Fr. Peter-Michael Preble. Judgment Day: An Orthodox Christian Perspective

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Source: Huffington Post |Fr. Peter-Michael Preble

Several years ago I was driving behind a vehicle on the highway and I noticed the bumper sticker on the back. It was kind of funny and I will admit I laughed out loud. The bumper sticker read, “In case of Rapture this vehicle will be left unattended.” OK, I thought it was kind of cute. But how accurate is this bumper sticker?

I will state right up front that the Orthodox Church does not support the so called doctrine of the Rapture. In this post, I will attempt to explain why. I will also state right up front that I do not consider myself a Scripture Scholar or a professional theologian.

So what is the so called doctrine of the Rapture?

Rapture is a popular term used by some Protestant Evangelicals for the rising of the faithful from the dead. We Orthodox do believe that all of the faithful will be raised from the dead.

There is a tendency of belief in the Rapture or what is called “pre-tribulation.” This belief states that the rising of the faithful from the dead will be prior to of after a period of immense trouble or tribulation. After the seven years of tribulation, the belief is then that there will be 1,000 years of peace followed by the day of final judgment.

Where did this belief come from?

Until the 1830s all Christian Churches taught a believed basically the same things about the second coming of Jesus Christ. A member of the Scottish sect the Irvingites, Margaret MacDonald, made the first claim that there would be Rapture and the faithful would be gathered to Christ before the period of persecution. From what I can glean from the research, she was discounted by some people as being “of the Devil” and her prophesies have been discounted.

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) next picked up the theory of the Rapture and made it popular. The so-called doctrine of the Rapture made its way into the footnotes of a translation of the Bible by Cyrus Ingerson Scofiled and the Scofield Reference Bible. This version of the Bible was widely used in England and America and therefore it was an accepted doctrine of belief.

This is a very elementary treatment of the history of the theory or doctrine of the Rapture, but the intent is not to present the doctrine in totality.

What is the Orthodox view?

Orthodox Christians believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, the ensuing judgment of our sins and the resulting eternal life in either Heaven or Hell. Everything that Scripture says about a time of tribulation and suffering is accepted, but the faithful will be present for all of it. We will not be spared the sufferings or tribulation. Christ himself tells us that all will suffer and that no one knows when He will return for Judgment Day. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9).

Why do Orthodox not believe in the Rapture?

The Church needs to be suspicious of a doctrine or theory that no church taught for the first 1,800 years of the existence of the Christian Church. This is not enough of a reason to reject this simply out of hand, but it does mean that we need to approach this very carefully. From the Orthodox Church in America:

Much of the reasoning for this theory comes from the Book of Revelation the only book the Orthodox do not use during the Divine Liturgy. The Orthodox Church does not persuade people not to read Revelation. It does caution people to read it with solid background knowledge of the rest of Scripture, especially the New Testament, and with a basic understanding of the times which produced Revelation. At the same time, the Orthodox Church does not accept the notion that everyone can properly interpret the Bible as he or she wants. Some Protestant bodies believe in this, but Orthodoxy does not. We say that the Church has the ability to properly interpret Scripture, and this means that we should study and adopt the interpretations that have been handed down over the 2000 years of the Church’s living history. Given the fact that that which is contained in Scripture is the inspired word of God, revealed to mankind and not to a single individual, no individual has the right or ability to offer “the” definitive interpretation of Scripture. This is especially the case with Revelation, which as noted above cannot be interpreted as one wishes, lest one come to ridiculous conclusions that Gorbachov’s birthmark is the “mark of the beast.”

The theory is also based on shaky Scriptural basis. Of all of the teaching of the Christian Church that have evolved over the 2,000 years history of the Church, this theory was not spoken of until a 15-year-old Scottish girl brought it up. Modern arguments for the Tribulation can be called into question through an evenhanded examination of the passages commonly used when arguing in favor of it. Even among Protestant denominations who believe in a totally literal reading of Scripture rapture is not universally accepted.

Many of the arguments for the rapture have been taken from the Book of Revelation. This book warns us in Chapter 22 verses 18 and 19 that anyone who adds to or takes away from the words in Revelation will meet with punishment from God. St. Peter also warns us in 2 Peter 1:20 that no prophecy is to be of private interpretation.

