Those Sinful Premillennialists?

I enjoy your posts Dr. Bauder, but I found your citation of a- and post-millenialist anti-semitism unnecessary. Historically, the spectre of anti-semitism was as, if not more, associated with premillenialism than with its alternatives. Arno Gaebelein is rightly infamous for anti-semitic passages in "The Conflict of the Ages." (See also Leo Ribuffo, "The Old Christian Right"). Not that premillenialism deserves to be labeled as inherently anti-semitic; after all, Carl McIntire, a dedicated premillenialist, was quite philo-semitic. But this sort of name calling adds no light and far too much heat to have a place in your discussion. Nothing ends a rational, reasonable conversation like, "Your position is kinda racist!"(-;

I am not familiar with the sermon the sparked off Dr. Bauder's reflections, and I would certainly not say what the preacher apparently said.

With that said, I wish to question the helpfulness of the two criteria Dr. Bauder mentions. Here is what he says:

The first point is of limited helpfulness for at least two reasons. First, in wide-ranging and systemic disputes, as a dispute about the place of eschatological beliefs in one's system and the role and function they should have with respect to fellowship with Christian is, this point is precisely what's going to be in question. As a criterion, it's not helpful because it is exactly what people will be disagreeing about; people who think specific eschatological beliefs (e.g. beyond the second coming) should not be a factor in membership, etc. are going to fundamentally differ with those who do think so precisely on the relative importance of such doctrine. Each positions will have already presupposed normative views of the importance of such beliefs, such that they can and will say things like, "You make that too important" or "You don't take this seriously enough." Criticisms like this stem from normative commitments about the importance of the beliefs under debates that are presupposed in specific critcisms, like "you're sinning for making x a test for y."

Second, one could easily mount an immanent critique, i.e., a critique that derives its force from taking the critiqued position's own norms and using them to reveal internal weakness in the position, of any system in which obviously fundamental doctrines, like the Trinity, would have sufficient importance that they issue in tests of fellowship, yet the same system applies similar, if not as far ranging or damning, restrictions on people who hold specific eschatological beliefs. The logic here would be that on a spectrum, no matter how relatively important x millenial belief is, it's pretty far downstream from something like the Trinity, and making tests of fellowship for both doctrines implies a level of comparable weight which, while probably not intended, is an unavoidable implication of such a test. If I can't join a church because I'm a modalist, fine; if I can't join because I don't know what I think about the millenium, and I'm honest enough to admit it, say, that is really problematic or would be seen so by many, including myself. The fact is, most people do not have an adequate understanding of the Trinity, much less an good knowledge of the three major eschatological systems that have emerged in Christian history, a condition which alone should cause churches to reconsider their doctrinal prioritizing.

Regarding the second criterion, the first criticism applies mutatis mutandi. Moreover, such a criterion of "direct affect" is both vague and problematic. It's vague as to what its actually describing. It could be describing (and this seems to be one of the most sensible interpretations), to put it technically, the kinds of propositions that, in a hierarchy of principles and maxims, are mostly likely to show up as the minor premise in a practical syllogism. To explain that, Aristotle took "practical reason" to refer to things that issue in actions. The conclusion of a practical syllogism is an action, so you have something like this. P1: It is always right to help one's neighbor when they are in need. P2: This person sitting accross from me is my neighbor and needs help. Conclusion: I get up and help. That's how a practical syllogisms work. So, "direct affect" could obviously apply to things that stand in the P2 spot, like, "John is my neighbor and needs help," because those beliefs have the most direct affect on action in practical reasoning. But note those are always quite specific and therefore, normally, not properly statements of doctrine. Rather, principles or maxims, general statements, get stated in the first premise, P1, like that "one should always help one's neighbor." That kind of principle has an indirect affect on our behavior; far more indirect, however, are propositions like, "Revelation and Ezekiel mean x, y, and z with respect to the end times." These kinds of beliefs can have an enormous influence, but precisely because of their relatively high place in the hierarchy of propositions that can be practical (result in action that is a practical conclusion to which they are premisses), these kinds of things, like specific echatological beliefs, will not have a direct affect, certainly not "direct" in an obvious sense of that word. This points to what's problematic about the second criterion; it contradicts the first. For, as I've just briefly shown, the more directly practical a belief or proposition is, the less deeply it is embedded in a theoretical system, and this is necessarily the case, because system-altering beliefs or systematic positions can only issue in actions that are justified by those high-level beliefs through a very long process of mediation.

More often than not, people simply refer their actions to beliefs that, really, have no direct relation whatsoever to the action they performed but are appealed to as somehow justifing that action. In case this is too abstracted, take an apparently simple, or at least common, case: middle-east politics and eschatology. People often say we should vote for x or support y policy because of their Dispensational (or whatever) understanding of Israel. Now, that understanding may, in fact, justify the specific policy under discussion, like whether we should do x on the Gaza strip, but most people could not actually make the connections, because there is no obvious or clear connection between a belief about Israel's relations to the world and how a specific nation should execute its foreign policy. In order for some high level theological belief to legitimately (key word) or with justification affect or result in an action in foreign policy, the chain of mediation would be quite long and very complicated, starting with theological positions and issues, moving into issues of how they generally affect nations, then to the specific circumstances of American's foreign policy, then to the specific circumstances regarding Israel-Palestine, and finally to a policy directive. If that seems long in writing, imagine what the steps would actually look like in reality. And that's clearly not what's going on for most people who claim that their theological positions are justifying, in some obvious way, some specific political action.

