Paul Seburn referred in another post to the ‘transmillennial’ view on New Testament eschatology. I thought it might be worth examining this separately. There’s a lot of material on the two sites I looked at (www.presence.tv and www.transmillennial.com), but I have limited my superficial comments to one introductory essay. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has strong views on the subject. Oh, and while we’re wondering exactly what happened to the future, a happy new year to everyone!
There are certain aspects of the central argument of ‘transmillennialism’, at least as it is presented in ‘The Transmillennial® View’, that I would want to agree with. It seems to me that Tim King is broadly correct in arguing that the eschatological language of the New Testament has in view an imminent state of affairs. I also like the general shift away from a preoccupation with a futurist eschatology, whether personally or cosmically interpreted, towards a covenantal theology that calls upon the church to be a concrete blessing to the world – if the transmillennial worldview can ‘take the church beyond cultural pessimism into a responsible engagement with society’, it is to be applauded.
The introductory article is rather superficial and inadequate material for a thorough critique of transmillennialism, but I would make some general comments.
1. In the first place, I have to say that I dislike the proprietorial stance that they have taken towards the term ‘transmillennialism’ (or do I have to write ‘transmillennialism™’?) and the strong current of self-promotion that runs through the writings on the website. This is not the way to further biblical scholarship: to my mind it lends the whole enterprise a cult-like favour that is likely to alienate people and certainly appears contrary to the fundamentally democratic and open values of the emerging church. To speak of transmillennialism as a ‘sacred trust’ seems to me presumptuous. If the church is moving towards a position such as this, it will certainly not be on the basis of one narrow strand of biblical exposition. It will have to emerge out of a wide-ranging conversation amongst lay and professional ‘theologians’.
2. I think it is a mistake to define this position so strongly as a reaction to the various ‘millennialisms’ that currently mark out the boundaries of much current thinking about eschatology. The movement is meant to ‘stem the tide of present-day millennialism’, but the very term ‘transmillennialism’ keeps us firmly within that arena – just one more combatant in the millennial wrestling match. I hope that we will be able to overhaul the vocabulary of eschatology in a way that will prevent us from falling back into these stale debates. An important part of this overhaul will be a thorough review of the eschatological narrative that underlies the teaching of the New Testament.
3. There is passing reference to the need to establish a Jewish-historical framework for interpretation, but the essay gives no indication as to how this framework has actually shaped the transmillennial position. I suspect that the argument will prove weakest in its understanding of how Jesus and others after him made use of the structures of Jewish eschatology as they reworked the narrative of salvation-history.
4. I think this probably accounts for the fact that transmillennialism has pushed the argument rather too far in its enthusiasm to collapse the whole of New Testament eschatology into the period between Jesus’ death and the fall of Jerusalem. I think that the eschatological narrative is more complex than that, both in the short term and in the long term. On the one hand, it must encompass not just the destruction of Jerusalem but also the expansion of the church out into the pagan world, the confrontation with Rome, and the experience of persecution. On the other, while it may be right to question the notion of ‘resurrection and judgment for individuals at death’ (italics added), I’m not at all sure that a future resurrection and judgment can be dismissed altogether. I do not understand how it can be asserted, as Paul does in his post, that ‘Death and Hades have been utterly taken out of the way’: as I read Revelation 20, the destruction of death (‘death’ and ‘Hades’ are synonymous) remains a future hope – but I am happy to hear arguments to the contrary!
5. It seems to me, therefore, that transmillenialism is susceptible to the same charges of over-optimism that were levelled against post-millennialism. The position may not be ‘utopian’ exactly, but to suggest that we should ‘seek first the kingdom by joining hands in building the civilizations of tomorrow’ seriously misjudges the current status and influence of the church in the world. I think that the church, in approaching the question of mission, will have to acknowledge that it is in a position of considerable weakness – socially, intellectually, spiritually – at least from a western perspective. There is some confusion, inherent in the transmillennial position, between the renewal of the people of God and the renewal of humanity and creation. The New Testament may use the language of cosmic renewal as a metaphor for the renewal of the people of God; I’m not sure that we can expect a literal social renewal within history – isn’t this the classic postmillennialist error?
Transmillennialism™
Andrew,
Thanks for taking the time to look into TM™, (lol).
I first came across Max and TIm’s site around the same time I discovered the “preterist” view of fulfilled prophecy. I remember thinking some of the same things regarding the need for a trade mark etc. But after a year of researching both the preterist interpretation and TM™ I understand why this was done. The preterist “camp” for lack of a better word fell into the modernist trap of debating and classifying aspects of end time “doctrine” and it seemed to become more about “who’s right”. I spent a lot of time reading preterist material and the works of Josephus etc. The problem with much of the preterist stuff is it’s all focuses on the past. I think it’s important to research and dig but sooner or later you ask yourself, “so what does this mean for my life now? what does this mean for the world today?” The forward thinking at presence and TM helps provides that. http://jaygary.com/ Jay is a partner of Tim’s and is a “millenium doctor. In my conversations with both Tim and Jay and the others who frequent the presence forums I find a warm openess and a sense that they do not stand as guys who “have all the answers” but rather are learning and exploring new aspects of God’s Grace and kingdom each moment they live. I encourage you to check out the discussions there and see how these paradigms are affecting people’s lives.
