Thoughts of a Restored Mind

We brought in the 2006 New Year with wonderful friends that we’ve had for a lifetime – well a half-life anyway. After catching up with some that we hadn’t seen in a while, we gathered together as a group to reflect upon the past year. As we went around the room, those that offered their thoughts spoke in fairly affirmative terms as to how they saw God working in their lives. No doubt this was a time of enrichment and thankfulness because it was abundantly clear that God had given us all so much.

As is always the case, there were a few silent souls, with one usually being me. This rare moment I anteed up a few words and thankfully didn’t cave in emotionally as I am prone to do whenever expressing issues of the heart. The skeptic in me always wonders what’s really going on in the deepest recesses of those quiet ones like me – but I no less wonder about those who seem to always be able to put a triumphant spiritual spin on even the most challenging moral and/or spiritual dilemmas.

We seem to learn at a very early age how to fool even the closest of friends when in fact most of us at least occasionally experience those sleepless nights filled with thoughts of inadequacies and doubts and feelings of hurt and fear. In an inaudible whisper we think aloud, “Does God really love me? Is He still there?” Unfortunately uttering those kinds of questions in a group setting make folks very uncomfortable. Certainly we need to dwell on the “good things”, but I have learned that God indeed can handle those questions of uncertainty and insecurity. We just need to be honest and genuine with Him.

Mike Tyson vs. Mr. Bean
The group disassembled and as the evening began to wear down I heard a fellow say that he was reading a book on preterism, which is a theological term for believing that most if not all of the prophecy found in the Bible had been fulfilled (ostensibly by A.D. 70 culminating Jerusalem’s destruction). So, oh dopy me chimed in and said, “I think I believe some of that stuff”. Can you say stupid, stupid, stupid? (I was such a neophyte in the world of eschatology and at that point easily driven and tossed by the wind. The subject of eschatology seemed wrought with subterfuge and confusion so for the most part I had stayed away.)

Well, you’d have thought I just detonated a dirty bomb in New York City! There are a few certainties in life, one of them being, never question the validity of the pretribulation rapture in hearing distance of a hardcore rapturologist whose been studying and honing his views on said subject for the better part of a quarter of a century. To begin with, you have little chance (if you are still in a confused state), and the odds are reduced to below zero when you are as ill-prepared as I was. Stepping into what appeared to be a prearranged ambush of sorts did not bode well for the home team. Though my perceptions were probably errant and there was no ill-intent, it sure felt like I’d stepped into a fire ant bed up to my knee.

It’s like getting into an impromptu street fight with Mike Tyson when he was in the prime of his boxing rampage, directly after coming off a 26-mile mid-summer jaunt through the bowels of the vulture-laden heat-scorched Grand Canyon. First of all, you are thoroughly outmatched because he’s 238 pounds of raw violence, and second, he knows how to take you out with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. Once he lands the first blow to your glass-like chin you find yourself prostrate on the ground wondering if your undergarments are hospital-worthy.

As you begin to hear the ref count down from 10, your dignity kicks in and somewhere between 7 and 5 you pull yourself back up by the ropes to a semi-vertical position. And before you are nearly seaworthy, wham! You take a severe body shot to the solar plexus with something like, “How can you possibly believe that? Who saw Jesus return”? And just when you think it can’t get any worse and you can’t look any more foolish among your lifelong friends, you get hit with a non-stop combination of “What about _______?” while machine-gunning 10 neatly packaged verses absolutely “proving” his point.

Then with a smirk-filled accusatory tone, he conjectures, “How in the world can you believe what, in fact, nobody saw?” After your 4th knockdown you rise to your feet again hoping for one last opportunity to preserve even the slightest modicum of dignity, but at that point he really smelled blood. He began to wind up his windmill of an arm and he started to grin at you like, “Are you totally out of your mind?”. Then he methodically proceeds to pummel you into oblivion like a Johnny Damon bobblehead doll in the clenches of an angry die-hard Red Sox fanatic when he hears on ESPN that J.D. has defected to the dark side. You may not be down for the count yet but the fact is you’re toast. Just pack up your thoughts and get out of there before the carnage worsens – because at that point all you can hope for is that you can get out of dodge before you get your ear bitten off by Iron Mike. 🙂

When I arrived home and began to recount this eschatological debate nightmare, I felt the scars of being battered and beaten – metaphorically for sure but emotionally and intellectually pummeled nonetheless. Whoever thought up that old “sticks and stones” garbage ought to be held down and severely licked by my little black dog, Fenway, who has a tongue longer than Kiss rocker, Gene Simmons!

Life is a great teacher and at this point, I want to share with you two life lessons that I learned from this rather vexing experience.

