Eatn' Mud-cakes with John Hagee

How did I ever get so fired up about all this preterism/futurism/Zionism/-ism/-ism/-ism talk? How come other guys my age are busy talking about girls and football and hunting and all sorts of other fun stuff and I am part of a little internet blog that just discusses eschatology and all sorts of –isms that most people have never even heard of? Don’t get me wrong, these are just a few of my other favorite topics to discuss, but I guess out of a sense of duty I feel obligated to try and share what I’ve learned in the past year with the general populace concerning theological issues. I may not be 100% right on everything but at least we are talking about these things, right?

Getting the ball rolling on the “Emerging Conversation” that we are having here is the hard part. Sometimes helping people become aware of what all these crazy –isms mean and why they are important is like trying to teach kindergarteners how to tie their shoes! The kindergartener at first could care less if their shoe is or isn’t tied because it doesn’t directly interfere with eating mud cakes, but as soon as they try chasing the puppy, they notice that there might be something that you as a loving parent need to teach them. Once people (sincere Christian men and women) see how these –isms are important to understand, we can really begin to enjoy and explore the Kingdom of God for what it is with peace in our hearts like the little kid that enjoys playing with the puppy with his shoe laces tied and not falling on his face with every other step. Unfortunately, it is only human nature that we fall on our face once or twice before we ask for help. Maybe the modern American Church will have a similar incident before the next reformation gains strong momentum?

Now, I don’t mean to sound conceited here but I am not trying to say that everyone that does not agree with me is like a little kindergartener that can’t tie their shoes. Like I said, I’m a young guy in my mid-twenties with interests like most guys my age and I have the proper respect for my elders with biblical training. What makes me different though is that I have enough humility to admit when I’m wrong so I can change to what is right and I tend to question authority more often now, rather than saying “yes” to whatever any pastor tells me like a little bobble-head toy in the pew. Let me demonstrate the ignorance of placing all your trust in an authoritative figure and not looking for the empirical truth.

I remember one time at a place I used to work, we were all sitting around drinking coffee and talking about politics and such like we usually do and I usually did most of the listening in these settings because I enjoyed the passionate rants of my co-workers. Somehow the subject got to the official story of what happened on September 11, 2001, and how there are all these “pinheads,” like Bill O’Reilly likes to put it, that don’t believe this official 911 story in it’s entirety. I gently cleared my throat and said that, “Well, maybe the ‘official story’ is what they want us to believe and that is far from what actually happened?” After that point, I was the local conspiracy nut to them. I then followed up with, “How do you know then that they are telling you the truth if you don’t ever question what you hear on FOX news? Isn’t that a little naïve to just simply believe what they tell you? Is Bill O’Reilly really looking out for you?” What he said next will stick in my mind forever. He paused for a second, clearly irritated with me by now, and growled, “Because I’m older and wiser than you, that’s why.”

I think this is the same kind of treatment that we get when we start discussing preterism, futurism, Zionism, dispensationalism, millennialism, and all the other –isms out there with our fellow church goers. This is maybe why I am so disheartened with the way things are going today in modern Christianity. When I first started questioning things, I found a few discrepancies with what I was taught in Sunday school by my sincere Christian teachers. Then the more I looked into it, the more I discovered that the whole plain literal hermeneutic that our churches use to interpret the beginning and the end of the bible was wrong. I trusted my elders completely... and I was wrong. Ei carumba!!!

Sometimes I get frustrated and this whole eschatology debate grows tedious to me. Sometimes it seems next to impossible to tell someone that throughout their whole life, they have been completely wrong about Genesis and Revelation. How do you approach this? Sometimes it might be easier to sit back and watch the dispensationalist fall flat on his face before we tell him his shoes are untied. The more I study and learn, the heavier the burden becomes. When I start getting frustrated, I am reminded of a Socrates quote, “A wise man dissatisfied is better than a fool satisfied.” The wise man is the competent judge that finds that the more he seeks knowledge, the more he realizes what he doesn’t know, whereas the fool is only familiar with the simpler aspects of life. Jesus actually said something similar about how we're suppose to love him.

Jesus told us in Mark 12:30 to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind and with all your strength.” Maybe the most difficult part to this commandment is to love him with all our minds. Knowing what I know now, I realize that I was not loving with all of my mind before I understood what preterism was. My mind was trapped with pride and ignorance; behold the power of a paradigm.

So, don’t be a fool, y’all. You’ll be sitting in the dirt with your shoes untied eating mud cakes with John Hagee and Hal Lindsey, interpreting the bible with yesterday’s newspaper next to it, wondering if the rapture is going to happen soon--because man, it’d sure be nice to get out of those muddy clothes. Praise the Lord, eh?