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W
hat is the proper day, Chalcedon remains a sympathetic
home for the vi- critic of various preterist approaches to
sions of the Book Revelation, valuing and respecting the
of Revelation? After contribution of scholars laboring in
twenty centuries, no that field.
final answer to this dis- But Rushdoony was not a pret-
puted question has been settled upon. erist. He took an idealist approach to
Most eras, including our own, are awash Revelation, a perspective that was once
in strident marketing and unseemly well-known, but which has since suf-
posturing, with various advocates argu- fered neglect as the preterism-or-bust
ing that their interpretation alone has mindset started to harden among
reached the crowning achievement of the new generation of postmillennial
certainty (not just plausibility). Christians. In 1961, Charles Feinberg
Beams in the eye—optical lum- published Premillennialism or Amillen-
ber—prevent us from seeing any nialism? Postmillennialism then was
deficiencies in our own view while we considered a nonfactor. But in 2019,
criticize every jot and tittle of differing we discern a parallel: futurism and
views. The line between strong con- preterism do battle but other views are
victions and arrogance has recently rarely mentioned. This kind of tun-
worn increasingly thin, becoming most nel vision is unedifying: the stone the
threadbare on social media. Interpret- builders reject might one day become
ing the Book of Revelation has become the head of the corner.
one more issue to polarize—and subse- Futurism holds that most of
quently derail—us, while we anxiously Revelation refers to a brief span of
await the next major commentary (the time taking place in the future, while
presumed “final word on the matter”) preterism holds that the bulk of Reve-
to be released. lation’s prophecies refer to the divorce
Dr. R. J. Rushdoony “promoted” of Israel and her destruction in 70
the preterist view of Revelation: the A.D. But two alternative views hold
view that the book primarily covers that Revelation applies to the centuries
events in the first century A.D. He between the first and second advent:
himself was not a preterist, but he the historicist school of thought regards
believed that sanctified scholarship Revelation as providing a roughly se-
needed to be applied to all plausible po- quential description of the inter-advent
sitions, leading him to encourage and period, while the idealist view see John’s
underwrite in-depth studies along pret- prophecy as non-sequential: all sections
erist lines despite the obvious depar- of the Apocalypse describe the entire
ture from his own perspective. To this inter-advent period. Each view claims
8/19/19 11:51 AM