The first is that “winning” an argument should never be the ultimate priority. Truth is vitally essential, but in the context of argumentation it should be void of arrogance and condescension. I can’t believe those words are actually coming from my nimble little fingertips because I have been on the other side of that equation far too many times. However, demonstrating the love that has been so freely given to us (by our Creator), should be our utmost goal. That may sound too syrupy to some but if love and respect are removed from the discussion, there’s close to a 100% chance that even words of truth will fall on deaf ears. People don’t often change closely held views if they are pummeled into submission.

Gentle persuasion is a worthy goal, especially if we are convinced that we are correcting doctrinal error. Sure it’s fun to believe that we are right and there’s a sense of exhilaration when we think that we are successfully dispensing the truth we have captured from Scripture, but the “need” to win must be bridled by humility (Phil 2:3-8). There’s certainly some power in believing we are correctly dividing the Word of God, but it’s like dousing petrol on the fire of our foolish pride when we don’t do it with the love of Christ in full view.

When you think about it, from the time you are old enough to utter your first words like, Tinkertoy or prestidigitation, being right is the name of the game. Hey, listen, there’s nothing inherently wrong with espousing truth (may it never be!) but there’s a way to do it while allowing those that might be in discord with us to feel like they haven’t been beaten senseless.

So lesson number one is to debate with dignity – edify, don’t tear down. This, of course, is far easier written than accomplished but it certainly should remain a steadfast goal. It does not mean that one must retreat from beliefs held dear. It’s more a matter of the attitude we convey. I probably violate this principle far too often but it is something with which I strive for especially in the light of my ever-growing convictions.

The second lesson was the hardest. As Peter wrote in his first epistle (circa AD 60s) “…always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” Was I prepared? Was I able to wield the sword of the Spirit with the speed and precision that was worthy of my ambassadorship? Not really. I had the “spirit of humility” down pretty well but not because I was overflowing with the fruit of the spirit – it had much more to do with my puny spiritual state and my lack of understanding.

My counterpart surely was ready and eager with Scriptural ammunition that I was hardly able to counter.  The reality is that we are all accountable to offer a reason for that which we believe and that night my defense was rather awkward and acutely pitiful. I was ill-prepared both Scripturally and emotionally to offer a sound response though I didn’t find his arguments convincing.

It was more than apparent to me that my jouster left that night feeling quite victorious and admittedly he was more than justified. A blow to my ego perhaps, but nonetheless productive in the long run as it would be the catalyst that woke me out of my prolonged stupor. In his mind, he’d defeated another foolish heretic engaged in what he believed was Peter’s exhortation against “private interpretations“. After all I had the audacity to question the holy grail of Left Behindology and that simply cannot be tolerated. In my mind’s eye, I could see him scratching a notch into his belt of Scriptural correctness – one more Hymenaen heretic bites the dust! And in a sense, I don’t blame him since this is the only paradigm he knew. He’d been engaged in confirmation bias for the better part of his Christian life.

But the reality is that I didn’t do him any favors. Even though I am now more than ever convinced of the fulfilled position which at the time I only vaguely understood, I am saddened because I didn’t afford this fellow Christ-follower the opportunity of hearing the challenge of a refreshingly Biblical perspective. For as Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy in chapter 2 verse 15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth”. So too we should we be able to handle the sword with this kind of confidence.

Adversity is the Mother of Change
Much of the impetus for creating my website (CharlesCoty.com) came from that New Year’s Eve experience. My sincere desire is to honestly and humbly share the hope that Christ has given me – knowing that God’s faithfulness to His first-century followers challenges the LaHayeque model of eschatology. I have found that many do not stop to consider the Bible’s imminence statements relative to the lives of those that received them. If God was not faithful to fulfill his clearly stated imminent promises (soon, shortly, at hand, in a little while) to His committed and heavily persecuted first-century disciples, then what gives us the confidence that He will be faithful to us 50 centuries removed from those promises? Isn’t faithfulness predicated upon timely execution of a promise?

About 2 1/2 years ago when I broke free from the rather severe 12-15 year spiritual slump/fog of apathy and debilitating indifference, I noticed that there had been three tangible events that catapulted me over the wall of unbelief.

The first involved God’s miraculous work in the lives of my wife’s sister and her husband that could not be explained by any amount of skepticism I could muster. That truly was a timely heartening touch from Heaven.

The next was when I became engulfed in the study of Job. I read, listened to on my mp3 player, and studied the book of Job countless times in a span of just a few weeks. It was extremely difficult to come to grips with some of the deeper messages in this very complex book, but nonetheless, I found the exercise quite enlightening and enriching. I learned that outside a personal vibrant relationship with our Creator life doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. In retrospect, these were two identifiable events which began to melt my heart of stone. To that point I had been reduced to a pathetic, ambivalent wanderer. I had written a paper, “Through the Eyes of a Skeptic”, not long after my dad’s passing which was followed by witnessing the most horrific event… our dear friends had lost their adult child. As I penned those words, my frail, tattered spiritual state was in full display.

