Nor was I alone in this attack. Apparently Real Live Preacher had much the same problem. His site was so infiltrated with comments generated by porn sites that he just about permanently shut down his archives. You see, the porn spammers don’t attack recent posts. They go for the older posts that you are less likely to notice and maintain.

I don’t know exactly how it works, but such sites have programmatic worms that travel through the internet. These “worms” then find websites (using a means I cannot say—perhaps a stray comment or word on your site attracts them) and then create comments on blog posts. These comments contain links back to their sites.

The purpose? I asked that very question to my previous host provider. He told me the purpose is to increase their websites’ priority and visibility on Google and Yahoo searches in the internet. Those search engines have their own variety of “worms” that search the internet and make indexes and references within the Google programs. That is how when you search for keywords such as “preterist” or “heretic,” a recent column from my blog-post may appear, perhaps just hours after I write it. I don’t submit this article to Google or Yahoo. Instead, their programs find my site and update their records on their own.

Well, the more references to your own website on other websites, the higher your website will appear on the Google or Yahoo (or Bing, to remain current) becomes. Therefore, the porn sites prey on unprotected websites, attaching their comments with their nefarious links back to their own sites. These links on other site have the effect of increasing their profile—albeit, illegitimately—on the web. This increased profile brings up their sites faster on the web for those people search for such things. And they have the added bonus of linking in unaware people from other sites, who once they get there may linger.

I once wrote a post entitled “The Porn Culture Takes Over.” I have a feeling that title drew in those programmatic links like sharks sensing blood in the water. I don’t regret the article, but I do regret the results.

So I set out to clear out the problem as best I could. Unlike Real Live Preacher, I did not want to shut down my archives. Nor did I want anyone clicking on a link on my site and ending up at a porn advertisement or worse. First, I loaded a Spam filter (actually two) on my site that would do its best to at least slow down the infiltration of degenerated comments to a trickle. Then I set out on the ugly task of taking out the old comments one by one.

At first it was easy. The porn comments were computer generated and were basically filled with descriptions of lewd acts. I could sent them into the spam filters with an easy click of the mouse. Then as I got to the more recent “additions” it became harder. The comments were more generic and did not reference anything related to sexual acts. They were statements more like “Thanks for this post. I really helped me to rethink this issue.” Even later comments even somehow integrated words from my original post within them. The only way I could really be certain that the comment was false was when I examined the link within the comment it was to something like sexywomenforviewing (dot) com or something obviously tied to a more lustful reality. So to those comments as well I consigned to Spam Hades.

Then the links became less obvious. (Were these guys tracking what I was doing? It almost felt like that, though probably they were fighting millions of bloggers doing the same housekeeping chores.) Now the links went to perhaps older sites that were bought out by the porn dogs. When you linked to those sites, they automatically forwarded you to the nefarious movies and pictures, some instantly running when you got there! These had such innocent links like “wtbsradio (dot) com” or even more innocuous sites. As I said, pornographers buy out legitimate sites that lose their domain name either through death of the owner or negligence or loss of interest. They then put in imbedded links on these former legitimate sites to theirs. Even Disney and the White House have been victimized by this tactic.

And in this case, the only way to know is to test out the link by clicking on it. Now that was a really ugly business. Then I found BlueCoat’s K9 Web Protection and that helped me for awhile. It would block the website after I clicked on the link and not let it show. Then it let me know I almost went to a porn site. Unfortunately, after that, my company upgraded their Citrix programs and they conflicted with K9 so I had to uninstall it. Luckily by then, by web-cleaning (literally) was almost finished.

Now I think between my Spam Filters and my increasing ability to spot a sham comment that gets through, I have my website back down to a maximum PG rating. For those who in the past clicked on comments and went where they did not desire to go, my sincere apologies. I am doing my best to ensure it does not happen again. I such a link does occur for you, please report it to me immediately and I will get rid of it.

This goes even for links within my posts themselves. Those too may have once pointed to legitimate sites where the domain names were later taken over by the pornographers. I have tries to check out all those as well, but such changes are almost impossible to catch without, again, click on each link on a regular basis. Not something I have the time to do. And spam filters don’t catch those references. So again, if you click on a past post and go to such a site, report it to me immediately.