The unavoidable fact in all of this is that all of us will face judgment. Christ will examine each of us and as a result some will gain eternal life with Him in Heaven and some will gain eternal life without Him in Hell (John 5:29). Everything other than preparing for Christ’s second coming and judgment is nothing more than a distraction, and the question that needs to be asked is: Who would benefit most from the faithful being distracted?

V. Rev. Fr. Peter-Michael Preble is the Pastor of St. Michael’s Orthodox Christian Church in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Read more of Fr. Peter’s writings on his blog at www.frpeterpreble.com

Wesley J. Smith: Of Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Politics, and the Rule of Law

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Source: First Things

The Center for Bioethics and Culture asked me to expand upon comments I have made here noting that the politics of ESCR seem to have the power to supersede the rule of law. Not being the shy and retiring type, I immediately agreed.  The result is now out.  From “Embryonic Stem Cell Research Versus the Rule of Law:”

First, let’s consider an ongoing case in the USA, in which two adult stem cell researchers sued to enjoin federal funding of human ESCR because, they claim, doing so violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. Dickey-Wicker, a government rider to the budgetary process, has been passed by every Congress and signed by every president since 1996. Its terms explicitly preclude the Feds from paying to create embryos for use in experiments, or for research that destroys embryos. Thus, the outcome of the researchers’ lawsuit should be decided based on the facts of how embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) is performed as applied to the clear terms of the law as written. If embryos are destroyed, then under Dickey, federal funding would seem to be precluded. If not, then not.

But when an issue is as hyper politicized as stem cell research, nothing is that simple. Those supporting federal funding (beginning with President Bill Clinton) have tried to circumvent Dickey by arguing that ESCR should be divided into two pieces: the destruction of the embryos, and then, the research on the cells derived from such destruction. So long as the destruction is paid for privately, they argue, the Feds may fund the research legally—even if the embryo is destroyed in anticipation of receiving federal funding thereafter.

I discuss Royce Lambert’s ruling that NIH funding of NIH violates Dickey, which it clearly does, noting that the Court of Appeals ruling overturning his decision reads more like a policy decision than being based on the law as written.  I also note that the EU Court was dealing with the same issue in the context of patent law, and that a magistrate found that the law, as written, precludes patenting ESCR products because they are derived from destroyed embryos.  Moreover, the same old playbook has been brought out in that case, with the M being accused of imposing his religious views, when he clearly sought to apply the law as written.  I conclude:

The Congress and the EU Parliament are free to change the law if they want ESCR governmentally supported by funding and patent protection. Until they do, however, judicial rulings should rest on the fact that ESCR requires the destruction of embryos applied to a clear reading of the relevant statutes as written. Doing otherwise might please the politically powerful. But, that’s how the rule of law is destroyed.

The rule of law is more important than either the federal funding or patenting of stem cells. Whenever judges impose their policy views as if they were synonyms for statutory law, we are much less free.

Egypt: Why Are the Churches Burning?

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Source: New York Review of Books

p>On a recent afternoon this month, in a busy downtown Cairo street, armed men exchanged gunfire, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, and freely wielded knives in broad daylight. The two-hour fight, which began as an attempt by some shop-owners to extort the customers of others, left eighty-nine wounded and many stores destroyed. In the new Egypt, incidents like this are becoming commonplace. On many nights I go to bed to the sound of gunfire, and each morning I leaf through newspapers anticipating more stories of crime. Stopped at gun-point; car stolen; head severed; kidnapped from school, held at ransom; armed men storm police station opening fire and killing four; prison cells unlocked—91 criminals on the loose. Many people I know have already bought guns; on street corners metal bludgeons are being sold for $3; and every week I receive an email, or SMS or Facebook message about a self-defense course, or purse-size electrocution tool, or new shipments of Mace. “These are dangerous times,” my mother told me recently as she handed me a Chinese-made YT-704 “super high voltage pulse generator.” “You have to take precautions, keep it in your bag.”

Even more worrying, it seems increasingly clear that a variety of groups have been encouraging the violence, in part by rekindling sectarian tensions that had disappeared during the Tahrir Square uprising, when Muslim and Coptic protesters protected one another against Mubarak’s thugs. Since then, there have been a series of attacks on Copts, and the perpetrators seem to include hardline Islamists (often referred to as Salafis), remnants of the former regime, and even, indirectly, some elements of the military now in charge, who have allowed these attacks to play out—all groups that in some way have an interest in disrupting a smooth transition to a freely elected civil government and democratic state.

