Post
by _darin-houston » Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:45 pm
From the Quiz Author's Notes:
Some explanations for the quizzes part 1
It seems that from the comments and e-mails I've had on the quizzes that I should do a little explaining. For each quiz there are a number of possible outcomes. For example in the theologians quiz there were 10 different outcomes, and each theologian there were three quotes/statements about them. For instance Jonathan Edwards' statements were:
Sinners will be tormented in a literal lake of burning fire forever and ever (from his famous sermon 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God')
Sin is an infinite offence against an infinitely Holy God and so requires infinite punishment (an idea from which he derived his doctrine of the atonement)
The best way of expressing our love for and unity with God is music (I didn't know he'd said this, but you learn something new every day)
So for each statement, you rate the statement on a scale of 1-6, where 1 = strongly disagree and 6 = strongly agree. So to score 100% for Jonathan Edwards you would have to answer 6 6 6 (no joke intended) on all three of his statements. The process is repeated for each theologian, and they are ranked according to the statements to which you gave the most approval. So if like me you only scored 33% on Charles Finney, you would have disagreed with the three statements about him, whereas I agreed strongly with the three statements to do with Calvin, and so I scored 100%.
So that's how it works. It is by no means an exact science as you can hardly summarise each theologian in 3 statements, and there are many other theologians I could have added but space is limited. It seems from the comments here and at the Thinklings Weblog that a little explanation about eschatology is called for. So here goes:
The Eschatology Quiz
The 'millenialisms'
These all attempt to deal with the issue of the 1000 year reign of Christ spoken of in Revelation 20. There is of course much variation within each of these positions so I'll just give a brief outline here.
a) Pre-millenialism. Jesus will come back to earth at the end of the great tribulation and defeat the antichrist, and he will then reign with the saints for a literal 1,000 years. At the end of this time, Satan will be released for one big final showdown, where Jesus will finally defeat him. Then comes judgment and the new creation. Most (but not all) people who hold to this doctrine believe that either before or during the great 7-year tribulation the faithful will be raptured and thus avoid most of the apocalyptic unpleasantness that everyone else will have to endure.
b) Post-millenialism. The 1000 year reign of Christ will be put into effect by the church. When the Gospel has been preached to all the nations and the Church has established the kingdom of God on earth, then Jesus will return and reign forever and ever. In the last few decades this territory has been taken over by 'dominion' theology, which believes that it is not only desirable but also necessary for Christians to rule in political, financial and social circles so that Christ will literally rule the world through his saints. When this is achieved, Christ will return in glory and rule together with his saints.
c) Amillenialism. The 1000 year reign is not a literal period of time where Jesus will visibly reign on earth, Revelation 20 is symbolic, not literal. Christ began to reign from the time when he was resurrected and ascended to heaven, and when Jesus returns there will not literally be a 1000 year reign followed by another battle with evil, but rather the last judgment and new creation will take place then. Historically this has been the dominant understanding, though there are many variations within it.
Preterism
This takes a rather more historical view of things. Passages which others read as being 'about' the Second Coming (which is a phrase we actually never find in scripture) or the Antichrist or the Abomination that causes desolation in Daniel 7, Mark 13 etc were fulfilled more or less at the time in which they were written. Not least because the Daniel story fits with what we know of ancient Jewish history and that Jesus himself said that all the things in Mark 13, Matt 24 etc would happen within the lifetime of that generation, and the events they described came to pass in AD70 with the destruction of the temple. This is my preferred position on most of these issues, because it seems to make the most historical and exegetical sense. It's interesting to watch Tim LaHaye and Co don their literalist leotards and perform all kinds of interpretive gymnastics and contortions when attempting to explain how 'this generation' could fit into a post-millenial or pre-millenial setting, but it doesn't work for me.
Preterists do not deny a future coming of Jesus of course, but that the texts usually thought of as being about the Second Coming have been fulfilled in the first century and will not be 'literally fulfilled' at the end of time as others may expect them to be.
Dispensationalism
See Jared's excellent summary here for more detail. Despite often being promoted as 'historical biblical truth', this view is actually very new on the block in terms of eschatology, and derived its popularity from the Scofield Bible and Commentary of 1830. It divides history up into time-slots or 'dispensations'. Prior to Christ, God's covenant was with ethnic Israel and covered the Holy Land and the Temple etc. Now we are living in the church dispensation however, but the old covenant with Israel still applies. For this reason Christians who hold to this view are often supportive of Zionism (although not always.) When Christ's millenial reign begins upon his return to earth (or also possibly just before) Israel will be restored and God's promises to the Jews about the land etc will be fulfilled.
It seems difficult to sustain this two-covenant approach in the light of the New Testament (see Jared's article for more details), but if you've spent time in charismatic and/or fundamentalist circles then this is probably the model you're most familiar with. A close bedfellow of pre-millenialism.
Left Behind
Who hasn't read at least one of these books? I've read 7 of them, though in the end I sold them to a guy an Amazon who thanked me for 'allowing him to own these precious insights into God's word.' Fortunately I didn't market them as such because to make that claim would simply be false advertising. The Left Behind books are of course fiction though their theology very strongly reflects the pre-millenialist view as regards the Rapture and the Second Coming. It has rather more to do with conspiracy theories than sound biblical eschatology and those who subscribe to this doctrine are often interested in things like the mark of the beast (microchips and barcodes anyone?), the antichrist (many candidates for this one, but usually it settles down on the Pope in the end) and an evil global government (previously thought to be the USSR, then the EU, then the UN and now a currently not-existent Islamic dictatorship). There are plenty of books that follow this line of thought and 'unlock' God's prophetic timetable, though I don't think too many biblical scholars take this particular strain of pre-millenialism too seriously.
Moltmannian Eschatology
I put this one in because although he is little-known outside academic circles, Moltmann has done a more thorough systematic examination of eschatology than perhaps any other theologian. If you're eschatological interest is concerned with figuring out the hidden meaning of Daniel's 'seventy weeks' or what theologians think the Mark of the Beast might be then you'll be sorely disappointed. Moltmann begins with the cross and resurrection and uses them to interpret history. Just as Christ shared in the sin, suffering and darkness of creation on the cross, so by taking it on himself and being raised to new life he becomes the prototype of what God intends not only for humanity, but the whole of creation itself. God has made the resurrection a promise of what he one day intends to do for all creation - to make it new and free it from the power of sin, injustice and death.
Christians then are to radically affect the present in the light of what God has promised about the age to come. The key to this is the Holy Spirit, who is the 'power of the age to come'. Our discipleship is a discipleship of the cross and so we too must identify with and fellowship with the outcasts, the victims, the poor and the downtrodden as we take up our cross, because the way to the resurrection is via the cross. God has already announced and guaranteed that in the Future Kingdom of God there will be no suffering, pain, injustice, or death and so our mission in the present is to transform the lives and circumstances of people so that God's kingdom comes upon them. Eschatology is not like the appendix in the book of history, it is the story of history itself.
Moltmann is highly controversial in places and despite his Lutheran background, much of what he says will seem unfamiliar to most evangelicals but it's quality stuff. He has written a 400 page systematic doctrine of eschatology called 'The Coming of God', but if heavy theology isn't your thing then his book 'Jesus Christ For Today's World' is a good start and is highly readable.
An true fact
Although strictly not connect to my quiz, I'd like to point out that at one stage of his life, my Pastor was so scared at the prospect of the Rapture coming while he was in the bath or shower that he always wore speedos in case he was raptured naked. Hahaha.
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Warning (specifically to Michelle)...don't leave the workout video running in another window when you come back to the forum. Believe it or not, it gets painfully worse! 
(wrong day)....