Eschatologically Induced Depression
Well, that brings me to the third set of dominos that still has me scratching my ever more balding head. I had been studying eschatology (you wouldn’t know it by the outcome of the above New Year’s party episode) and I finally came to the conclusion that the Late Great Planet Earth/Left Behind/Ryrie/Scofield doom and gloom theology did not square with Scripture. I had little to replace it with but recognizing a faulty paradigms freed me to take the necessary step to begin the rebuild process. Although many factors contributed to my new eschatological conclusions, I must say that realizing that although the Bible was written FOR US, it was clearly not written directly TO us, was a monumental revelation. Reading the Scripture with “audience relevance” (which considers the primacy of the original audience) has been a breath of fresh air. Most of us have been conditioned to read the Bible as if it was written directly to us in our generation, but this does grave injustice to the infallible Word of God.

At this point, you may ask, “Why in the world would a change in eschatological position have anything to do with overcoming unbelief and spiritual depression”? The answer is simple yet, complex. The futurist worldview undermines one’s ability to assimilate the latent and continued effects of Christ’s death and resurrection. In a sense, it unwittingly denies the massive impact that Jesus’s overcoming death should have on all of creation. God’s redemption should ultimately permeate the whole earth! His salt and His light should flavor every facet of society. (Read Ezekiel 47 for context)

Futurists say that Satan truly is “Alive and Well on Planet Earth” (a Hal Lindsey paperback written in the early 70’s soon after “The Late Great Planet Earth” burst onto the scene). But does Satan truly have dominion over the earth? Is the war still raging? Clearly there are countless skirmishes, but wasn’t Christ declared the winner when He arose from the tomb and ascended to the right hand of the Father? And wasn’t it the end for Beelzebub’s run on evildoing when he was crushed into tiny unrecognizable pieces and the temple in Jerusalem was annihilated along with the bondage and curse of the law which was embodied in the entire sacrificial system? For in Romans 16:20 Paul wrote, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” (Let us not miss the critical word “soon” found in the above text and not violate key principals of hermeneutics understanding that Paul wrote this letter to the Romans in approx. AD 58, not to Americans in 2007!)

Paul further wrote, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ said, “It is finished”. Then on the 3rd day he arose from the grave forever conquering sin and ultimately spiritual death. Peter proclaimed, “The end of all things is near” and 40 years after Jesus’ ascension to Heaven, the temple and the entire sacrificial system was utterly destroyed.

Today most of us live as though it was never finished and we unwittingly fail to recognize how our eschatological worldview affects every facet of life. It’s clearly not a foundational issue, but it does flavor the way we interpret Scripture. Unlike the gentlemen at the New Year’s party, many of us say we have no clear position on the “End Times” and we are frightened and perplexed by the imagery of John’s Revelation. I sadly admit that the majority of Christians have a catastrophic view of the “end” with the battle of all battles waged in the valley of Megiddo. This view, I submit, has dangerous fallout. Let me share two somewhat recent examples and how I think it not only damages our credibility in a world that is in desperate need of Christ, but also renders our witness less effectual.

In a February 2005 article entitled, “Are We Doomed? Insanity Now Mainstream -There Is No Tomorrow”, Bill Moyers writes, “Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, “after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.” (Read the whole article – it’s quite illuminating and informative to see how others outside the evangelical beltway perceive us and our science fiction-like end of the world theology.)

[7/24/09: It has come to my attention that this quote was falsely attributed to James Watt. However, it was consistent with his policies according to Moyer who wrote in an apology to Watt, “You and I differ strongly about your record as Secretary of Interior. I found your policies abysmally at odds with what I understand as a Christian to be our obligation to be stewards of the earth. I found it baffling, when in our conversation of today, you were unaware of how some fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible influence political attitudes toward the environment.”]

I’m not a fan of Bill Moyers but he makes a valid and quite disturbing point. To cap off this whole line of what I believe to be misguided and ill-conceived exegesis, I have heard many allude to a statement of a famous pessimillennialist, “Why polish brass on a sinking ship” – in other words, “Why waste valuable time attempting to stem the tide of abortion on demand, child trafficking and mass shooting when there are souls to be won?” I’m sorry, but that grates at the core of my spirit and it raises the hackles on the back on my neck! How insensitive! Did Christ not come to redeem all of life? Just yesterday I heard someone say, “Don’t bother recycling because this place is shortly going up in a flaming inferno anyway!”

