Sorry, 'Left Behind': Only One-Third of Pastors Share Your End Times Theology

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Most Protestant pastors believe Jesus will return in the future. But few agree about the details of the apocalypse.
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A third of America’s Protestant pastors expect Christians to be raptured—or taken up in the sky to meet Jesus—as the end times begin. About half think a false messiah known as the Antichrist will appear sometime in the future.
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A surprising number think the Antichrist has already been here, or isn’t on his way at all.
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Those are among the findings of a new telephone survey of 1,000 Protestant senior pastors and their views on end-times theology from Nashville-based LifeWay Research, sponsored by Charisma House Book Group.
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End-times theology remains popular with churchgoers, says Scott McConnell, vice president of LifeWay Research. But it’s not an easy topic to preach about.
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“Most people want their pastor to preach about the Book of Revelation and the end of the world,” he says. “But that’s a complicated task. Pastors and the scholars they cite often disagree about how the end times will unfold.”
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christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/april/sorry-left-behind-pastors-end-times-rapture-antichrist.html
 
ctb95 said:
One-third is one-third too many.
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Well, look on the bright side: in the 70s and 80s, it would have been closer to three-fourths. 🙂

Now can we do something about the Catholic “Left Behind” wannabes who construct gossamer eschatologies out of their bizarre interpretations of Fatima, La Salette, and (sad to say) Garabandal, Bayside, etc? 😉
 
RPRPsych said:
Well, look on the bright side: in the 70s and 80s, it would have been closer to three-fourths. 🙂

Now can we do something about the Catholic “Left Behind” wannabes who construct gossamer eschatologies out of their bizarre interpretations of Fatima, La Salette, and (sad to say) Garabandal, Bayside, etc? 😉
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Don’t forget the Wion’s Prophecy of the Popes!
 
Padres1969 said:
Don’t forget the Wion’s Prophecy of the Popes!
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Oh, dear… 😃

Frankly, I think Left Behind-type works (whether Catholic or Protestant) fail on two levels:
  1. Given that Christ Himself has told us that we will not know “the hour”, any prediction we make is 99.9999999% (if not more) likely to be wrong. And when it is proved so, we look like clowns in front of the secular world.
  2. Eschatology is a tricky business. Even the Church Fathers differed on whether a millennial interpretation was permissible or not. John Calvin called it “childish” (or something of that sort). I don’t think it’s something that ought to be “vulgarized” or “popularized” for the sake of cashing in on a demographic and making a quick buck.
So if the fad has run its course, to God be the glory! 😉
 
ctb95 said:
One-third is one-third too many.
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Lutheran’s don’t believe in all that stuff about the Rapture. Barbara Rossing who teaches at the Lutheran School of Theology has written a good book called The Rapture Exposed.
 
Upgrade25 said:
I saw one of those movies once. Unrealistic. The Holy Bible says that all will undergo the tribulation, that includes faithful Catholics.
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Never saw the Nick Cage version. Did see the Kirk Cameron version, and the movie was awful. I did read much of the book series when I was in my “searcher” phase in life in my 20’s. They weren’t the worst books I’ve read, definitely better than that awful Kirk Cameron movie, but they weren’t particularly great either even if read purely as fiction.
 
Padres1969 said:
Never saw the Nick Cage version. Did see the Kirk Cameron version, and the movie was awful. I did read much of the book series when I was in my “searcher” phase in life in my 20’s. They weren’t the worst books I’ve read, definitely better than that awful Kirk Cameron movie, but they weren’t particularly great either even if read purely as fiction.
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There was more than one of those Kirk Cameron movies. I watched all three of them when a group of us in my Lutheran church read the book I mentioned above called The Rapture Exposed. I tried reading the first Left Behind book but couldn’t get past about 10 pages, so I got all the movies on DVD at the library:

Left Behind: The Movie (2000)

Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002)

Left Behind: World at War (2005)
 
Thorolfr said:
There was more than one of those Kirk Cameron movies. I watched all three of them when a group of us in my Lutheran church read the book I mentioned above called The Rapture Exposed. I tried reading the first Left Behind book but couldn’t get past about 10 pages, so I got all the movies on DVD at the library:

Left Behind: The Movie (2000)

Left Behind II: Tribulation Force (2002)

Left Behind: World at War (2005)
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I saw the 2005 movie on Netflix. Oh boy, the red wine heals the virus(potshot at transubstantiation I bet).
 
Would just like to say It was not that complicated 😉 It is us that make it so.

In unfolded in 1844 as promised and continues as we speak! This is why there is now so much confusion about it all.

God Bless all and regards Tony
 
RPRPsych said:
Oh, dear… 😃

Frankly, I think Left Behind-type works (whether Catholic or Protestant) fail on two levels:
  1. Given that Christ Himself has told us that we will not know “the hour”, any prediction we make is 99.9999999% (if not more) likely to be wrong. And when it is proved so, we look like clowns in front of the secular world.
  2. Eschatology is a tricky business. Even the Church Fathers differed on whether a millennial interpretation was permissible or not. John Calvin called it “childish” (or something of that sort). I don’t think it’s something that ought to be “vulgarized” or “popularized” for the sake of cashing in on a demographic and making a quick buck.
So if the fad has run its course, to God be the glory! 😉
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I’ve heard some rapturists propose that “just because we don’t know the hour or day doesn’t mean we cannot know the week or year.” Obviously this requires a lot of flexibility as yesterday’s interpretation needs to be updated for world events and other changes. I used to be in that camp and it’s exhausting. 🙂
 
Son_of_Niall said:
Sorry, ‘Left Behind’: Only One-Third of Pastors Share Your End Times Theology]
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nothing to be sorry about:
Most Christians do not go to the movies for their beliefs

A survey of British readers of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” shows that reading the book causes people to believe its claims over those of the Bible.

“An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed,” Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain’s top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, told the news service.
The poll of 1,000 adults showed 60 percent believed Jesus had children by Mary Magdalene – a claim presented in the book – compared with just 30 percent of those who had not read the book, reported Reuters.
 
I’m guessing that the “one-third” figure refers to Christianity Today magazine’s readership and the group they surveyed. The figure in the world as a whole is closer to one in ten. It skews heavily toward English-speakers, suggesting a translation pattern.

The Left Behind books may be 20 years old (volume 1) through 10 years old (volume 16), but they’re still the giant on the block. An old giant, but the biggest game in town until something else comes along.

They’re not the only game in rapturism, though … still a few Hal Lindsey adherents around.
 
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