Now, concerning death, hades, judgement, resurrection, the devil etc. These are all things which much be wrestled with in our thinking. I was thinking this morning about the general views of heaven and hell, 1st and second comings, rising from the dead, the New Jerusalem, the new heaven and the new earth and I realized that the reason many have difficulty accepting such a past fulfillment view is to do with their understanding of the NATURE of these things. We’ve all been raised to believe theat Christ’s coming is a planet earth ending, cataclysmic event. We’ve been taught that the ressurection is fleshly bodies shooting up out of the grave. I could go on but the fact is we have in our minds fleshly literal events that we are convinced could not have taken place, in fact very few people even consider the notion that any of these things may have been fulfilled in some way.
It’s said of scripture that the simple straighforward aspects of the text should help us understand the more metaphoric, symbolic aspects of the text. Words like, soon, at hand, to take place shortly, gonna happen before some standing here die, you will not have gone throught he cities of Israel until, (and trust me the list of simple time statement is staggering) are all easy to understand no brainers. Stuff like a bride, no it’s a city, no wait it’s a garden coming down from heaven. Then there’s the dragons and the moon being darkened and the viles, oh those dreaded viles of wrath. I’ve had 2 or 3 people say to me recently as I’ve shared with them my view that we are now in the new heavens and earth..”what about the fact that there is no sea”. To which I should reply, I’m not sure what John meant when he say a realm with “no sea” but whatever it is, it is something that was “must take place shortly” in his day.
So you see what Xianity has done? It’s made us think metaphorically about simple time statments but think very literaly about symbolic metaphors. It’s all backwards. The reason the general population cannot see that Christ has come is because of their understanding of the nature of His coming. I’d much rather honor Jesus’s own prophetic word in Matt 24:34 than listen to C.S Lewis’s ignorant comment on the verse. He calls it “the most embarassing verse in the bible”! and goes on to suggest that Jesus was creating a delusion for his disiples. Christ’s coming was not delayed or postponed as so much of the Xian world has been led to believe. It just was not like anything we’ve been taught in this post-enlightenment modern world. Once your eyes are opend to the very simple truth of Jesus own words (and the hloy apostles) then you work from there to discover what realities where brought into being through the presence of Christ.
Whether you want to label something “over optimistic” or not the world needs hope. The church has robbed itself and humanity by not realizing that she is called not just to sell heavenly “time share” but rather to be a source of healing to the nations in the here and now. I’m sorry but the general view of an angry God one day destroying the planet and taking all the church goers to heaven and sending billions to an eternal fire is just NOT good news nor is it very hopeful. One of the biggest problems I see is that so much of the Xian world lives as if we are in that transition between the ages, that we are living in the “short time” that Jesus and the apostles were in. How can a transition possibly be longer than the age it was ending?
Again thanks Andrew for opening up some dialogue on this and I look forward to more
peace
Paul Seburn
Good -- and timely -- questions
Andrew,
You ask some good — and timely — questions about Transmillennialism. I think your candor, both in posing those questions and in stressing the cursory nature of your familiarity with the topic, are to be commended. I’m not going to attempt to answer all of your questions. But I might be able to give you a different flavor of things than you might get perusing the websites.
First, TM bears the scars of the highly polemic mileiu from which it comes. It has its roots in a foundationalist conservatism. I won’t go into that history, but it makes the posturing you speak of explicable, if not particularly appealing. For many, the echatological re-thinking involved in embracing this perspective is seen as a kind of “missing link,” a way to be, as I like to put it, “more right than the right.” Some see it as the final “proof” that those nasty liberals are all washed up. Some wear it as a badge of the true believer. All in all, it can get pretty sick.
For some, however, this thinking serves as a kind of epistemological wedge, prying apart fundamentalist assumptions and deconstructing familiar dichotomies, leaving them wrestling with many of the same things the emerging church is wrestling with. The particular (and narrow) interest in eschatology leads to interest in the historical Jesus and Christian origins, which lands one squarely in a postfoundationalist theological environment.
There is a concerted effort on the part of Presence Ministries to step into that environment, to move beyond current thinking and rise above tired debates of a bygone era. The focus on the ministry is not a naive optimism about human future, or bleak speculation about human depravity, but a profound hope for human potential in the context of divine/human co-creation. The church, however conceived or formulated, should be a blessing to the nations, a mediation of divine grace, and a force for reconciliation. And you are correct that it is precisely our weakness that is the vector for grace, or what Crossan calls “divine distributive justice” — Agape. Whether this is a fulfillment or a foretaste might be subtle difference: important, to be sure, but subordinate to the overall mission.