So, if Bauder's first criterion applied, and specific eschatological positions were quite important, then they would necessarily be higher up in the systematic heirarchy of beliefs, and would therefore not have anything like a justified, or legitimate, direct affect on practices or actions.

The more general point is that criteria are over-appealed to; they only work and are useful when all the people in the discussion agree with them or their interpretation; but they are often invoked to help adjudicate disputes of systematic scale, and there they are worse than useless, for they misdirect attention regarding what's actually separating people, what's actually at issue. Thus criteria work really well in the hard sciences, say, where the research community has a very specific and agreed upon understanding of what it means to "test a hypothesis" and report on it in a peer-reviewed journal. But they are practically worthless if people are arguing about the relative merits of a piece of literature, for in such arguments the underlying problem is usually precisely criteria: what people take to be relevant standards of judgment and evaluation fundamentally differ, hence the common experience of "talking past" one another.

Part of the problem in all of these discussions is that we do not focus enough on the mediating beliefs and practices that would produce actions resulting from our supposedly most fundamental beliefs, like in the Trinity, but we rather spend more time focusing on beliefs that are, whatever their relative value, less important but often more exciting or apparently applicable. Thommie Ice and Wilson should be able to get on fine in a church if all that separates them was specific eschatological beliefs (I, and many I know, have gotten along fine differing over such matters); but it's not all that divides them; they differ fundamentally on a host of other things regarding theology, culture and practice, including things like the kinds of sensibilities we should be cultivating, things people like Ice normally don't even articulate or see as theological concerns, and hence these issues and concerns get lumped in, as Bauder perhaps just did (implicitly), with some more obvious belief. Separating out what is actually legitimating ("causing" is not nearly as helpful a term here) some practice, disposition, orientation, or belief is a task that needs to be pursued more than it is currently. In it's absence, you get wide-ranging discussions that end up lumping a host of heterogenous positions and sensibilities and beliefs under one big umbrella, like a soteriological dispute, as if that's the mainly, primary, or the only important thing separating the disputants.

Dr. Bauder,

I will gladly acknowledge that some supercessionists use the deprivileging of the Jewish people as cover for their anti-semitism. I simply wanted to note that this is a non-unique charge since it can be leveled at millenialists of all stripes. Indeed, strains of anti-semitism have periodically resurfaced within fundamentalism since the beginning of the movement.

Shouldn't we avoid judging an intellectual current or a movement by its most extreme adherents ipso facto? If we are to define a movement by the fringe then all anabaptists were apocalyptic militants (Munster), all new evangelicals are licentious, and all fundamentalists are either racists, anti-semites, or legalists. Unless you're willing to propose that anti-semitism profoundly characterizes a- or post-millenialism, I'd avoid mentioning it in your argument. It is a distraction from your otherwise well-argued position.

Dr. Bauder, have you read this work? Horner's use of Anti-Judaism (or anti-Semitism) is extremely idiosyncratic. He applies the term to anyone who does not agree with Israel's right to the land and all the other blessings that Dispensationalists say they should get someday. (Horner does not claim to be a Dispensationalist because of his post-trib position, but it is clear that his position on Israel vis-a-vis Church is Dispensational). Sam Waldron had an 8-part review and critique online which I am disappointed to find unavailable due to his site being in the process of upgrade (something familiar to SI patrons). Perhaps it will be available again soon. In any case, with such equivocation on the term anti-Semitic, it's hard to see how he's really relevant to what people normally mean when they use the term.

Thanks for the great article. It helped strengthen my resolve as a pastor to continue to speak out that millennial views do really matter. It seems to me that the list of doctrines that matter is continually being chopped all for the sake of a false unity. Doctrine does matter and should effect our actions. Thanks again for taking the time to write something that would have taken me weeks to accumulate and articulate.

I am not sure I entirely understand sbradley's post. To be sure, there must be false unities to be had out there. And I am sure we can think of some examples. In this context, however, the only "false unity" that I can imagine is one in which the membership of a local church is so homogenous in convictions, personality, training, background, personality, dress, looks, speech, etc. that he it is actually a little creepy. A conscious effort within a membership to encourage that tendency is certainly one way to make a statement that we are different from the world; but maybe it is not the best way, or even a healthy way.

On the other hand, how is limiting acceptable millenial views within a membership from two or three to one "chopping the list of doctrines that matter"? Seems that one VIEW of the doctrine of eschatology is all that matters? On the contrary, churches that allow two or three are (ideally) guiding and shepherding their members into humility and deference one toward another, as well as sharpening. A "false unity" is more the case when you drive those away who are not fully aligned with your own positions in all areas, and you are primarily catering to those whom you have either raised and taught yourself, or transplants who come into the area and seek you out because of how many boxes you tick on their list.

In a locale like Greenville, one may shop around and choose a church that precisely fits his checklist and matches more of his positions on everything. That is a real luxury. You are not comfortable with one thing at aa particular church, try the one across the street (but, you might miss a blessing to be challenged or to challenge someone else). In other parts of the world, however, one does not really have this luxury. You kind of have to make do with the body of believers you find. There might be both Jews and Greeks (fundamental believers one and all) all in one glorious local body. What to do? There won't be a church on one side of town for the Greeks and on the other for the Jews.

To go to a foreign field, and to wear a certain set of glasses with a predisposition to cater to or to look for one type of person only in order to build a local church of the same order of homogeneity and disposition as the sending church, could be akin to creating a false unity within a body, before the work is even begun. Yes, we speak about churches "reproducing" themselves. But I certainly don't want my children to be exactly like me. Sometimes I wonder if some American missionaries to hardened places (in Europe for example), give up and leave the mission field after 12 years and a church membership of two, because they have placed unduly narrow strictures on church membership and fellowship? Is this not a false unity -- often presented as a unity with the gospel? If the missionary's sense of unity (or more likely, his American supporting churches' sense of unity) corresponded a little more closely to the senses of Christian unity we see in scriptures, perhaps the missionary could retire with a stable church of 20 members instead of 2 (stable because the full complement of members really do reflect a complete body with different body parts and not all heads or hands). I would be curious to hear about the missions policy of Mr. Bradley's church, and whether a supported missionary would be allowed any latitude in "non-fundamental" areas and be able to use his own discretion according to the field and the individual individuals he there encounters and brings into his church.

If your millennial view matters and affects your actions and beliefs like Dr. Bauder stated, then limiting church membership based on one's millennial view only makes sense. I would not want a situation in my church where an opposing millennial view was allowed to grow and eventually dominate because I allowed people to become members who held to an opposing view.

While premillennialism is not a fundamental of the faith alongside the gospel, it is still a teaching of Scripture that I believe in, and therefore I must pay honor to it and stand by what the Bible teaches as truth. I can't minimize it, ignore it, sweep it under the carpet, or say that it doesn't matter.

And in reference to supporting missionaries, why wouldn't I want to support missionaries that believe like I do? There are certainly enough of them out there. I want my money going to support someone who believes the same things I believe the Bible teaches. Certainly some latitude is given, but I don't think premillennialism is a "doesn't matter" type of doctrine. I think that is the real debate - does your millennial view matter - and it certainly does.

Mr. Robinson, I agree with your assessment that an overly narrow unity is false in its own way. One of the reasons that I am glad to be Presbyterian is that our doors are as wide as Christ's arms. Anyone who can make a credible profession of faith and agree to the membership vows can be a member in my PCA church. On the other hand, elders are required to hold to the Westminster Standards. In this way, we have quite a diversity of people, but unity of teaching. Congregationalism, on the other hand, seems to lead inevitably either to schism or laxity. If a Congregational church considers a doctrine important, they must separate over it. So, the only way to avoid separation is to declare many doctrines unimportant.

So a view of premillennialism that chooses to separate to an extent (at least in a local church setting) now keeps other people from being able to evangelize? This cry of lets forget all other doctrine and just concentrate on the gospel is clearly unbiblical. If these other doctrines don't matter then much of the N.T. is unnecessary reading and God is really doing us a disservice by giving us extra things to read and study when we could better use our time just evangelizing.

It seems to me that what you should include in your test of fellowship - especially for church membership - depends on very practical issues affecting the health of the church. 1) How integrated is this doctrine into the preaching and teaching and day to day life of the church? and 2) How large is this church and how does it operate?

On the basis of the first question I suspect it would be easier for an amillennialist to include premillennialists and postmillennialists than the other way around.

On the basis of the second question I think that large churches - especially if they have a top down government have the luxury of being able to tolerate more diversity in their membership. In small congregationally governed churches there is no such luxury. Factions over ANYTHING damage the pastor's ability to minister, the spiritual health of the people, and the church's testimony in the community. Have you ever had the experience of a member gathering a group for a study in which he presents views diametrically opposed to what you have been preaching or teaching? It does nothing for your ministry and can ultimately threaten the life of the small church. I think it is different in large churches - but I've never been pastor in one of those.

(Titus 3:9-11) But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.

It seems to me that making your millennial view a test of fellowship is a way of avoiding divisiveness down the road. When I meet with new member candidates I go through our doctrinal statement in some detail. I tell them that they do not need to understand everything completely or affirm everything without reservation, but that they must not be in complete disagreement with any part. Questions are fine - we can deal with those.

I think one of the biggest problems in having NO position on Eschatology would be attempting to fulfill Paul's goal to preach the "whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). When you get to Daniel or Revelation, which view do you preach? One month Premillennial, the next month Preterist, the next Amillennial, etc.??? Or does the pastor teach one thing from the pulpit while other church leaders/members teach another view in the Sunday School classes or small groups?

I think a church should be flexible with these issues when it comes to church membership, but in leadership - especially in what is to be taught - there needs to be conformity or there will be many possibilities for confusion in the church.