “Reading Revelation Responsibly“.  Gorman has a few things to say about the “Left Behind” Theology.

…check out Scot Mcknight’s blog for more…

Scot states, “He finds three kinds of problems: hermeneutical, theological and political.Hermeneutical problems for Left Behind:

1. Not fiction simply but theology combined with an attempt to be almost like a documentary. Left Behind is like an advance DVD.
2. The Bible is a puzzle to be put into a futurist script. Hopscotch method.
3. It is selectively literal.
4. Misunderstands the nature and function of both prophetic and apocalyptic literature.
5. Finds a two-fold “coming” of Christ in Rapture and then Parousia.
6. Dispensationalism is a 19th Century approach.
7. We are on the brink of the Rapture and Tribulation … that’s what matters.
8. Misses the richest theological content: Alpha and Omega.

Theological and Spiritual Problems

1. End times is about the period between First and Second Coming.
2. To much about Rapture, and unhealthy concern with details that are unknowable.
3. Fear dominates.
4. Discipleship is reduced … in a number of ways.
5. Escapist.
6. It is inherently militaristic.
7. Anti-Catholic.
8. Fails to see the Church as the peaceful alternative.

Political problems.

1. Uncritically pro-American.
2. Privileges the modern State of Israel uncritically.
3. Suspicious of everything connected to United Nations.
4. Wars in the Middle East are justified and justifiable.
5. It is survivalist and crusader in approach.

He sees this as “thoroughly misguided.” It is dangerous theology. Killing for Jesus is justified.”

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