Category: Eschatology
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Why the fascination with the end of the world?
BBC: Why the fascination with the end of the world? …Whether you refer to it as eschatology (religious theory of the end of the world), millenarianism, end time belief, apocalypticism, or disaster scenario, it is one of humanity's most powerful ideas, and it goes way back. "It is a very ancient pattern in human thought.…
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Belief in hell dips, but some say they’ve already been there
Pew Forum: Belief in hell dips, but some say they've already been there …For Long, hell is all too real — a temporary torment in this life, an endless agony in the next. But for more and more Americans, hell is a myth. In a survey released this summer by the Pew Forum on Religion…
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Second Coming Ecology
Christianity Today: Second Coming Ecology …Christians have consistently been end-of-the-world people, with at least one eye on matters related to eschatology or "last things"—final judgment, the second coming of Christ, death and the resurrection of the dead, the renewal of Creation, and the coming of God's rule in its fullest and most visible expression. Yet…
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“Plowshares and Pruning Hooks” – Book Review
What will we make of the images presented to us in biblical prophecy? How literally or figuratively should we interpret them? How did prophetic language function for those who first heard these prophecies? Without a doubt, prophetic and apocalyptic literature is some of the most difficult to understand. Recently I read D. Brent Sandy's Plowshares…
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Scot McKnight on Heaven
Jesus Creed: Heaven 1 There are two good reasons to do a focused Bible study on heaven. First, because the history of how Christians have understood heaven has been written by several and this history reveals that Christians have both invented plenty and have failed to interact adequately with the Bible. For, this I recommend…
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What lies beneath
Boston Globe: What lies beneath LIFE IS HELL, or so the expression goes, but, for many Americans, the afterlife is looking up. Last week's release of a sweeping study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life confirmed a long-developing trend in popular cosmology: belief in heaven is outstripping belief in hell. The Pew…
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“Suprised by Hope” Book Review
What is the ultimate Christian hope? What hope exists for change, rescue, transformation, and new possibilities, within the present? These two questions frame N. T. Wright’s most recent book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Wright observes: As long was we see Christian hope inn terms of “going…
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The Earth Destroyed by Fire?
Concerning the idea that the earth will be consumed in a great conflagration at the end, Michael Wittmer writes in Heaven is a Place on Earth: This popular, though misguided notion likely arises from a misunderstanding of 2 Peter 3:10-13. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear…
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MEC: Recap of My Concerns
We are about to turn specific passages from Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren, but before we go there, I want to recap my central observations and clarify my perception of some key issues. My primary concern over the last eight posts has been McLaren’s claim that we live with a “suicide machine.” He generally…
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Heaven Is Not Our Home
Christianity Today: Heaven Is Not Our Home by N. T. Wright The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate. There is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a…