Eschatological Bias

A friend of mine was discussing Daniel and Revelation, and I just couldn't resist that old familiar urge to dig into prophecy. This is dangerous territory! And just in time for Tabernacles.

First, let's define eschatology. Someone out there might not be familiar with this word. Eschatology is the study of final things, ie. end times. It comes from the Greek word eschatos, which means the farthest or final. Few things are more central to Armstrongism than eschatology, even though most members wouldn't use that word. I think it really is the bread and butter of the whole movement.

Many people have wasted their lives trying to nail prophecy down. I do not recommend it. But this I will recommend - if you simply must dig into end times, then look into as many interpretations as possible and avoid locking yourself into any single one. Know all the possibilities, measure them all, then watch and pray to see which best matches the evidence as we go along. I'm not saying don't have a favorite. I'm just saying keep open the option of being wrong.

I know the natural inclination is to only investigate in order to try and disprove every one except your favorite, but I am not talking about disproving. I am talking about genuinely comparing and contrasting. The problem preventing most of us from doing this boils down to systems, assumptions, and bias. Ditch these three. They aren't doing you any favors.

We tend to get invested in particular eschatological systems; schemes of interpreting Biblical prophecy. Maybe that system is the only one we've ever known. Maybe it's the core of our "one true church" and thus has been elevated to "God's truth". (That is how Armstrongism would feel.) Maybe we simply refuse to review our prior footsteps for whatever reason. That particular system becomes our assumptions. It colors everything we see. We go into everything else with these assumptions. And that is called bias.

What do I mean by "systems"? There are several. They generally focus on two items: the Millennium, and the Tribulation. Are we currently before, within, or after the Millennium and the Tribulation? Or, are they symbolic and don't really exist at all? You can mix and match. Pre-Trib A-Mil, Post-Trib Post-Mil, etc etc. (Armstrongism would fall into pre-Trib Pre-Mil.)
It gets more complicated than this, but I'm not writing a dissertation here. I am just explaining how there are systems.

I ask a very difficult thing of you. There is no way most Armstrongists would so much as entertain the idea of us currently being in the Millennium. They are simply too literal. The church is not the Kingdom of God on earth, they believe, and Jesus is not here, so everything must still be future, and therefore anything pre or current is wiped off the board. The system has become the assumption by which everything else is seen. It is the bias. A bias I was once dialed into myself.
Do you see the assumptions and the bias here? Once dialed-in, a person will force all evidence to fit the system. We use terms like "difficult verses", and we have arguments with others of a different opinion. We tell ourselves how right we are, but deep inside we feel a splinter reminding us something is not quite right after all.

But think for a minute. Given the unbroken track record of prophetic failures going all the way back to Herbert Armstrong predicting the return of Christ in 1936 (we have articles on this, I suggest "All Systems Are Go!"), and given the sheer number of splinter-church members who have their own private views on prophetic interpretation (there is at least one group at every Feast of Tabernacles who everyone knows are the prophecy nerds), therefore perhaps consider the remote possibility that maybe, just maybe, the eschatological system is not so very written in stone after all. Humor me here .... perhaps a reasonable course is to take a look at what other options exist, and why they exist, even though you have a preferred system.

Herbert Armstrong was right sometimes. One thing he was right about was when he said, "A false starting point leads to false conclusions." Or something like that. I paraphrase. At any rate, it's true! He certainly came to many false conclusions because of some false assumption picked up along the way (we have articles on this, too, I suggest "An Inconvenient Plain Truth"). As the shepherd goes, so do the sheep. So, his followers have also come to many false conclusions. How many absolutely certain immediate returns of Christ has Dave Pack alone come up with in just the past couple years? Legion. Yet his dates come and go like the breeze. Why do you suppose that is? Because he has the right equation? The right equation led him to so very many incorrect conclusions? No. Worse still, it's system-wide. These failures have been happening since the Great Disappointment in 1843. Armstrong's system comes directly from William Miller's after all. But look here, it's not just the leadership, like the Packs or the Weinlands or the Thiels. It's the people in the seats, too. I've been hearing over my entire lifetime, "Three or four more years!" Over the years, I've heard more private explanations of prophecy and when Jesus is going to return than I can count. I spent most of my time at the Feast of Tabernacles with the prophecy nerds (and go-karting). Would a fully correct and functional equation keep coming to such incorrect conclusions across the board like this? Or does the evidence cry out to us that there was a false starting point? Would it not make more sense that something somewhere is off? And if so, would it not be reasonable to compare and contrast against other options?

Reviewing isn't the same thing as throwing everything you have in the garbage bin. As we always used to say, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." (I cringe typing that out.) I'm not advocating throwing things out. Quite the opposite! Look, keep your preference. Just understand what alternatives exist and why they exist is all I'm suggesting.

To be bluntly honest with you, I don't know which eschatological system is right any more than anyone else here below. Sure, I have a favorite, but I'm not betting the farm on it. For me to say, "throw out pre-Trib Pre-Mil because it's false," would be to grossly misrepresent my case. I started out saying as much. Read the third paragraph again. Keep your options open. I think that is the best and wisest course. Whichever way it plays out, it would be a shame to be taken off guard because I was staring intently in the wrong direction.

What might really bake your noodle is for me to suggest more than one system could be correct. Because it's possible things could play out in two ways. Think about it. In the Old Covenant period, there was a greater end time, with the statue dream and multiple empires, and there was a final end time in 70-136 AD. That could happen again.

Keep in mind what I've said here many times before: ALL prophetic interpretation is speculation. I'm not against speculation, but I definitely am against elevating speculation into doctrine. Don't let your eschatological systems, assumptions, and bias be your blind spot.