book recommendations?

[linda]

Ya'll have recommended so many good Baptist history books to me through the years! And I thank you!

Now I have another question for you.

The little Baptist church I grew up in (SBC)--well, along with the local Methodist church pre UMC--was pretty much postmillennial, with some amil. I remember when we first encountered dispensationalism and I thought it cultish and nuts. Fast forward and it became "the" end times point of view where I live among Baptists. Can't agree on much of anything else, but most are dispy on the end times.

I'm just now learning that nope, we weren't weirdos out there in the sand dunes, but that lots of Baptists before us were other than dispensational.

Care to recommend any books that teach the Baptist view on amil, postmil, and historic pre mil? Don't have to be Baptist authors, just that what they teach would not be at odds with what non dispy Baptists taught/teach.

Thanks in advance for any help (and my hubby will love the help doing Christmas shopping again this year!)

And Pastor Bonney--any good Wesleyan takes on this?

[Sandy]

Making Sense of the Revelation, by Dr. William Turner. It's not a "sit down with a good book on a cold day" kind of read, but it does bring the theological terminology down a bit, and does a good job of explaining and educating.

End Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon? by Richard Abanes. I believe he is a Southern Baptist, or has a Southern Baptist background.

Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church by Gary DeMar. Not a Baptist perspective, but the book lays out a very clear, concise, Biblical Preterist view of end times. DeMar is a Presbyterian, I believe, along the D. James Kennedy line.

I've only been a member of one Baptist church that was futurist, AKA,"premillenial dispensational".

[linda]

Thanks! And open to more suggestions!

I'm off to check Amazon for those and see if they fit my wish list.

Sandy, do you mind my asking what part (general region is all) of the country where you live? I ask because here dispensational premil is everywhere--the Baptists, the Nazarenes even though their denomination says no to it, the many Word of Faith and just independent evangelical. And the charts sometimes touted are just.....bizarre.

I do have some books that do explain that viewpoint quite well, but I want to learn more about the other views.

[Sandy]

I grew up in Arizona, in a church that had a pastor who was wise enough, and studied enough, not to make end times theology an identification mark of his church. When I went to college, I attended Grand Canyon University, one of just two SBC-state convention related colleges outside of the traditional South, and their position was similar--teach them all, but don't endorse any. That's where I would say my view, which fits well with the definition of "partial Preterist", was formed. It was confirmed by two professors I had at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth. I've served on the staff, both full time and bi-vocationally, of churches in Arizona, Texas, Missouri and Kentucky, five altogether, and never encountered a premillennial, dispensational view in any of them, except the very first church I served, as a part time youth pastor in South Texas.

Now I live in Pennsylvania, and the Baptists up here are a diverse group, including the Southern Baptists. Some are pre-mill dispensational, some are not. I haven't seen it as a major emphasis, though. A lot of the independent Baptists up here are former ABC-USA congregations, and most of those aren't pre-mill. There are a few Fundamental Baptists and GARBC, who are.

[Dave Roberts]

An older book on Revelation, "Worthy is the Lamb" by Ray Summers is a good read.

[David Flick]

[linda]

Thanks and I will go check on those. Bummer that the Hobbs book is only available used. Allergies make it hard for me to buy used books by mail order--have to give them the sniff test (or rather get hubby or granddaughter to do it).

And I'll check a few digilibraries and see if I can read them online. Ex librarians sometimes can get into those.

Keep the ideas coming! I do have Christ's victorious kingdom by Davis, A case for amillennialism by Riddlebarger, and Postmillenialism by Mathison. All good but I could use more.

[Tim Bonney]

Linda,

Methodists aren't really big into end times studies. But I do have some recommendations.

Dr. William Powell Tuck, a Baptist and former pastor of mine and a fellow colleague in the Academy of Parish Clergy, has written "The Left Behind Fantasy: The Theology Behind the Left Behind Tales."

Barbara R. Rossing, "The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation."