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Long Description |
Herman Cartoon
Person holding a sign that says: The End Is Near
Man in Business Suit says: "Have I got time for a cup of coffee?"
This is one of those pictures that really is worth ten thousand words. It summarized this book's thesis: the cultural bankruptcy of modern evangelicalism and its chief cause, the doctrine of Christ's momentary return.
Modern evangelicalism is like that fellow with the sign, and modern humanistic society takes its message just about as seriously as Herman does. A movement that believes the message of that sign is not going to produce a comprehensive challenge that is meaningful or even plausible to the Hermans of this world. Christianity cannot beat something with nothing. People who think they have time only for a cup of coffee and reading a gospel tract have nothing much to offer a civilization in crisis.
This does not mean that those holding the sign have no social theory. They do: a theory that they have not developed. They believe in a view of the world that has been developed in terms of philosophies other than the Bible's. They have imported alien philosophies into Christianity. To the extent that they attempt to challenge modern man intellectually, they are using defective tools.
This present the case for the Bible as the sole foundation of valid social theory. Every social theory has a theory of sovereignty, authority, law, rewards and punishments, and cultural progress over time. The Bible offers a unique version of such theory. But modern Christians have rejected the idea of cultural progress. They also reject the idea of God's sanctions in history. Finally, they reject biblical law. They have therefore been forced to import humanistic substitutes for these three crucial concepts. Very few of them have recognized what they have done, or have had done to them, in the name of Christianity. This book show exactly what has been done, and why it has distorted the Church's efforts of evangelism. |
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Inside Flap |
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the city of Dallas. This event ended the self-confidence of post-war humanistic liberalism. Beginning ten weeks later, American culture entered a period of unprecedented social change. Campus riots, race riots, the anti-war movement, a huge increase in crime, hard rock music, drugs, pornography, and radical art forms combined into what became known as the counter-culture. American society was turned upside-down until 1970. then the "me decade" began.
During these years of turmoil, the evangelical churches were given an equally unprecedented opportunity to confront an insecure culture with the counter-claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ: God's counter-culture. This meant that the churches had to offer solid, Bible-based answers to the real-world problems that were overwhelming society. What did the churches do? Nothing. They offered no solutions. They had no rival programs. They recognized that they could not beat something - modern humanism - with nothing. They remained culturally silent. "Jesus is coming soon" is all the hope they could offer. An opportunity of a century came and went. The "Jesus People" also came and went. The crisis subsided. But American society was still as lost as before.
Then came Hal Lindsey, a Dallas Theological Seminary graduate, co-authored The Late, Great Planet Earth in 1970, which became the best-selling non-fiction book of the decade. He announced the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He told Christians there was not much time remaining, surely not enough to reform modern society. Millions of Christians took his message seriously. He was telling them what their leaders had been telling them for over a century. The message was getting through: "The Bible has not answers to real-world crises."
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion on demand. This case began in the city of Dallas. What was the response of the churches? Silence. Dallas Theological Seminary, the bastion of dispensational fundamentalism, issued no position paper of abortion, suggested no program of legitimate Christian protest, and did not call the nation to repentance. It still hasn't. It has remained silent.
Roe v. Wade threw down the gauntlet to Christians. There was no way to hide any more. Murdering babies is either wrong according to God's word or else it is acceptable. One or the other. There can be no neutrality here. There is not neutrality possible in the abortionist's clinic: the baby either lives or dies.
This Court decision and the 25 million American abortions that followed began to transform modern American fundamentalism. A minority of dedicated Christians has begun to challenge this grotesque evil, not in the name of "neutral" natural law but in the name of God's law. They have begun to turn to the Bible in search of answers.
But they still face a problem: if there is insufficient time remaining until Jesus comes again, can such protest bear fruit? Are they merely symbolic protests - public statements that will never change anything? Or are they the first stage of the re-conquest of humanist civilization by Christians?
Here is the main question: Will Jesus' Great Commission be fulfilled in history? Will nations be discipled by the Church? Will God bring judgment against His enemies in history? Most important, do we have enough time for the healing power of the gospel to do its work?
Two millennial views say no, there isn't enough time: premillennialism and amillennialism ("pessimillennialism"). A third view says yes, there is enough time: post-millennialism. The revival of interest in this third view has taken both rival camps by surprise. By tying a vision of victory in history to the doctrine that the Bible offers specific answers to social problems, a new movement has begun to capture the minds of a generation of Christian activists. The movement is called Christian Reconstruction.
In Millennialism and Social Theory, Dr. Gary North, co-founder of this movement, examines why both pre-millennialism and amillennialism have never developed independent social theories, and why the spokesmen of both positions appeal to the prevailing ethics of contemporary humanism as the only possible way to run society.
Millennialism and Social Theory presents a detailed critical account of how and why Protestant evangelicalism has retreated from the battlefields on which the war for modern man is being fought. It shows why Christian leaders have given up hope in the power of the gospel to transform societies as well as individual souls. It shows why Christianity is losing, and will continue to lose, as long as pessimillennialism is dominant. It also shows why this defeat is not inevitable, and why we can expect a great reversal.
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Catalog Description |
Social theory is the view that men adopt to explain how society operates, how it holds together. Every social theory incorporates theories of sovereignty, of order and authority, of law, of rewards and punishments, and of cultural change and progress over time. The Bible offers a unique version of such a theory. Unfortunately, modern "pessimillennial" Christians have rejected the biblical view of law and history, and thus have not produced an explicitly biblical social theory. Since God is Three and One, and this is a Society as well as Individuals, God is very interested in social theory. North shows the way back to a biblical understanding of society based on a biblical understanding of history. |
