Tribulation
Tuesday December 18, 2007
Categories: Decline and fall
Don't I recall from my teenage reading of "The Late Great Planet Earth" that in the End Times, the Temple has to be rebuilt on Temple Mount (where the Dome of the Rock now sits), which means that something has...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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That Jenkins excerpt reminds me of an essay I wrote regarding global warming's possible geopolitical implications:
gravitron5.blogspot.com/2007/05/thoughts-on-global-warming-part-ii.html
Didn't catch the religious strife aspect - I was thinking more of nationalism in Eurasia - but that doesn't seem incompatible with my thoughts on the matter.
"The end of history". Yeah, right.
Real wrath of God stuff! Dogs and cats, living together! Look, I read The Population Bomb when I was in high school. It was full of hideous predictions, based on an alleged scientific consensus, and not a single damned one of them happened. The current Warmist frenzy is just another chapter in a long story of media hysteria. A few cold winters and even Al Gore might have to come up with another money-making opportunity, er, cause to flog. It may well be that God's judgement includes various climatic disaster. In which case, what in the world makes anybody think that we can stop it?
If people would only read both the NEW and OLD testaments they would realize that Jesus is that new temple that is everlasting with a river flowing from its side.
And to think some of the LaHaye types condemn global warming as a godless conspiracy.
They should be dancing between the pews with joy instead!
Seen "Children of Men"? Pretty good movie. Nearly a point-for-point agreement.
If the fundamentalist Christians are seen concurring with global warming then all the of the sinners might think Christians believe the godless scientists were right. Can't have that now can we.
Isn't there also some Evangelical nonsense about how a red heifer will herald the End of Days as well? This sort of religious crackpot-ery is endlessly fascinating and amusing - like watching a dog eat peanut butter.
jaybird, you should get a kick out of the following site, then:
http://www.2007rapture.com/
John E.:
Good stuff. Although, that sort of site always makes me wonder about the apparent connection between end-of-the-world crank-ism, and html formatting that stabs your eyes.
Looking out at the ice and snow, I want my global warming and I want in now, not in 2012, not in 2050. NOW!
Two things:
1. There is no man-made global warming threat. Carbon dioxide makes up 5-8% of total greenhouse gases, and even less than that (around 1%) is actually caused by man. Furthermore, the mean global temperature has been cooling the last three years straight, and it hasn't gotten any warmer at all since 1998. The man-made climate change scam is nothing much more than a vehicle to advance global wealth redistribution.
2. There is no up-comming Biblical tribulation. Christ's return happened 2,000 years ago just like he said it would (Matt 24:34: Verily I say unto you, *This generation* shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.). Christ's spiritual kingdom has been established, and all Bible prophecy has been fulfilled. Those still looking for a future return are going to be sorely disappointed.
Oh boy. I like Jenkins, but this excerpt makes Algore sound rational.
And this: "Over the next half-century, this equatorial swath will be broiling from global warming." I just cannot see how we can be so cocksure about this, when it's all based on computer models that depend to a large extent on the assumptions and input of the researcher.
My informed amateur opinion is that if global warming is happening it is not as severe as the dire predictions would have it, and if it is happening it is not man-made, and even if it is man-made, there's not much we can do to reverse it at this point, and if we try, most things we do would cause the deaths of millions of the poor.
Just my $.02.
Every generation since Christ has thought that the world was going to end in their time. They were all wrong.
Chris
People would be much better off reading and studies their Bibles and avoiding the fanciful and unbiblical speculations of Hal Lindsey. All of the contents of the Revelation must be viewed within the clear time restrictions placed upon it in both the first and last chapters. John was to be shown those things which were then to SHORTLY take place because the time was then NEAR (Rev. 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10).
As for global warming--bah humbug!
Climate change is a fact. But maybe I only think that because as a 26 year old, I was indoctrinated into it as a 9 year old. ;)
As far as the Temple Mount - yeah, by some readings of Scripture, Al-Aqsa Mosque has to go (that's the pretty one with the big gold dome in all the pictures of Jerusulam) before Christ will return.
Muslims consider the spot of the last vestiges of the Temple to be a holy site as well - this is where the Prophet Mohammed supposedly ascended into heaven. Before that, the Prophet himself tried to make Jerusalem the main Holy City of Islam, but gave the honor instead to Mecca once that city welcomed him from persecution. Hence we have some 3 million people on the great annual pilgrimage in commemoration right now. It's a VERY big deal here, not sure how much attention anyone back home is paying, what with the primaries and all that.
Interestingly, the Muslims also believe that Christ will return - only to tell us all to convert to Islam. ;)
At any rate, I think the insanely esoteric scripture interpretations that go into the premillenial dispensationalist worldview of LEFT BEHIND are too convolute to be believable, and also hardly conducive to peace. It worries me that so many people are all about bringing on Armageddon. These are typically people who've never seen the real impact of war - grieving screaming women, confused and bleeding lost children, soldiers with a stone-cold thousand-yard stare. It is not Christ-like to wish this on anyone. Particularly not in advance of your religious agenda.
Personally, I like when we let the dispensationalists out of their cages. It's really entertaining. Just got to remember to put them back in when we are done having fun.
When I was in college, I worked for the town newspaper and used to cover this big Christain convention (that's not quite the word; but it was a huge gathering in an open air space, kind of like a Holy Woodstock) in downstate Illinois. Anyway, I would do some interviews, talk to the guys who put it together, talked with the bands that played, the preachers who evangleized and some of the thousands of attendees who showed up in the dead of summer.
I covered this event for five years. And after I was done with my real work, I would always walk to the very back of the event, where the kept the dispensationalists. Oh man, they were hilarious. I heard all about the red heifers and the Temple Mount and the invasion of scorpion demons. Blah blah blah. I used to ask some of the attendees what they thought of those folks. Few ever hesitated to admit embarrassment (and several always asked if I was going to write about the dispensationalists in my article; I never did, because it seemed that most folks at the event dismissed them as fringe lunatics).
What a joke. People obsessed with death and destruction.
I've wondered in recent years why the "Left Behind" crowd hasn't glommed onto climate change as a sign of the Apocalypse's imminence
Gen 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
"Every generation since Christ has thought that the world was going to end in their time. They were all wrong. "
"But they only have to be right once."
A stopped clock is right twice a day. Anyway, anybody halfway literate in either the Psalms (all that stuff about the mountains skipping like lambs) or tectonic plate theory knows that Israel is earthquake country. Duh.
I just can't figure out where all those cars and factories and carbon-footprints came from that climate-changed the earth out of the Ice Age(s).
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