From Catholic to Full Preterist to Skeptic
In the beginning
I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic faith
over fifty years ago, when this church still had an almost absolute sway
over the lives of my people, in the province of Québec, Canada. By the time
I was a teenager, it's power and influence had begun to ebb, and folks were
starting to think more for themselves in matters of spirituality, although
they still had deeply superstitious ideas concerning life in the
here-and-now and in the here-after.
In the '60s, we had what some have come to call "The
Quiet Revolution," a mainly political movement, which finally broke the
power of the Roman church over us. We started getting rid of the priest's
heavy-handed influence on our society. By the same token, religious groups
like Jehovah's Witnesses and various Evangelical and Fundamentalist sects
began to spread their "gospel" in Québec, having now the freedom to do so,
because of the Quiet Revolution.
By the time this revolution had happened, I had given up
on religion, having seen its nefarious hold on my people. In my mid-twenties
I began exploring other religious systems, such as Taoism, Buddhism, and
other eastern religions. I liked some of their ideas and incorporated them
in my own worldview. I was then basically an Agnostic/Atheist.
A fateful day in school
Still in my mid twenties, I went back to school, in order to complete high
school, which I had quit in the days of my rebellion against authority. It
was during this time that I would meet a young man who would change the
course of my life.
One day, at the end of a math class, this young man asked
me what I thought of Jesus of Nazareth. I answered that I thought he was ok,
but no more. I had had a personal indoctrination into the world of religion
by my former "spiritual keepers" and thought that was sufficient. Little did
I realize the influence this young man would have on me. His name was Mark.
The gospel I had never heard
He began to tell me of the gospel of Jesus Christ, how my former religion
had lied to me and that salvation was readily available to all who would
"ask Jesus into their hearts." This salvation," he said, was "by grace and
not by works." At that time, my favorite philosopher was Neitzche, so you
can probably imagine what kind of arguments we had.
Mark's courage in the face of adversity impressed me and
the strength of his arguments against the background of that courage were a
powerful incentive for me. I longed to find the answers to the "mysteries"
of life. From an early age, I had asked why was I here? Where did I come
from? Where was I going? That last one held a particular interest for me.
I had been tought that hell was the destination of the
rebellious and since I was a rebel, the thought of hell often predominated
my thoughts. In any event, after four years of "debating" with Mark, I
finally "asked Jesus into my heart."
Oh Happy days!
I wish I could describe the joy I felt at having my sins forgiven and being
inducted into the "family of God." I read my Bible daily and studied hard to
be "a workman approved." After a while, I began to notice slight
discrepancies between what my pastor taught in the pulpit and what I was
reading in my Bible. Surely, I thought, it was me who didn't understand. I
gave him and the others that taught me the benefit of the doubt, because
after all, they were men of God and wouldn't make such mistakes. It was me,
it had to be me.
As time went by, I noticed still more discrepancies. It
began to dawn on me that perhaps they were, after all, wrong about certain
things, so I began to question them and to argue with them as to the various
meanings of the texts on which we didn't see eye-to-eye. I began to attract
attention as being a rather rebellious fellow who was "contentious" and
always looked for the proverbial "fly in the ointment".
Troubled waters ahead
After a time it became clear to me that my teachers were wrong about how God
administered His Salvation and his Kingdom. I thought their theology was
rather inconsistent and contradictory and I told them so. This, of course,
attracted further attention to me; the kind of attention that "heretics"
usually got.
Sure as shootin', I was eventually disfellowshipped and
shunned. That was a tough year for me. This was the church I had been "born
again" in and I considered it as my spiritual mother. Of course, I have to
admit that I gave my "mom" a hard time, sometimes being stubborn and prone
to a bad temper and a quick response: They weren't to blame for all my
troubles.
This experience was a good one for me as it opened up new
horizons I had not previously explored. I went to a Reformed church for a
while and got a taste of the "Calvinism" I had so often read about and
studied -- my beloved sotereology. Little did I suspect that these folks
were of the same mind as those I had previously been with. They also didn't
appreciate dissent, so it was back to another Baptist church for me, when I
began to question infant baptism and their Covenant Theology.
Back to the fold
Well, I was back with the Baptists, my first love, only this time they were
what some called "Reformed" Baptists. They were "Calvinistic" in their
approach to salvation. That suited me just fine. But after a while, needless
to say, I was in hot water again. I just couldn't adopt a theology without
trying to modify it, which irritated some folks no end.