On the weekend of May 7 and 8, in the Cairo district of Imbaba—an impoverished working-class neighborhood that has been a stronghold of militant Islamists in the past—a group of Salafis tried to force their way into Saint Mina Church, a local Coptic house of worship. They were demanding the release of a woman, Abeer, an alleged convert to Islam whom they claimed—without evidence—the church was holding against her will. (Christians here have long alleged that Islamists kidnap their girls, rape them, and force them to convert to Islam. In recent weeks, those allegations have grown. Now, some Salafis have been making similar charges about Copts.).

The day before, via Twitter, they had called on Muslims to come to the church to “free a Muslim sister,” and on Saturday night, a handful of Salafis and some thugs gathered outside the church, waving sticks and swords, chanting Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest), provoking onlookers. A Christian man pulled out a gun and fired at them from a café nearby, and Christian residents from neighboring buildings followed suit, shooting from balconies. Before long, a battle had begun. The Muslim men and a growing crowd of hooligans brought out Molotov cocktails, rifles, handguns, bludgeons and knives. Eventually, the church was set on fire.

[…]

Read the entire article on the New York Review of Books website.

An Insider’s View of the Collapse of the PCUSA

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This quote reflects Calvinist theology, but the moral point the author makes is applicable to all Christian communions:

“On the surface, it is not obvious how affirming and defending the imputation of Christ’s righteousness adds weight to ordaining only candidates who affirm and try to live by biblical standards of morality. But just as New York City experimented with the policy described as “broken windows” and discovered that cracking down on petty public nuisances could also reduce harder crimes, so the PCUSA may be discovering that once you lighten your grip on seemingly arcane doctrines you also lose the ability to enforce any sort of doctrinal or moral standard.

[…]

In fact, the reactions from proponents of gay ordination very much reflect that for them the question was not whether the church would adhere to God’s word but whether the denomination would find a place for victims of discrimination.”

Source: First Things

What Barth and Niebuhr Could Not Paper Over

By Darryl Hart

With the vote last Tuesday by Twin Cities Presbytery in favor (205-56) of Amendment 10-A, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. now has sufficient approval from a majority of presbyteries to remove provisions in its constitution that prohibited the ordination of sexually active homosexuals.

Gone is the language of “fidelity and chastity” and in its place comes the human relations discourse of competency—“calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability” as well as “ability and commitment.” For both sides of the debate, this is a momentous decision. But for others who have watched the deterioration of mainline Protestantism since at least the 1920s, this decision hardly comes as a surprise.

For almost 150 years, the PCUSA has endeavored to be an inclusive church. Definitions of such inclusivity have not been so easy to find. In 1869 when the northern Old School and New School Presbyterians—divided since 1837—reunited, they did so at least in part to achieve in the ecclesiastical realm what Appomattox had accomplished recently for the United States. If Presbyterians were going to serve a diverse and geographically extended nation, according to the rationale for reunion, they could not harbor the theological divisions that had caused the split three decades earlier.

A little more than fifty years later, during the disputes between conservatives and liberals, the church again affirmed inclusivity and tolerance—except for the nay-sayers of unity who contended as much for the purity as the peace of the church. The PCUSA showed no disapproval of the liberals from New York who had written the Auburn Affirmation, a document that pleaded for room for diverse interpretations of the Bible and the Westminster Confession within the constitutional provisions of the church. The motto of both liberal and evangelistically minded Presbyterians was, “doctrine divides, ministry unites.”

Then in 1967 the PCUSA solidified these consolidating impulses by ratifying a new confession, the Confession of 1967, and by including several other catechisms and creeds within its Book of Confessions. By adding new confessional documents and by embracing a Barthian doctrine of Scripture that for critics too readily distinguished the Word of God from the words of scripture, the new constitution provided ample wiggle room to continue to affirm and empower a diversity of doctrinal convictions and practices within the PCUSA.

From the perspective of these trends, which ran away from doctrinal definition based on a firm commitment to the infallibility of Scripture, the passage of Amendment A is hardly surprising. In fact, the reactions from proponents of gay ordination very much reflect that for them the question was not whether the church would adhere to God’s word but whether the denomination would find a place for victims of discrimination.