However, now that I have pretty much stopped the flow of porn comment spam, I have attracted a new foe. This one is even more insidious and insistent than my former enemy. And my spam filters are also being challenged (and failing miserably) to catch these messages.

Now instead of porn spam I am getting regular attacks of false comments linked back to Payday Lender sites! Part of it is my fault I guess. A few years back, I wrote in defense of these businesses—contrary to many of my friends and even my pastor and church. I still would insist that the regulations enforced on these institutions are unfair and perhaps even economically dangerous.

That is, until they targeted this site for their comment spam. Now I wish we had put them all out of business. That I guess, is the reward I earned for supporting free enterprise.

I guess I would prefer to have the payday lender spam over the porn comments. But barely ..just barely.

In fact, I regard this series of posts as taking on the best. The only major chink in the Preterist’s armor is, in my opinion, their exegesis of these few verses. As I noted previously, they “discount” the millennium of these verses into a less than 40 year span of time between AD 30 and 67. In short (pun intended), they are mistaken as to the duration of the Millennium. In this post I hope to prove they are also mistaken as to the timing the Millennium as well.

Because Preterism (at least in is most current incarnation) places the Millennium prior to AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem, they must accordingly put the events of Revelation 20 before the events of Revelation 18 and 19, which they say describe the destruction of that same city. Accordingly, in this view, Revelation Chapter 20 has to be a recapitulation rather than a continuation of the events in the previous chapters. Indeed, Preterist Tracy D. VanWyngaarden states baldly in one sentence all the assertions about Preterism and the Millenium that I have made thus far:

[O]ne cannot escape the conclusion that “the thousand years” began in connection with the one and only “binding” of Satan, which occurred in connection with Christ’s first advent. Since Jesus clearly bound Satan prior to A.D. 70 (Matt. 12:31; Heb. 2:14), and John relates the beginning of the “thousand years” at that time, (Rev. 20:2). it only follows that Johns millennium episode is a recapitulation. John was looking back to the “things which you have seen” (or, past things). The “thousand year” binding of Satan was therefore among the “things which are” (the “thousand years“ being virtually identical with the Last Days)..(Emphasis added)

Though I am not going to go into Kurt M. Simmons Two Millennial model, in developing that model, he also promotes the “recapitulation model” of Revelation 20:

In other words, the images of Rev. 20:1-10 are not progressive, but a recapitulation. There were not three end-time battles, but one; the battle of Gog and Magog is the same battle described elsewhere in Revelation under different symbols.

Sam Frost, one of the best exegetical Preterists, also posits that Revelation 20 recapitulates rather than progresses past the previous chapters. In his short Essay on the Millennium of Revelation 20, he concludes:

I have taken the position from William Hendriksen that Revelation 19:11-ff occurs at the end of the Millennium, and is parallel with Revelation 20:7-ff concerning Gog and Magog. The episode of Revelation 20:1-7 does not come after the events of Revelation 19:11-ff. Further, I have taken from other commentators (Gentry and David Chilton included) that Revelation 19 was fulfilled in the apocalyptic events of 70 AD. Therefore, the end of Millennial scheme refers to the Great Tribulation period of 66-70 AD. This places the “1000 years” between the advent of Christ’s birth, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session, and finally, his fullness in the Parousia (that “God is all in all”). (bold text added for emphasis, italics in original)

Therefore, for the premier Preterists, the 1000 year Millennium, even as a symbol, is reduced to 36-37 years. It is also assumed to have been initiated at Christ’s first advent and to have ended before the invasion of Jerusalem, even though the destruction is assumed by these same Preterists to be the subject of Chapter 19 and prior. Although Frost makes a pretty good case in showing the parallels of the events (readers are strongly recommended to check out his essay), he does not make the case that internally there is an indicator within the test that this recapitulation is occurring. Indeed, with a general reading it is difficult to read Chapter 20 as anything but a sequential progression from Chapter 19.

Other Preterists do see this discrepancy. For example, in the Questions and Comments section at Preterist.org, the following answer is found regarding the question: “Is there no millennium? Never was, never will be?” This answer was written, I assume, by Ed Stevens—also no small name in the Preterist camp.

