The changing tide of a world and life view...Day 15

Having charted out the end times was an arduous task to say the least. Along with this there was a book that we were required to read by Chuck Smith that I had actually read that previous summer. It was called, "The Tribulation and The Church." A very easy read. We also had a weekly lecture that was a general overview of all the differing views of eschatology. I was hoping for something a little more indepth regarding each view but our time was limited.

An example of this was, "And then there is the preterist view which understands the last days as something that took place in the first century. That the book of Revelation was speaking of the fall of Jerusalem in 70ad. Yet this could not be the case because it was written some 30 years later...And just look around...Clearly we're not in the new heavens and earth." <--Room fills with laughter.

So...It's not as though all or most of the different views weren't presented. They were. However in my opinion the presentation of the views that were different from that of Calvary Chapel's weren't presented in a very fair light. They weren't even necessarily demonstrated to be wrong as much as they were just summarily dismissed. But of course I just nodded my head as we moved on to the next topic. After the class was over there was the typical sporatic conversations going on around the room as you would find any other day. I was putting my books away when I heard one of my brothers say that he had heard something about Hank Hanegraaff. That he had changed his views on eschatology to some form of Amillenialism. This of course caught my ear. But I was in a hurry that day to grab my surfboard and hit the beach for a little wave action.

I guess no matter how important eschatology is to me, surfing will always take first billing. 8)

That following night as I was wrapping up my studies, I had remembered what my friend Al Abdulla said in class. Something about Hank Hanegraaff's view of eschatology having changed. This triggered another memory. Probably about a year earlier, sometime in 2004, my friend Chandler Haynie who worked the evening shift at Kwave while engineering "The Bible Answerman," during the day, had told me that Hank had been re-examining his views on eschatology for 9 years now. Starting in about 1995. And that he was going to be coming out with a new book explaining his new view. But he was hesitant to tell me much more.

So...On that early morning in March 2005 I went onto google and did a search on, "Hank Hanegraaff + eschatology." And the first three results I read were the following three articles. And in this order.

Article #1

Article #2

Article #3

The third article takes a few minutes to read but well worth every minute of it. It is a transcript from a call Hank received on "The Bible Answerman," back in 1995. Right about the time Hank began re-examining his understanding of the end-times that led him to author and co-author a number of books that have got the authors of the Left Behind series in such an uproar. Which is dealt with in the first and second article posted above.

And so...It was these three articles that were the final straw that broke the camel's back. My world and life view would be forever changed from this moment forward...