According to Trice Gibbons, Co-Moderator of More Light Presbyterians, “My heart is full as I think of all of those children of God who were hurt, who persevered, who left, who stayed and who worked so hard to make the Presbyterian Church (USA) truly reflect the wildly inclusive love of Jesus Christ—too many to name.”

Michael J. Adee, also of More Light, stated, “It is necessary and absolutely OK to celebrate this moment in the life and witness of our Church, the end of categorical discrimination against God’s LGBT children which was wrong in the first place.” He added, “what a journey this work for justice and equality has been.”

For those who trust Scripture as the font of eternal life and regard the Reformed tradition as a worthy expression of biblical truth, this development in the PCUSA is a sad day. It is also an eye-opening one for those evangelicals who have remained in the mainline denomination. The argument for the better part of a century has been that the Presbyterian Church could maintain a faithful biblical witness without being overly scrupulous about the details of its theology—from the doctrine of Scripture to the five points of Calvinism.

On the surface, it is not obvious how affirming and defending the imputation of Christ’s righteousness adds weight to ordaining only candidates who affirm and try to live by biblical standards of morality. But just as New York City experimented with the policy described as “broken windows” and discovered that cracking down on petty public nuisances could also reduce harder crimes, so the PCUSA may be discovering that once you lighten your grip on seemingly arcane doctrines you also lose the ability to enforce any sort of doctrinal or moral standard.

The era of neo-orthodoxy and the heady tomes of Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr appeared to steer the mainline Protestant churches from the excesses of liberal Protestantism. However, that theological era came to an end during the 1960s when the theologies of liberation and identity politics pushed aside the theological and ethical reflection of dead white men of European descent.

But what is now obvious is that the right-turn of neo-orthodoxy did little to correct a much deeper problem, one stemming from the contradictions of ecclesiastical inclusion. The United States is, of course, a free country, and communions like the PCUSA are free to be as inclusive as the nation whose name they bear. But other Americans are also free to wonder if such a church can still credibly claim to speak for God.

Darryl Hart, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, is a visiting professor of history at Hillsdale College and the author of From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism (Eerdmans, forthcoming).

RESOURCES

The Auburn Affirmation

When William F. Buckley Met Saul Alinsky

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If you don’t know who Saul Alinksy is, you need to learn (biography here, Rules for Radicals here). Many of the tactics, especially on the left, are drawn from his ideas. Below is a five minute segment of William F. Buckley interviewing Alinsky in 1967 on Buckley’s Firing Line program.

Source: Hot Air

Download the transcript (.pdf).

Unfortunately, only five minutes of this December 1967 edition of Buckley’s seminal Firing Line program is online the above clip, but you can read a transcript of the entire interview at the Hoover Institute, or buy a DVD of the program for ten dollars from Amazon. At one point, Buckley describes Alinsky’s philosophy:

Look, this is a program of things we want, if you don’t give it to us, we’re going to make it impossible for Chicago to continue commercial or civic life at all.

Alinsky eventually argues:

I’ll put it another way. I said that evolution is a chronological term used by non-participating historians to denote a time sequence of a whole series of revolutions which synthesize into a major change — then they call it evolution.

Change? Say, somebody should use that word as a campaign slogan!

And note this exchange:

ALINSKY: Controversy ranges. It ranges all through various levels of life. I would consider, for example, the same thing on revolution. I think Social Security was revolutionary.

BUCKLEY: Yeah.

ALINSKY: I think Medicare was revolutionary. You see the problem is every –

BUCKLEY: It does seem that we have a semantic difficulty.

ALINSKY: All words in the whole arena of action are all loaded. (Announcer breaks in)

ANNOUNCER: Our debate on these varied issues will continue after this brief pause.

ALINSKY: (Continuing but some of his remarks lost during simultaneous announcement) — gets an idea of blood and barricades, and that sort. And then you say, power — it’s sinister word, you know.

BUCKLEY: But for instance, we got Medicare in this country, and we got it as a result of discussion. Now, mightn’t Alinsky students have felt that you would need to shoot a few doctors, or let people die for lack of medical attention, before you’d have the kind of conflict that’s necessary to midwife for Medicare?

ALINSKY: Buckley, I’ve been fascinated by your eyes in previous shows I’ve watched you on, and will you look at me and tell me whether you believe what you’re saying?

Sound familiar?


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