I hope Max King’s suggestion (that the millennium was the period from 30 to 70 AD) is the correct one (it certainly sounds good). The term “thousand years” would then simply refer to the period of time while the kingdom was being built, before God came to judge His enemies. It was a time of completion. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that no man knew the day or the hour. All they could know was that it was getting close, by the signs He told them to watch for. But, I have a hard time totally accepting this theory of the millennium, since the millennium seems to fit in sequentially/chronologically after the events of Rev. 19 (which are manifestly 70 AD events). Some try to insert a “flash-back” or “recapitulation” early in Rev. 20 to get around this problem. But, I find that difficult to accept since Rev. 20:3, 4, 10 mention events that supposedly happened before the millennium started, but which are the kinds of things that were happening during the period 30-70 AD when the millennium was supposedly in progress. If these events WERE 30-70 AD events and DID happen before the millennium started, then it would seem shaky to place the millennium in the period from 30-70 AD.

Stevens notes that Revelation 20 indeed references many events that were mentioned in previous chapters of the book. For instance, Revelation 20 mentions the mark of the beast, the souls of those beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus, and the beast and false prophet being in the lake of fire. However, Revelation 20 treats these events in the past tense whereas the previous chapters regard them as occurring in the present tense. This indicates a sequential relationship rather than one of parallel or recapitulation as the majority Preterist position heralds.

Also, Dr. Duncan McKenzie, in a post at PlanetPreterist.com , also makes the case for Rev. 20 being a continuation rather than a recapitulation of Rev. 19. He notes:

One of the first matters to attend to in understanding the millennium is the question of how it fits in sequentially in relation to the rest of Revelation. Is the binding of Satan in Revelation 20:1 a continuation of the events of Revelation 19 (the AD 70 fall of Babylon and the Second Coming) or is there a recapitulation (a going back and restating events that happened earlier)? Some say that there is a recapitulation here, that Revelation 20 is going back to the time of Pentecost (c. AD 30) or even the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (c. AD 26). My position is that Revelation 20 is a continuation of the (AD 70) events of Revelation 19, not a recapitulation to the time around AD 30….

Notice the sequence in Revelation19-20. The individual beast and false prophet (the one who made people take the mark of the beast Rev. 13:11-18) are captured at the Second Coming in chapter 19 and put in the lake of fire. Satan is then taken and thrown in the abyss as the kingdom is established in chapter 20. Those who had lost their lives for not taking the mark of the beast (cf. Rev. 19:20; 13:15-16) are then resurrected in Revelation 20:4 at the beginning of the millennium. God was letting His first century audience know that the one who was faithful to Him to the point of death (cf. Rev. 2:10-11) would still get to participate in the soon coming millennial reign (Rev. 2:25-27; 3:21).

Notice the reference to the mark of the beast as a past event in both chapter 19 and 20. Revelation 20 is a continuation of the AD 70 narrative of the Second Coming not a recapitulation to AD 30.

So in summary, though some of the parallels are striking (Sam Frost almost convinces me), the best reading of Revelation 20 appears to me—at least at the present time—to be describing the state of the world after the destruction of the Temple and the Old Covenant system and not before it. However, this assertion then leaves open the nature of the Millennium and its relationship to the chapters after Rev. 20.

To that subject I will return in a subsequent post. Stay tuned.

Two more to go, and then I will have my surprise. A 25 year old surprise. but a surprise none-the-less!

Though in the varieties of theologies out there, perhaps someone has. If readers are aware of such a proposed premillennial process please let me know and send me the references, links, or literary sources.

However, my concentration is going to be on what is, in my opinion, the strongest contender in the prophecetic boxing ring today: Full Preterism. However, as I noted before, their interpretation of the Millennium is their soft underbelly that invites a one-two punch attack. In their schema, the Millennial rule of Christ supposedly starts at the ascension and ends just prior to the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 67 or before. As a result, their 1,000 year reign gets discounted to less than 37. That calculates to a discount of over 96%. You couldn’t get a deal like that on eBay!