You are correct that eschatology is a subtly nuanced topic that no systematic theology can claim to fully contain or explicate. My suspicion is that we have barely begun to understand how the ancient world used language and narrative, and even shedding modernist presuppositions is no guarantee of success in that endeavor. The textual connection between Jesus’ prediction of destruction and eschatological expectation is relatively clear. Assuming a highly critical view of the origin of the Gospels (and I may or may not take such a critical view), it makes a certain amount of sense that the Jesus movement might want to give their hero credit for predicting such a monumental event in their history. But why would a post-70 church (which did not, apparently, see this as eschatological fulfillment) ascribe this prophecy to Jesus with such a connection? This suggests to me that the prediction and its eschatological import are authentic.
This is no slam-dunk, of course, but I think that connection must be taken seriously. For me it is a process of imagination: what if that was really it? What does this particular reading of the story say about the world we live in and the God we serve? I find the answers to be good spirituality, at least, even if there is no agreement that it is good theology. It raises questions, to be sure, about the afterlife and soteriology and ecclesiology. But I submit these are questions we asking anyway.
Shalom,
Theo
Hey, that's me!
Theo wrote “For some, however, this thinking serves as a kind of epistemological wedge, prying apart fundamentalist assumptions and deconstructing familiar dichotomies, leaving them wrestling with many of the same things the emerging church is wrestling with. The particular (and narrow) interest in eschatology leads to interest in the historical Jesus and Christian origins, which lands one squarely in a postfoundationalist theological environment.”
In my journey I arrived at pomo and TM almost simultaneously. Both areas of thought have resonated with places in my artistic nature that have been there for years but never found full expression. I’ve often felt as if I’m doubly branded in my interaction and communication within the church. When your heart has been opened to an alternate reality that you become more and more convinced is real and true, yet it seems to find no place in the foundationalist world of reality, the tension grows. It’s encouraging therefore to find others who are at a similar point in their journey.
Thanks Andrew and Theo for engaging in this conversation
peace
Paul
Grown-up theology?
Paul, I picked up on the same paragraph. Theo, this is a very interesting observation:
I wonder how many other theologies, churches, organizations, etc., are going through a similar process of deconstruction – if not self-destruction, internal collapse – at the moment and finding themselves in this territory that we are calling emerging theology. I have the impression that a lot of people, from a variety of backgrounds, are becoming increasingly aware of the constraints of whatever species of dogmatism they were baptized into and are struggling to recover spiritual and intellectual authenticity. A committed critical-realist hermeneutic certainly offers one way out of the dilemma.
I entirely take your point that transmillennialism inevitably bears the marks of its polemical origins. Still, does it not need at some point to detach itself from this context and enter the realm of grown-up (if you’ll forgive the term) theological discussion?
Growing Pains
Andrew,
My apologies for any images of Kirk Cameron that may have entered your head because of my subject heading.
I think “self-deconstruction” might be an apt phrase to describe what is happening in many fields and along many lines — theology not the least of them. I usually describe postmodernism (though I am loathe to describe it at all) as a widespread epistemological crisis. Hans Küng, applying Thomas Kuhn’s work on paradigm shifts to theology, reflects that it is often the established system and its methodologies that produce material to undermine the system itself, making it necessary to find new ways of thinking. More to the point, we are forced to find new ways of knowing — hence my emphasis on epistemology.
TM does, at some point, need to detach itself from modernist polemics and enter the realm of grown-up (the term is forgiven) theological discussion, and I think that time is now. Many people exploring this, however, are coming out of the same background and context, so that makes the challenge twofold: present the theology in a way that makes sense to those coming from a foundationalist perspective while at the same time moving them beyond that perspective — which could conceivably happen at the same time.
Peace to you,
Theo
Emerging
I agree theo, concerning the two fold challenge.
Speaking from my own experience with emerging cultural and theological conversation, I’m finding the distance between presence.tv and emergentvillage.com to be getting closer all the time.
When speaking of “foundationalism” I think the TM perspective reaches back beyond the modernist foundation toward the orignal foundation laid by Jesus and the apostles, much like N.T. Wright does. I mean isn’t that a big part of this deconstruction process? If this “house” is to stand it needs a foundation. The trick is digging through all this other modernist/traditional and medival crap that’s obscures the true foundation, but if deconstruction rejects all foundations then it may go too far as to even reject the “cheif cornerstone”. That’s not good.
TM is one of the few ways of thinking that I’ve come across that actually challenges the early church creeds. The “church fathers” actually had widely divergent ideas. Many will quote the creeds as if they were scripture not realizing the environment in which they were conceived. I think this whole thing of the creeds is something that also must be deconstructed to “get to the bottom of this”…. But maybe that’s another discussion.
peace
Paul
TM
I’m sorry but every time I see “TM” in this thread I think of “Trancendental Meditation.”
Perhaps I am dating myself a bit with that comment….
Keep in mind that people like my father who have been immersed in the futurist/dispensational mindset for 50+ years can’t just jump into full-blown Preterism without a LOT of discussion. Thus, all the chat about the past.
I agree that eventually you have to ask “so now what” but that only comes after you have made the leap to Preterism. But then someone comes along and says “You know, if you want to be consistent with your hermeneutic regarding the language of the New Testament you probably should apply that same inspection to language in the Old Testament, like Genesis.” So now I have to rethink the whole global flood idea. It’s a lot of work, this theological stuff….
Glenn Dixon