Israel and the 2nd coming.

[longdistancerunner]

I hear a lot of talk today about how strong fundamentalists/evangelicals support the state of Israel because it has to exist for the 2nd coming of Christ, but 50 years ago I never heard that kind of talk. What I remember is simply Jesus would come and people would be judged and taken to heaven or hell. I don't remember any talk at all about the state of Israel. What do others remember?

[Ivy]

longdistancerunner, I never heard the cofc of my childhood talk about Israel like that either. I think that's more of an evangelical theory (doctrine) based on Revelation. They (cofc) didn't believe those apocalyptic prophecies applied to today; they had already been fulfilled in the distant past. Many here will know way more than I about this, but just wanted to comment.

We were taught that Jesus would return in the clouds, the judgment would occur, the saved people would go to heaven with Jesus, and the others would go to hell. Then, the earth would burn up, and that would be that. End of experiment.

[teresa]

I remember that 40 or 50 years ago some fundamentalists (excluding the CoC) supported Israel because they thought Israel had to exist for the second coming of Christ.

Excerpt from https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/the-state-of-israel-as-the-gateway-to-end-times

For biblical literalists, the “return of the Jews to their land” is the sign of God’s promise fulfilled.

[Shane R]

When I was a CoC preacher the rule of thumb was: don't preach on the Revelation until you're 40. That's stupid, particularly since most of those guys don't learn anything after the age of 23. People were generally averse to studying the book and the apocalyptic portions of the prophets. However, the most popular commentary seemed to be the Gospel Advocate volume by John T. Hinds, who was a historicist (that is to say, he believed the Revelation was revealing a timeline for world history). The Historicist perspective especially picked up steam during the Cold War because most of the hillbilly preachers loved identifying the Communists, particularly the Soviets, as the beast/dragon/any other negative image in the Revelation.

Premillenialism has existed in the CoC from time to time (and has caused splits). However, premillenialism is complicated and I don't think the average CoC preacher of my adolescence could actually accurately describe any major pre-mil position. Caricature it, sure, but they weren't familiar with much beyond the Left Behind series, which was itself a sort of caricature.

I think it would be fair to call the Campbells post-millenialists. That is to say, most of the world will be converted in the millenium before Christ's return.

As for pro-Israel, it really depends on how much CoC people are being influenced by American Evangelicalism - which is generally more than they care to admit.

[zeek]

This is the very reason President Jimmy Carter worked so hard to make peace between Israel and Egypt. Bless his soul, he sincerely believed he was helping usher in Christ's return.

[agricola]

It's my impression that the coc (in a rare spirit of peacableness) decided the whole pre millenium/post millenium debate was simply too toxic, and therefore avoid any mention of it whatsoever, unless they ran into it in a class on the Book of the Revelation.

I did ask once, and was told 'we don't believe that' when I asked about pre-millenialism, and when I asked about post millenialism, I was told 'we don't believe that'.

This was not as helpful as one might think (being told what we DON'T believe).

[ACUAlumnus]

The Historicist perspective especially picked up steam during the Cold War because most of the hillbilly preachers loved identifying the Communists, particularly the Soviets, as the beast/dragon/any other negative image in the Revelation.

Yes, I think people in every generation since Revelation was written have seen in it a reference to events in their own time.

Premillenialism has existed in the CoC from time to time (and has caused splits).

And the Barton W. Stone branch of the movement originated in the Cane Ridge Revival, a very charismatic camp meeting that was an important part of the Second Great Awakening in American Christianity.

[ACUAlumnus]

I took a course in Revelation when I was at ACU. Three possible interpretations were presented:

1. Revelation predicts events that were going to happen soon: the end of persecution and the fall of Rome. Some of the points made were that Nero (Neron in Greek) reduces to 666 in the numerology of the time, and that Rome is built on seven hills.
2. Revelation predicts events that have happened throughout the ages, and the process is culminating in our time.
3. Revelation gives a symbolic representation of the fact that God is in control of history and will bring all things to a good end in due time, but does not predict specific historical events.

The teacher didn’t express his personal opinion; he just presented the three options and assigned books for us to read that supported each of them. I think most qualified Biblical scholars support the first of these, but they hold that these prophecies were not fulfilled; Revelation presents them as being imminent, but the persecutions didn’t end until the emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 CE and the western Roman empire didn’t fall until the latter part of the fifth century (although it had been tottering for quite a while before then).