Nor am I the only one to notice this weakness. Keith Mathison made this very point (perhaps his only good argument, in his contribution to the anti-Preterist diatribe, When Shall These Things Be: A Reformed Response to Hyper-Preterism:

The most serious problem is that their [the Preterists'] ‘Millennium’ is too short…Full preterists chide futurists for not taking seriously biblical language that denotes a short period of time…However, whether literal or figurative, “a thousand years” denotes a vast period of time. To suggest that “a thousand years” is symbolic of one generation of 40 years or less, I believe, stretches credulity to its breaking point. …I would suggest that “comprehensive preterists,” with their doctrine of the millennium, are not taking seriously enough Biblical language which clearly indicates a long period of time. I believe this is nothing but hermeneutical arbitrariness. We must take all time frame indicators seriously, those that point to short periods of time and those that point to long periods of time. (pg. 241)

Though I hate to side with Mathison against the Preterists, the fact that the Preterists make the 1,000 year reign of Christ last less than 40, is a problem. Nor is Mathison alone finding this glaring weakness. In his website, Joseph R. Balyeat (author of Babylon: the Great City of Revelation) also rather gleefully sends an uppercut to this same interpretive issue:

[I]t seems to me that full preterism at times suffers from the same chronological blindness which preterists are so quick to criticize futurists for. I agree with you that it is quite ridiculous for futurists to claim that “soon” means 2,000 years and “the time is at hand” means 2 millennia. Yet, elsewhere in the book of Revelation (chapter 20), we read about events which were not to happen “soon”, but rather “at the end of 1,000 years”. These events include: the release of Satan for a short time to gather the remaining ungodly from the dark corners of the earth; the final judgment and second death of the wicked, etc. While I agree that the 1,000 years was not meant to be literal, it certainly does indicate a very long period of time. Yet the full preterist position argues that even these events were fulfilled in A.D. 70 or shortly thereafter (i.e., the Bar Kochba rebellion in A.D. 135). “Consistent” preterists become very in-consistent when they rail on futurists for saying “soon could mean 2,000 years”, while they themselves say “1,000 years could mean soon”. Are the time indicators relevant or aren’t they?

So how do the Preterists defend themselves on this hermeneutical problem without falling on the ropes? How do they support their contention that 1,000 years can be compressed into 37? To their credit, at least they don’t ignore the issue hope it goes away. I quote from Alan Bondar’s book, Reading the Bible Through New Covenant Eyes. Building on Mathison’s admission that the number 1,000 is used symbolically, Bondar then notes..

If “a thousand” is to be taken figuratively, then why must the work “years” be taken literally? In other words, couldn’t it be just as well that John is not defining a literal period of time at all, whether it is actually one thousand exactly or a longer period of time? John could just as well be figuratively describing the perfect accomplishments of Christ that no earthly king could possibly accomplish. In fact, if “the figure…is the number of quantitative perfection,” then John is figuratively defining the prefect reign rather than a length of time….The thousand-year reign of Revelation 20 is not about how long Christ would reign with His saints. The thousand-year reign of Revelation 20 is about what would be perfectly accomplished during those forty years.

Well, no. If it is a symbol of quantitative perfection, as Bondar admits, then it must remain a quantitative symbol. It should not then be changed to a qualitative symbol. That is switching the category of the ultimate meaning of the symbol midstream.

At least the full preterist, Kenneth J. Davies, in his response to Mathison, maintains the 1,000 years of the Millennum as a quantitative symbol. In his post, entitled rather inflammatorily, A Response to the False Witness of Keith Mathison: as Found in His Presentation Named Playing With Fire:

The period from AD 30-70 is too short a time period to fit the symbol of “1,000 years” found in Rev. 20, according to Mr. Mathison. It seems that to more than double the number of years this symbol represents is perfectly acceptable to Mathison, but not to “shorten” it!

Well, yes. Again, I have to agree with Mathison. For those in the first century and not in our inflationary times, a “thousand” was a very large number. Most people would not live to see a thousand of anything in their presence. Barring the main city of Jerusalem, the other major cities barely would have 1,000 residents. Even the title of the rather popular collection 1,001 Arabian Nights, published much later than the first century A.D. kept this association. According to one reviewer “At first the title was merely indicative of a large number of stories; later editors dutifully provided editions with the requisite 1,001 tales.”

So does a 40 year, from A.D. 30 to A.D. 70 or the 37 year period from 30 to 67 meet the definition of a large number of years? Does it seem reasonable to use a symbol of 1,000 years to represent this number? It simply has to represent a larger number than a 37 or 40 year period. A perfect number, certainly; at symbolic number, admittedly; but a larger number of years than 40, necessarily!

