From: jfb@macsch.com (John Baskette)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Hal Lindsay's Writings on Prophesy
Date: 11 Jan 93 08:49:17 GMT
Organization: MacNeal-Schwendler Corp.

Hello John,

I've read your version of the different viewpoints held by Christians about
what will happen at the 2nd coming.

I believe that what you written appears to confound various aspects of the
different views.  

>1) Pre-millennialism - all Christians will be taken up to heaven before the
>"thousand years of tribulation" predicted in the book of Revelation. Lindsey's
>books take this viewpoint, and proceed to instantiate other prophecies in
>Revelation and elsewhere with current world events, to suggest that the 2nd
>coming is very close. As far as I understand, Pre-millennialism is less widely
>believed now than it used to be, and Lindsey's writings are not considered
>valid by anyone who has seriously studied the subject. 

There is no belief in a "thousand years of tribulation".  The event known as
the great tribulation is described in Matt. 24, the olivet discourse.  There
are two common views concerning this tribulation period.  One view is that 
Jesus's prophecy of this tribulation was historically fulfilled when 
Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70.  The other view is that this 
tribulation period is a future event that takes place immediately before
Christ's 2nd coming in judgment.  

Dispensationalists like Hal Lindsey hold that this tribulation occurs during 
the 70th week of Daniel, a 7 year period that transpires immediately before 
Christ's 2nd coming.  Dispensationalists believe in a two phase return of 
Christ.  Christ returns secretly at the start of the 7 years to resurrect 
all the Christians and remove them to heaven.  This is the imminent return 
of Christ to rapture the church.  (For more on the rapture get the book
_The Rapture Pre-, Mid-, or Post-tribulational?_ by four authors; Richard R.
Reiter, Gleason L. Archer, Paul D. Feinberg, and Douglas J, Moo.)  Christ's 
2nd coming in judgment occurs at the end of the 7 years.  In all cases the 
tribulation is a short period of time, no more than a few years.

The 1000 year millennium is a period where Christ rules on the earth and the 
world is a paradise.
            
You are correct in saying that Hal Lindsey promotes the idea that the 2nd 
coming is an event that will occur soon.  This idea should not be confounded
with the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ.  This teaching says that
Christ could return at any moment.  There are no events that necessarily 
precede His return.  It is possible, however, that the 2nd coming could 
occur 1000 years from now.  The doctrine of the imminent return is a 
Dispensational distinctive, but there are others who teach it as well such
as J. Barton Payne who wrote _The Imminent Appearing of Christ_.

Pre-millennialists can be categorized as follows:

1.)  Historic pre-millennial.  The church from the time of Augustine to the 
     19th century rejected pre-millennial teachings as did many, if not
     most of the church fathers.  There were some church fathers, however,
     who it appears were pre-millennial.  For example, Justin Martyr.
     Historical pre-millennial thinkers, however, have much more in common
     with amillennialists and post-millennialists than with the other 
     variety of pre-millennial.  My own bias is for this position.  George E. 
     Ladd who wrote _The Blessed Hope_ and _The Gospel of the Kingdom_ and
     who taught at Fuller Theological Seminary was an advocate for this 
     position.  Fuller Seminary is one of the leading American "evangelical"
     seminaries.  It has fallen in some disfavor with many American 
     evangelicals and fundamentalists because the school no longer holds
     to the doctrine of inerrancy.

2.)  Dispensational pre-millennial.  This position advocates Pre-millennialism
     as part of the Dispensational system of prophetic teaching.  A book 
     that deals with this system in some detail is J. Dwight Pentecost's book
     _Things to Come_.  Pentecost is a teacher at Dallas Theological
     Seminary.  Hal Lindsey graduated from Dallas.  I posted a couple weeks
     back a brief summary of Dispensational teaching.  I have observed that
     our moderator has saved this summary in his FAQ collection on 
     info.rutgers.edu, in /pub/soc.religion.christian/others.

     There are teachers of note who are dispensationalistic, but who 
     rejects one of the major distinctive, the pre-tribulational rapture.
     A book from this perspective is _The Church and the Tribulation_ by
     Robert H. Gundry.

>2) Post-millennialism - all Christians will be taken up to heaven after
>enduring the 1000 years of tribulation

See above.  My understanding of Post-millennialism is that the church 
will eventually evangelize the whole world and bring about a 1000 reign of 
universal peace and righteousness before Christ's return.  There have been
some good posts relating this to Dominion theology.

>3) Amillennialism - there won't be a literal "thousand years of tribulation"

If you had said `literal millennium' you would be correct.  The A-mill 
millennium is a figure of the spiritual and heavenly reign of Christ.

>4) Dispensationalism. There's a FAQ on this complex subject (or at least, a
>summary of people's views). To summarize briefly, history is supposed to be
>divided into a number of time periods, or "dispensations", in which God works
>in slightly different ways - e.g. Adam to Noah was one dispensation, when
>God's intervention in human affairs appears to be slight, but Moses to Christ
>was another, because God then operated through the Law. We are currently in
>the second last dispensation, with the last one - the Kingdom of God -
>occurring after the 2nd coming. Personally, I have argued against
>dispensationalism, on the grounds that its theology excludes the existence of
>supernatural spiritual gifts today (they are assumed to belong to the
>"establishment of the church" dispensation), that its placement of the Kingdom
>of God in the future does not agree with Jesus' sayings, and that it lacks
>Biblical justification - but this is supposed to be a brief summary.  

Your description of dispensationalism is good, but I must mention the following:

1.)  There are "ultra-dispensationalists" who divide the early church age into
     small little dispensations and who have very strange, sometimes heretical
     views.  These are not representative of normal Dispensational teaching.

2.)  Rejection of the supernatural spiritual gifts is not a distinctive of 
     dispensationalism.  The bigger Pentecostal denominations such as the 
     Assembly of God teach Dispensational theology.  Hal Lindsey accepts the
     presence of supernatural gifts in the church today.

God bless.

John Baskette  jfb@macsch.com