And then….
Then….
Don’t mind me.
Christian Nationalism
- Thread starter Polds4OSU
- Start date
UpGrayedd Double Dose
New member
I'm glad y'all were able to carry on the debate while I was gone.
First, let me restate that debating the rapture with a non-Christian is pointless as the gospel is foolishness to them, let alone eschatology.
Second, just because Google/AI told you that the concept of the rapture didn't exist until 1830 doesn't make it true.
Finally, (and this is the point I have been trying to get across all along, but have obviously done a poor job) there are many, many different view points on what the rapture means, when it will occur, and exactly how it will occur. While I have my own specific beliefs on what it means, I am also honest enough and smart enough to admit I don't know for sure what will occur. For any Christian to claim that all rapture view points are heresy or that they know exactly what is going to happen in the end times beyond a shadow of a doubt is extremely naive.
Edited to correct spelling of naive.
Once again you ignore what I've said and dismiss it rather than address it.
I'm not a non-Christian. I'm a believer. I worked for an evangelical university for 13 years. Though I no longer identify as an evangelical, I still attend an evangelical church (I have my reasons). So this dismissal simply won't work with me.
I have a Bible degree. I haven't google/AI anything. It is a well known fact that the evangelical movement began in 1830 with the publication of the Schofield Study Bible.
I also didn't google/AI the fact that 1 Thess was written before Rev. This is not a "viewpoint". This is a historical fact. So if we want to know what the original audience thought when they read the letter from Paul, they could not have possibly have had in mind something that would have been written 40 years or so in the future.
I never once mentioned heresy. I said "false doctrine". Heresy and "false doctrine" are not the same thing. I believe it to be a misinterpretation, based on ignorance, but not a purposeful one. It does not lead to damnation. Heresy leads to damnation. Stop putting words in other people's mouths.
And yes, I understand all the pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, a-trib, etc. I believe they are all incorrect. There is no rapture. They are all incorrect. The church at Thessalonica simply could not have read Paul's letter that way.
First off, you are rolling out an incredible number of straw mans. It really isn't possible to have a good faith debate if you are consistently misrepresenting other peoples points and baselessly accusing people of using AI. I may be a non-theist at this point, but I have a masters degree in theology from an evangelical seminary and know the debates and positions well. What do you have to approach this conversation with such arrogance? Slow down, and carry a bit more humility here.
No one made a claim that the rapture is a heretical teaching. I will say it is the very definition of an eisegetical reading of the text(s), though, and if you study James Darby it is clear that is the case through his own words on the matter. Most Christians in history did not have a concept of a rapture in their theology. In fact, according to the evangelical pollster outfit Lifeway, 36% of evangelical pastors do not believe in a literal rapture themselves! (https://cbn.com/news/us/large-number-pastors-dont-believe-rapture).
Not believing in any rapture or no literal rapture does not put them in any of the categories you are trying to place them in. In the grand scheme of things, it is all a minoritarian position.
UpGrayedd Double Dose
New member
My apologies, I never meant to imply you weren't a believer. I cannot know your heart and it is not my job to determine who does or does not have saving faith. I was simply trying to restate an early point so as to discourage any non-believers from piling on. However, I concede that it could appear I was referring to you, so once again I do apologize.
False doctrine is literally one of the definitions of heresy, but once again I will concede that false doctrine is a broader term and that I shouldn't have put words in your mouth.
First, the concept of the rapture and the evangelical movement are not synonymous. Second, C.I. Scofield wasn't born until 1843 and the Scofield Reference Bible was first published in 1909.
You can't possibly know what Paul's original readers thought or believed. They also did not need the book of Revelation to have a belief in the rapture, they literally had Paul, Silas, and Timothy. However, it is also a false assumption to believe that none of the church in Thessalonica could have still been alive when the book of Revelation was written by John.
There is no "a-trib" it's amillennialism, so once again I am not sure you have a complete understanding of all rapture view points. If you assume that a "secret" rapture of the church is the only view point you have been watching too many Kirk Cameron movies.
The idea of a rapture of the church in some form or fashion predates Darby. I don't have time to type it all out, but if you are interested in reading about the history of the rapture and differing views, please see the following.
What did the early church believe about the "rapture"?
There are a lot of differing opinions on when the rapture will take place (pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, or mid-tribulation). From my own attempts to research the topic and look at Scripture f...
What is the origin of the rapture theory? | GotQuestions.org
What is the origin of the rapture theory? When did belief in the rapture as a separate event from the second coming originate?
www.gotquestions.org
Source: Liberty University https://share.google/EVjFB1zVa2JeiAeWv
UpGrayedd Double Dose
New member
Sorry, I don't have time to go point, by point. I do apologize, I didn't mean to question your faith or lack there of. Please see my post above for further clarification, but I think the three of us are talking in circles. My point is and has always been, there are many views on the rapture, and the concept of the rapture predates Darby. The rapture is also Biblical even if I don't know or understand beyond a shadow of a doubt what is going to happen. For example it may not be a "literal rapture" and it certainly doesn't have to be a secret pre-tribulation rapture (once again people watch too many movies).
I can with 100% certainty know that the people in the church of Thessalonica did not read Paul's letter and connect Paul's letter with concepts from writings of John of Patmos that John of Patmos would not write for another 40 years or so. Nor could Paul have possibly intended them to. The very thought is absurd.