If the Preterists hold on to this interpretation, then time statements of any kind, their beloved “soon” passages, especially as they are referenced within this same “symbolic” book, also fall into the black hole of meaninglessness. They will be knocked right out of the Prophetic Arena because of their Millennial glass jaws. They will, like the line from On The Waterfront, be taken out of the Prophetic ring, only to declare to anyone who would bother to listen, “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am..”

In his book, Naked Before God: The Return of the Broken Disciple, Bill Williams give his equivalent of “the last lecture.” Williams, a CF patient, died soon after the book was published in 1988. In the book, he merges past and present as his counterpart—Nathaniel the disciple, also dying of CF—interacts with Jesus and the other apostles. Since neither Nathaniel nor Williams has much to lose, they ask the hard questions and make the even harder observations.

One of them was something that has also bothered me for quiet some time: Rev. 20-21, the relationship between the Millennium and the New Jerusalem that come after. As Williams notes (pgs 57-8), if the New Jerusalem represents Heaven or Eternity, why is there healing still going on?

Then he showed me the sparkling river of the water of life, clear as crystal. It flowed from the throne of God and Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city. On either side stood a tree of life, yielding twelve crops of fruit, one for each month of the year; and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)

[jesus speaking to Nathaniel] “Now I ask you: what are the leaves for, if the nations that can reach them are already healed?”

When you combine that question with issues dealing with the Millennium and the whole eschatological edifice falls to pieces. In short, if the New Jerusalem is heaven, as it commonly interpreted, or after the resurrection from the dead and the judgment, then who is left to be healed? In all of the more popular interpretations, once the New Jerusalem is in place, all the bad guys are in the lake of fire and all the saints are in translated and glorified bodies.

This assertion is true for classic Premillennialism, Dispensationalism, Amillennialism, and even Postmillenialism. All of these theories assume that Rev. 21-22 represents a future event, a time when Heaven and Earth merge together and God has put everything, as N. T. Wright states, to rights. They may disagree on the nature of the Millennium (Rev 20:1-7), but all of the positions agree that after the Millennium comes the Judgment and then eternity.

Williams question blasts that assumption to bits. In the process, he blasts all four Millennial positions to bits as well. If there are people who need healing, then whatever the time of the New Jerusalem is, it is not Heaven and it is not Eternity. At least it cannot be Heaven or Eternity as writers in those positions use the terms..

Even a bigger issue is the recipients of the healing leaves from New Jerusalem. Just who are the “nations” or “ethnic groups” for whom the leaves are produced? Not those in Hell, unless you believe in redemption from Hell after death (any takers?). Certainly not those in Heaven, who are “healed” by definition already.

And if the New Jerusalem is not eternity or heaven, then just what is the millennium in Revelation? Only in the idealist/preterist viewpoint does this verse begin to make sense, in as much as those two schemes do not make Revelation future but implemented at the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem.

But even that august Eschatology has issues. As I noted in my last post, the Preterists assume that the second coming happened in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and we are not in the eternal messianic kingdom.

So where does the 1,000 year reign of Christ fit in? After all, a chronological reading of Revelation has the Millenium happening AFTER the destruction of Jerusalem/Babylon depicted in chapter 19. Yet the millennium is not an eternal age, lasting 1,000 years with an explicit terminus of Satan’s destruction in the Lake of Fire. Yet many if not most Preterists claim this even also happened at A.D. 70.

So what is this millennium of which John speaks. The Preterists claim chapter 20 is a re-capitulation of the previous chapters, in essence being identical with the period after Christ’s resurrection to just before the Jewish War of A.D. 67-70. Alan Bondar’s book, Reading the Bible Through New Testament Eyes, makes much the same assertion.

So the 1,000 year Millenium lasts less than 37 years. And if you read them carefully, the years A.D. 30 to 67/70 are also referenced as “the Last Days.” So in this position, 1,000 years and Last Days are symbols that reference an identical period of time. Now I agree symbols are flexible, but I think this identify stretches beyond my person endurance. One obviously gives the impression of a short period of time (last days) and the other a period somewhat longer (1,000 years).