I eventually left that Baptist church and went back to my
original church -- yep, the one that first kicked me out. They had gotten
another pastor and he seemed to be more reasonable than the former pastor,
so I decided I'd give them another try. I was glad to be back there, as I'd
missed my first spiritual family.
It was during my stay there that I got myself an Internet
account and began to browse the cyber routes of spirituality. That was quite
a shocker for me. As time went by I saw that there were a thousand different
opinions out there and that some of them were pretty wacked out.
It was during this time that I came upon Preterism. This
is a teaching which basically stated that Jesus came back during the last
third of the first century, according as He gave His word to His disciples
by saying: "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all
these things be fulfilled." (Matt 24:34) These "things" were all the things
He'd told them about in the Olivet discourse, in the 24th chapter of the
gospel of Matthew.
Welcome back to Hereticville -- population: ME!
I then learned that a future return of Christ was just not taught in the
Scriptures. I wrote myself up a webpage and started telling other Christians
how mistaken they were, waiting for Jesus to come back. The statements
concerning His return and "the end of the world" were quite clear and I
believed that the "world" He was speaking of was not the physical word, but
the covenant world of the Israelites, i.e., the religious system they had
lived under for lo, these many centuries.
I began getting letters stating that I was destroying the
true faith, that I was attacking a fundamental doctrine that the church had
traditionally taught for centuries. In short, I simply wasn't being
orthodox. Preterists were later labeled (get a load of this fancy term) "Hymanean-Hyper-Preterists"
by the Reformed Church of the United States (RCUS). Now that's what I call a
label!
Well, it was back to Hereticville for me; but then again,
I was used to that, having been labeled a heretic and a rebel long before I
had entered the ranks of Preterism. I liked Preterists, on the whole, I
thought they were honest researchers who were not afraid to challenge
traditions for the sake of truth. Unfortunately, they weren't as
anti-traditional as I first thought.
Tradition is alive and well in Preteristville
I found, to my dismay, that Preterists were also prone to be
traditionalists, even though they claimed to challenge tradition and to
stand on the Word of God only. This became even more clear to me as I began
to deny the doctrine of eternal torments. Some of them got downright
aggressive about it.
I saw that those who yelled the loudest in favor of Sola
Scritpura, "The Scriptures Alone", were very often those who would take the
hardest stand where tradition and so-called orthodoxy were concerned, thus
denying in the same breath their beloved doctrine, Sola Scriptura.
However inconsistent this may seem, whenever anyone
questioned the authority of the Bible, there were always those who would be
ready with a word of warning. One day, a lady on a Preterist discussion list
I had subscribed to, posted a reply to a previous question, stating that she
thought the apostle Paul had been misguided in his teachings on the
resurrection. Needless to say, all hell broke loose.
Condemnation came in fast and furious and in no uncertain
terms and this lady was branded a wolf and ordered to recant forthwith. She
didn't and got more of the same. During this troubled time, another man
posted a list of errors he'd found in the Bible.
Innerrancy challenged, challenge ignored
He, of course, got a few well chosen reprimands from
those who held to the inerrancy of the Bible. In fact, I was one of the
people who wrote him to ask "if the Bible is so full of errors, then how can
we ever trust it? Where would we go to find truth? And on what rock would we
stand?"
I then determined to find answers to his list of
so-called errors and began to study them in earnest, as I wanted to "bring
him back to the fold." To my great horror, I found even more errors. I was,
as you can imagine, shocked. I had always firmly believed that the Bible was
the "inspired and inerrant Word of God." I kept studying this and kept
trying to find solutions to these problems.
I found a few solutions to problems that one could
consider copyist and translation errors, that really didn't affect any
important doctrine. This, of course, assumed that the original autographs
were inerrant. I found that some of the errors were simply verses that were
taken out of context by the Sceptics. Such is life.
The other errors, however, simply wouldn't go away. In
fact, the more I tried to explain them, the less I could justify them. I
tried going to various inerrancy websites, but found the answers to be
unsatisfactory. I found a lot of "this could be interpreted", or,
"this is a possible solution," but the real answers were not to be
found. The "big guns" of Bible inerrancy just couldn't still my spirit.
