Suggested View on Bible Prophecy & Eschatology

Suggested View on Bible Prophecy & Eschatology February 27, 2019

1) There are many Christian views on eschatology, so that no one perspective can be very dogmatic about it, in my opinion.

2) There will be an end times and a Day of the Lord / Judgment Day at some point in history (we know that), and it could possibly be soon.

3) But as Jesus said, “no man knows the day or the hour.”

I was actually highly interested in Bible prophecy in the late 70s and early 80s (Hal Lindsey and others), and I credit it with initially sparking my interest in the Bible and in [at that time, evangelical Protestant] Christianity: for which I’ll be eternally grateful. I’ve passionately loved the Bible ever since, and wound up as an apologist who emphasizes biblical evidences for various Catholic doctrines.

But by the mid-80s I had already seen so many excesses and false prophecies, that I tired of it, and changed my mind about the rapture and dispensationalism, some 5-7 years before I became a Catholic.

Most of the widespread prophetic speculation today comes from the dispensationalist camp, and they like to make out as if they are the only Christian approach to eschatology. That’s pretty silly, since the entire movement can only be dated to the 1830s.

Since then my attitude has been what I describe above.

A lot of fanaticism about eschatology (“last things”) exists: mostly in Protestantism, but also in some strains of Catholicism. We mustn’t be either fanatical or dogmatic about it. It’s somewhat like the internal Catholic debates about which form of predestination is correct (Molinism vs. Thomism). People can form opinions, but the Church allows diversity of opinion on these topics. And that means we must be tolerant of others who differ from us.

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Related Reading:

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(originally 2-13-17 on Facebook; slightly expanded and links added on 2-27-19)
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Photo credit: Scene from the Apocalypse (1829), by Francis Danby (1793-1861) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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