At least a more honest Preterist is the author of the website Prophecyhistory.com>/a>. He places the millennium as the actual 1,000 year period after the destruction of Jerusalem. The problem is that nothing of real significance happened in A.D. 1070. The author sites the occupation of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks. Frankly I don’t think that was so earth shattering as the Lord’s pre-occupation with Jerusalem was over in A.D. 70. Also, the author agrees, as he does not see Satan’s destruction until the start of the Protestant Reformation. So Satan’s “short” release was a period of time almost half as long as the Millenium (1070-around 1517). Again, this assertion stretches the language a bit, even for symbolism.

Curiously, the Catholic Preterist, Maurice Williams, in Revelation: Fall of Judea, Rise of the Church makes the millennium date from the fall of Rome to the Start of the Reformation. In his view, Satan’s release was the cause of the Reformation and not his destruction.

So I guess it depends on which side of the Protestant/Catholic fence you sit that determines the nature of the millennium and its dating. Not the best example of exegesis, I would think.

I would prefer to get my exegesis from within the text of the Scriptures themselves. Here I think the Book of Revelation will give us a better key. After all, John expected his audience to be wise, but he did expect them to understand. If they can, with some work, we should as well.

And it should be a result that satisfies both a Millennial rule of Christ, the underlying meaning/impression built into the symbolic language, and the situation where nations remain healed by leaves from the New Jerusalem. Perhaps if I can find such an integration, Bill Williams’ last questions will not have been in vain.

Stay Tuned.

Bondar did not come to this position easily. In fact, according to his acknowledgements, he was converted to this position during the course of writing this book.

The first three chapters of this book were the contents of that original, incomplete manuscript. My intention was to help people learn to read the Bible in context. I had a totally different direction in mind for the rest of the book. But as I began to put my own words into practice, I realized that my intended conclusions for the rest of the book were not being drawn from my prescribed method of reading the Bible

That change in direction is the strength and weakness of the book. As a strength, it has helped in create a good and fairly non-technical introduction to the arguments in favor of this Eschatology. But the weakness remains that these first three chapters need some expansion, as I think they are critical to Bondar’s position. It appears that Bondar rushed past them to get to the “good stuff” of presenting and defending Full Preterism. For the record, these three propositions are:

• The Bible was written to a particular audience
• The Bible was written in a particular time
• The Bible was written for our joy

I agree wholeheartedly with these three statements. But they are not drawn out nearly as much as I think they should be. If they are the base of his methodology, then they deserve more than the few pages they are given. For example, since, as Bondar claims—and I agree—most readers assume that he Bible was written directly to them, some of the techniques for breaking this engrained mental pattern should be presented. Accordingly, it is imperative when reading Paul to identify to whom his pronouns apply. Sometimes “we” may be the Apostles, sometimes it is Paul and his companions, sometimes it is the Jews, sometimes it is the entire church. If we assume “we” (pun intended) is always all Christians at all times, a misunderstanding of Paul is going to be the inevitable result. Indeed, Bondar uses this process in pages 213-218 when discussing 2 Corinthians 3 and 4. But it comes out of the blue. Though perhaps natural to Bondar, this methodology should have been explained in the first chapter. After all, it helps define exactly who is “the particular audience.”

Second, though the methodology of Bondar’s three statements led him to full Preterism, it is not clearly explained how! I think a new section transitioning to his defense of full Preterism is in order. I assume the time references to all the prophecies (soon, about to come, etc.) when combined with recognizing the first century audience receiving these words was a first century audience would make Bondar’s case. Indeed, Alan may even say this is obvious. I would say, to the audience intended for this book—those not familiar with the position—this transition needs better clarification. I would put such a defense between the first three chapters and Bondar’s later expounding of Full Preterism. In short, take the reader by the hand and help him learn the basic strokes before pushing them headfirst into the Preterist pool.

All that said, I think Bondar’s book fills a much need gap for those who wish to discuss full Preterism, or at least explore the position. It is, as I said, a good introduction to the position that still gives some pretty weighty exposition and exegesis of the Scriptures should the reader wish to go deeper. Certainly it is much more “newbie” friendly than, say the works of Don Preston and some others in the Preterist camp.