How can we be salt and light to a world in desperate need of the Gospel if we don’t give a darn about today’s moral climate? Oh sure we preach the “good news” to “them” as if the only thing that matters is getting them to sign their confession of Christ on the dotted line. Do we give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked and feed the starving? To a point, but even that seems quite conditional. We want to meet our quota of the great commission by preaching the gospel to everyone on the planet so that we can usher in the 2nd coming of Christ. Do we really care about the environment? Do we want to break down racial barriers? Do we want to change our world and bring it under the Kingship of Christ? Do we want to build buildings to last more than 30 years? Do we believe there are grace- atoning solutions in the Middle East? Palestinian Christians are being persecuted and are fleeing the Occupied territories by the droves? The more militant Muslims have a blood-thirsty desire of eliminating all Christians and Jews from the region and ultimately the face of the earth.

Are there any solutions or is God unwilling or incapable of changing even the hardest of hearts? We are told that enmity has existed for thousands of years and that’s not going to ever change. Is it true that all hope of peace is preordained for failure? I’m saddened to say that my guess is that most would say yes, because they believe that the bible clearly states that short of Jesus’ 2nd return, things will only worsen. (2Tim 3:1-13) But do we not realize that Paul was writing to Timothy referring to the same “last days” that Peter and the author of Hebrews (whom I believe was Paul) said was occurring at that time almost 2,000 years ago? That’s why Peter warned, “The end of all things is near“, why Paul wrote, “The time is short…for the form of this world is passing away“, and why John seconded Paul’s motion with, “The world is passing away” and began the Revelation with, “Things which must soon take place.” There was a clear, unmistakable consensus among the NT writers that can only be trivialized and washed away by our paradigms of gloom.

And it seems that we are more fixated on “Anti-Christ is coming’ than “Christ is coming”. We are told, “What’s the use”, referencing our impotent efforts to change a doomed world. It’s plainly written in the footnotes of our Ryrie and Scofield Bibles and Tim LaHaye spells it out ever so clearly in the fictional Left Behind series? Many treat this series like a God-inspired extension of Scripture? Is it?

The mantra goes on…You must realize that the evil one is coming and all our efforts to make a difference in this world will be for naught, so just save as many as you can before, by the skin of our teeth, we get taken out of this God-forsaken existence. I’ve been hearing much of the same since the early 70’s. My goodness, when the 1973 oil crisis broke out over our support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war, my roommates and I considered quitting college and doing whatever one is supposed to do “in the last days”.

Then in the 1982, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, we were warned by a friend, “”For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!‘” How sensitive and comforting. 🙂 I realize that it wasn’t intentional but this about scared my wife half out of her wits. Not one of the top 10 things you tell a pregnant mother! You do want the mark on your hand or forehead?

Then Edgar Whisenant burst onto the scene with his 4.5 million copies of “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988. I remember it vividly. He was boldly predicting the time when all Christians would exit the earth in flight. It was supposed to happen between September 11-13, 1988. On September 12th my wife and I were tooling around the Gulf of Mexico on a cruise ship to nowhere during one of the fiercest hurricanes of all time. (that’s another story I’d like to forget). Well, Jesus never returned and it would appear that Whisenant finally gave up after numerous date revisions. Today no Whisenant website exists, and he and his 88 Reasons have now entered the lore of false prophecies of the 20th century. And the beat goes on…

Robertson Strikes Again, and Again and…
The 2nd area of heartburn comes from a situation involving a candidate I backed for president some 18 years ago. In the first few days of January this 2006 a CNN article read, “Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.” Robertson was quoted as saying, “He was dividing God’s land, and I would say, ‘Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course… God says, This land belongs to me, and you’d better leave it alone.’”

Is this what it’s come to? Wishing or at least expecting that world leaders should die because they are trying to facilitate peace! If you want to know more about the incredible impact of Christian Zionism just watch the Christian Zionism on the Road to Armageddon series. And if you think that Israel’s becoming a nation in 1948 was divinely fulfilled prophecy then you have no clue how those in the futurist movement have been “helping” God get this done since the late 1800s. In my view, self-fulfilled prophecy seems to be a more accurate depiction of the Israel’s current status.

You see, it does matter how you view eschatology. It makes a difference in more ways than you can ever imagine. I personally think that the premillennial dispensational rapture theories have done a great deal to damage the church’s influence in the world and I’d like to see that changed. I know it will eventually but it must begin with us now. My exhortation is that when we read His word that we do so with the following thought in mind. The Scripture was written for us but it was not written to us. Certainly we understand that “Every Scripture is God-breathed (inspired) and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness” – but we also must be clear that it was written to specific people for specific purposes.

Well, one thing’s for sure. The next time I am engaged in a discussion regarding the “hope that is within me” I will attempt to “rightly interpret the word of God” with humility and meekness. I may fail miserably but I pray that a glimmer of grace might leap from my heart to theirs. And let’s always remember that “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” Sometimes it’s pretty noisy out there.