The Church That Is Left Behind

My wife, Nettes, brought this book back from a leaders’ weekend with our network of churches. I was very interested as I’m in the process of reading Perriman’s the Coming of the Son of Man. Perriman’s book is such a tight argument that I can’t skim it without losing the plot. So I may be wrong, but from our conversations the two books appear to be converging on similar conclusions. Kobus’s book looks lighter and spends more time outlining and debunking pre-millennial theology especially extreme dispensationalism. The title is of course a reference to the best selling series of novels based on pre-millennial theology.

Having leaned towards an amillenial or postmillenial stance for many years, and more recently been interested in the transmillenial viewpoint, I tend to forget that many Christians either haven’t thought about this or, particularly in the States, have pretty much swallowed the whole pre-mill/dispensationalist argument. So I was amazed to see this hidden camera stunt on Aaron Rathburn’s blog back in September. You could only do this in America :)



I guess in some quarters these ideas are still going strong. Hopefully Kobus’s book will provide a much needed antidote to some in our circles who have picked up some of these thoughts from the God Channel or maybe from the Left Behind novels themselves.

Book Preview: Everything Must Change

From reading reviews about Brian McLaren’s new book ‘Everything Must Change’ it appears to basically look at how Christians can engage in our culture to change the world. Brian sees Jesus message as one that is revolutionary to the world and has implications both sociologically and politically. It’s a great step forward for an American Christian to talk about fair trade and to attack the fast food industry. Where I hear caution about this book in the free use of ideas from Latin American Liberation Theology. I think he might be in danger of being dismissed by American fundamentalists as going liberal. I understand that his view of the end-times is what is called a transmillenial position so that he thinks that even the second coming and resurrection have already happened. I struggle with the implications of this for our individual eternal life. Perhaps he is merely redirecting the focus to a 'Kingdom Now' viewpoint. If so he's saying nothing more than many of us have said for a long time. Elsewhere Brian says that he does believe in the need for hope beyond death but as far as I can see he does not take this to be what salvation is all about. Perhaps he overstating the point but nevertheless this book does appear to be a very interesting landmark in Christian publishing that really does suggest ways of bringing in the kingdom at an international level addressing such areas as our damage to the environment, lack of peace in the world and the growing problem of proverty.