In terms of its convincing ability, I cannot say as I am pretty much a full Preterist myself. My only hesitations are the more common Preterist interpretations of the Millenium of Revelation 20, their assertion that the New Covenant Age—and therefore the planet Earth—will last for eternity, and some measure of Gnostic rejection of the value of the physical creation over the a spiritualized existence in heaven. Nor are these explicit requirements of this eschatology, as Sam Frost—another full preterist—has noted them himself.

Overall, with these few criticisms aside, this is an excellent book. Its defense appears cogent and complete. Also, Bondar writes without the rancor one often finds in this camp against “the futurists.” He is a gracious as well as a persuasive writer. Those looking to investigate Full Preterism could not find a better introductory volume. It is readable and enjoyable. I look forward to his next book.

Reading the Bible Through New Covenant Eyes can be ordered here. Note that the price varies as sometimes the publisher offers deals without notice. Also be aware that the book may take some time to be shipped—almost six weeks in my case—as it appears the publisher does a printing based on demand rather than doing a full run up front.

However, it is worth the wait. Well worth the wait.

Or as the ultimate Atheist, Chairman Mao said, “Morality comes at the barrel of a gun.” Yep, that’s all that is left for atheism.

Yet the new atheists write books, do lectures and debates in order to convince the world to drop God from their vocabulary and their lives. I don’t read or listen much. “It’s just their opinion.” I also take N.T. Wright’s word on the matter, that the books are just incredibly boring.

Still, life takes some interesting turns. Now the prominent atheist, Richard Dawkins is having second thoughts; maybe not about God, but about the desirability of a culture without God: or at least a certain God among the mix. Says Dawkins, regarding the decreasing influence of Christianity in Europe, and Britain in particular:

There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings. I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death. I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, in so far as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.

It is really kind of (tragically) funny. For the last few decades, Europe was exactly the kind of culture in which Dawkins would have reveled. Despite having an established church (or perhaps because of it), the laws became increasingly pluralistic and the people became more and more secular and–dare we say it–atheistic.

Yet, this without-God culture was not without a price. Hope, generally a byproduct of a belief in a beneficial Deity, withered. As a consequence, the European existence became more concentrated in the pleasures of the present instead. This left little room for such future oriented pursuits (and present oriented sacrifice) as the creation of families and the propagation and raising of children.

As the columnist Spengler often notes, this leads to a shrinking population, until it can no longer support a substructure. The culture becomes one of death.

A sick cat or dog will crawl into a hole to die. The members of sick cultures do not do anything quite so dramatic, but they cease to have children, dull their senses with alcohol and drugs, become despondent, and too frequently do away with themselves. This is not due to an inborn death-drive, contrary to the odious Freud, but rather a symptom of a culture’s mortal illness.

Therefore, to ward off the death of their society (and to pay for the “social security” of the bulging mass of retirees who did not have enough children to pay for their own pensions), the culture opens itself up to immigration. From where else can the worker base be increased enough to provide the necessary tax base to pay for the nation to sustain itself?

Europe brought in Muslim groups, who in the economies of Europe, found a hope in the future (unlike in their own homelands). With that hope, came children–large numbers of them. So much so that the population shift, unless something changes drastically–such as massive Muslim conversions to Christianity–the trend is inevitable.

As Spengler often quips, “In 200 years, French and German will be spoken exclusively in hell.” As Mark Stein noted in his book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, the demographics of Europe indicate that the Muslims will be the majority group in Europe in 50 years. Already they are a strong influence. Per Stein:

But in the same three decades as Ulster’s “Troubles,” …large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration…On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic…Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives(the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America)to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine.

In 2008, when Maclean’s magazine printed the chapter that contained the above quote, they were promptly sued by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

What a difference two years makes. What Stein and Maclean’s were sued for, now Dawkins warns against openly. Europe, having abandoned its Christian roots, became an atheist and pluralistic state. As such, it was helpless before Muslims’ more stalwart (and fertile) population. Now even the Bishop of England declares that Shariah Law in Britain is now “unavoidable.”

The Church in Europe and History may not have been perfect, but now even Hawkins notes that what may replace it will be worse.

Too bad he never said that in his books.

So I expect Hawkins, in order to enhance Europe and the survival of Western Culture will cancel his future debates and speeches. Certainly he will pull his books off the shelves and contribute his past profits to the cathedrals and churches in Europe to help them remain that “bulwark against something worse.”