People tend to view the Bible as we have it now, as a completed work. But it was not always so. It is a collection of works that occurred over time and each of those works were written by a human author (often a human author working from an oral tradition) and occurred in a particular moment in history and cultural context. They also have literary contexts. An epistle is not the same as a biblical narrative or an apocalypse or poetry, wisdom literature, etc. And biblical prophecy is usually NOT foretelling as we usually think of prophecy, it is usually forthtelling, or truthtelling as when Nathan revealed to David his sin in a parable. You are viewing 1 Thess and Rev as if they were written at the same time. They were not. The chuch at Thessalonica did not have access to Rev as you do. They knew nothing of it. When they read the epistle from Paul they most assuredly thought something else, and it wasn't rapture. They thought imagery that was common to them and Greeks and common to the Greco-Roman world.
From your first source:What did the early church believe about the "rapture"?
There are a lot of differing opinions on when the rapture will take place (pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, or mid-tribulation). From my own attempts to research the topic and look at Scripture f...christianity.stackexchange.com
Source: Liberty University https://share.google/EVjFB1zVa2JeiAeWvWhat is the origin of the rapture theory? | GotQuestions.org
What is the origin of the rapture theory? When did belief in the rapture as a separate event from the second coming originate?www.gotquestions.org
"Dispensational ideas like a "secret" rapture and significant gap in time between the rapture and final judgment are not expressed by the church fathers."
Right, because it is a 19th century invention.
I appreciate the follow up. The bolded part is why we keep talking in circles. You keep saying that the idea of a rapture predates Darby when it does not in any way shape or form.
The way you can challenge this would be to find a primary source from before 1830 that states a concept analogous to the rapture. If you are trying to say that the early church believed in a rapture, you would need a primary source from the early church outlining that.
If you are able to find such a source, it would be revolutionary theologically. But it would be something that all other theologians would have had to miss up to this point in time.
In Christian doctrine, I view the rapture similar to Billy Sunday's Jesus prayer, as a modern eisegetical invention. Another parallel would be Phillipians 4:13, which many athletes like to paint on their face. But Phillipians 4:13 is not about performing well and winning football games. Football didn't exist in any form then and that isn't what Paul (or someone writing with Paul's authority) was talking about.
I am a non-theist, so I do think the point is moot, but that doesn't mean that some theology is more in line with the original intent of the authors of the bible than others. Learning the difference between exegesis and eisegesis is one of the more valuable things one learns in seminary, IMO.
Just realized (or maybe I forgot) that your tagline is a link to the Daily Stoic. A great resource but I just can't listen to that Ryan Holloway guy. He just seems full of himself. ANYWAY...
Yeah, I agree. A lot of these neo-stoic influencers seem like tools for some reason. Probably because they are influencers.
UpGrayedd Double Dose
New member
I am not arguing for or against a pre-tribulation premillennialist view of the rapture, but once again to say that it doesn't predate Darby is inaccurate.
I wonder which will come first:
Rapture
Church leaders disavowing trump et al for being pedos
Considering the long history of sanctioned pdf in the church, I'll put my money on rapture.
Rapture
Church leaders disavowing trump et al for being pedos
Considering the long history of sanctioned pdf in the church, I'll put my money on rapture.
Yea, I find that Stoicism and/or the non-religious parts of Buddhism help me as I do tend to get wrapped up in things I can't control and all those type faults.
Holiday is irritating but is prolific. I think it would be hard to find a chill, cool guy that would put out that much content. So, I appreciate him but agree he isn't who I would want to hang out with. Sort of like Saban. If I was a Bama fan I'd love him. But would still know he has to be a total a-hole.
Christ's return =/= the rapture and dispensationalism. Once that is acknowledged, the rest of the argument falls apart. They are trying to shoehorn and selectively read/quote folks to meet a narrative that is not found there. The author of that article also uses the shepard of hermas as a source, which is not in the bible.
Belief in the imminent return does not ergo equate to rapture.
The early church believing they were living during the tribulation does not ergo equate to rapture. The persecution of the early church was in fact the very reason for the apocalypse that was written by John of Patmos, to encourage the persecuted Christians of the early church.
Both of those are reading into early church beliefs what you want to see.
The early church believing they were living during the tribulation does not ergo equate to rapture. The persecution of the early church was in fact the very reason for the apocalypse that was written by John of Patmos, to encourage the persecuted Christians of the early church.
Both of those are reading into early church beliefs what you want to see.
We wrote almost the same thing at the same time.
I have found a lot of value from secular buddhism also. It makes remarkably few truth claims and is more about one's relationship to oneself, ones thoughts, others and the nature of reality. It is inherently nondogmatic, a philosophy that has religious ritual without belief.
It also has an epistemology that I find to be more helpful. In my experience, truth is something that we learn over time by experiencing cause and effect, not prescribed from on high by some source of authority. Essentially, Christianity tries to say everything that one knows and can know is illusory, and we actually do not know and cannot know the nature of reality. It insists that truth must be provided to us by an outside source and that we cannot be a light unto our own path.
That leads to the auspices of morality, without the substance of it, IMO. It is also why american christianity is struggling so much in this political moment. This point is one of the many reasons I became a non-theist.
Last edited:
One of the things that happened while I was on the evangelical campus was I started studying bioethics, and part of the studies were philosophical, especially epidemiology, how do we know what we know and what is the nature of truth. This has had pretty direct spiritual implications for me, it has challenged a lot of dogma. Why do I believe what I believe?
Some things I hold more strongly. Others… well, I’ve said what I’ve said…
Stupid autocorrect, epistemology
Similar threads