I then posted some of the errors I had found and asked my
Christian brothers on the list to help me with them. I really wanted to
believe in the doctrine of inerrancy. I kept telling myself that it was me
that was wrong. It was my faith that was weak. The Word of God couldn't be
wrong!
The cavalry does not ride in
To my amazement, those on the list that were the loudest defenders of
inerrancy ignored my posts, as well as those of the man that had first
posted the original list. I couldn't believe this! How could Christians just
ignore this problem? How could Preterists, who challenged such traditional
teachings as the future return of Christ and the mode of resurrection, just
ignore this problem and refuse to help out a brother???
That's when it began to finally sink in. The doctrine of
inerrancy was just not true. My heart was broken and my soul plunged in a
mire of uncertainty. I posted a letter to the list telling people how I felt
about this. Some were very sympathetic and told me they "felt" for me and
would pray that God would give me light and bring me back to inerrancy, but
none of them offered to help with the errors. In fact, I got letters from
some telling me that they had already been through this and had settled the
issue in their hearts and had no wish to rehash it. So much for compassion.
Besides, I was told, this was a Preterist list, not an inerrancy list. It
was suggested that I join an inerrancy list for help. I think the problem
was that they were scared.
A light begins to shine in the darkness
It took a while, but I saw that there were no answers to this problem, other
than to admit that there actually were errors in the Bible and that I would
have to accept my losses and move on. This was a traumatic experience for
me, as I had given myself, heart and soul, to my faith. I had spent eighteen
years studying this book, ignoring the doubts I'd had over the years,
telling myself that it was me that was wrong. Well, it wasn't me! It was the
Bible!
There are insuperable errors in the Bible; errors that
are, to quote a Christian I know, "ungetoverable". I eventually found error
after error that simply couldn't be justified. There were counting errors,
errors in historical data, biological data and scientific data of all kinds
and a host of others too long to name. So many in fact, that I was amazed I
could ignore them for so long. My conclusion is that when a man really wants
to believe, the facts won't make any difference.
The years of doubt culminate
I had been bothered for years by the nagging suspicion that if the Bible was
so clear, then how come there were so many different interpretations? I kept
telling myself that it was "the others" that just didn't interpret the Bible
correctly. But if the book was so clear, then why all these different sects?
Why so many denominations? How could there be so many contradictory opinions
on even the most fundamental doctrines, when the Bible was supposed to be as
clear as crystal?
Furthermore, what about the problem of evil? Why was
there so much suffering and senseless violence in the world, when an
omnipotent and benevolent God could put a stop to it? It just didn't make
sense. We are often told by some Christians that God doesn't want suffering
and death. Well, if he doesn't want it, why does it happen? And why did he
cause so much of it himself? Why did he command the slaughter of women,
children, suckling infants, the elderly and the crippled? How did the
slaughter of infants, for the sins of their fathers, ever satisfy "divine
justice?"
Preterism was a watershed for me. It brought all the
different problems and doubts into one place and put them into focus as
never before. It forced me to see that the church could be wrong about a
major doctrine and that it had been wrong for a long time. This really
bothered me. It was in October 1996, when I came to Preterism, that I
started having these very serious doubts and I just couldn't get rid of
them. I kept trying to bury them, but they just kept coming back.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when I started
investigating inerrancy. Preterism had opened the door to recognizing that
"the ground and pillar of the truth," the church, was wrong about the second
coming and the resurrection. I saw how much tradition held sway in the
church and that its cry of "The Scriptures Alone" was just a smoke screen.
The reality was that the emperor had no clothes.
The various denominations held to their traditions,
despite what the Bible said about them. Beliefs set in and the hard
questions were frowned upon. When I took a hard and honest look at the
inerrancy problem, everything began to unravel. It was quite disconcerting.
I was troubled as I'd never been before, because I just couldn't bury the
problem anymore. I had to deal with it. And if Preterism had been the
watershed, inerrancy was the floodgates opened. It was the most difficult
decision I had ever had to make, but it was unavoidable.
I'm glad I found these errors and I'm grateful to that
man who first posted the list of errors. He had a lot of courage. He met
with a lot of opposition and stood his ground, because he knew he was right.
He could not, would not, ignore the evidence. Though he was accused and
often treated unkindly, he stood for what he knew was right. He was an
inspiration to me. I can't say I agree with all of his conclusions regarding
the truth, but he was a boon to me in my search for truth. Thank you Dave.