Not!

After all, its only his opinion. Hawkins goes the new atheists one better in that opinion does not carry any weight even with himself.

Well, there aren’t very many left. But I figured I had better make certain these all get posted. Hope you enjoy them.

However, once they are all finished I will have a bit of a surprise for everyone.

For most people déjà vu is a experiential. For most people. Not for me.

For me, déjà vu is intellectual; or perhaps, literary. Concepts and ideas from books I read stay stored in the compounds of my memory (sometimes to exact pages). Then something I currently read retrieves the memory and beads it together in the present to make a philosophical pearl necklace.

For example, the first science fiction novel I ever read I picked out of a box at a garage sale when I was about 14 years old and bought for a dime. It was Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. I had no idea of its later cult status. I picked it up because the cover “looked neat.” (Hey, I was 13!) However, it rapidly became my favorite book. If nothing else, it taught me to question the unnamed presuppositions of our culture.

One of the quotes that burned itself into my now decreasingly effective brain cells was the following:

‘Grok’ means all of these. It means ‘fear,’ it means ‘love,’ it means ‘hate’–proper hate, for by the Martian ‘map’ you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you–then you can hate. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate–and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.

That literary bead was retrieved once when I was reading Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh’s book, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. The section of the book that caught my eye discussed the concepts of love and hate in first century Mediterranean culture:

The term “love,” for example, is best translated “group attachment, attachment to some person.”…Correspondingly, “hate” would mean “disattachment, nonattachment, indifference.” (Page 180, emphasis added)

So in the Middle Eastern culture of Jesus, to hate did not necessarily mean to be actively against someone. In fact, it often meant the opposite. A person who was hated in the Middle East was not even considered worth the effort to be engaged at any level. It was not that you had negative emotions; you had no emotions at all toward them.

One can see this in Jesus’ reactions to the Pharisees as opposed to the Sadducees. Modern readers assume that Jesus hated the Pharisees due to his frequent and angry encounters with them. At the same time, they assume he was less angry with the Sadducees since there are few recorded words that Jesus had with these groups outside of his trial.

However, the opposite is the case. Jesus argued with the Pharisees mostly because they were the closest in the First Century Jewish factions to his own beliefs. They believed in the more expanded cannon of the Hebrew Scriptures than did the Sadducees. They also believed in angels, demons, and most importantly, the resurrection from the dead. Jesus argued with them over their interpretations of the Law and the books of Moses, but did not dispute their authority or their value of these documents. In short, to Jesus, the Pharisees were worth the effort to engage in verbal debate and argumentation.

Not so the Sadducees. Jesus low regard for this group, his hatred for their betrayal of the Land and its people, made him indifferent of them as a group. He left them, one could say abandoned them, to their fate. Like the Martians in the Heinlein quote, his hatred was “an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.” They were hated with such a black hatred that they were not even worth the time it would take to argue with them.

Which brings me to the last bead on the necklace. I was reading in Mark Galli’s book, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God, when I came across the following:

We often confuse patience and tolerance. But between them lies an eternity of difference. To tolerate others you don’t have to agree with them; you don’t have to like them. You simply allow them to exist unmolested, to peacefully coexist with you. You respect their personal choices and refrain from imposing your personal choices on them. If you seek to convince others that their choices are morally wrong, harmful, or even evil, and that your choice is morally right and good—well, you are considered insensitive, intolerant, and unloving.

In short, to be “tolerant” is to be indifferent to the moral choices and behavior of others. It is to be so unconcerned about them as to deem their actions not worthy of an argument. At best, again, their actions, and they themselves, are only worth on an emotional scale an attitude of “mild distaste.”

In the culture of Jesus (and probably, if we admit it, in ours) to “be tolerant” is little different than to “hate.” We don’t value the person enough to even disagree or argue with them. Like the judgment of God, we “give them over” to the consequences of their actions without a fight. Such is the way of tolerance. We don’t attach ourselves to others because we have devalued them to little more than the widow’s mite. Our tolerance hides the small, miserly way in which we love (attach ourselves to) others.

One could say tolerance has become our modern society’s highest virtue. If true, than to Jesus and his contemporaries, our society has made a virtue out of hatred.