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| Hal Lindsey |
All events are linked yesteryear an overarching logic as well as are leading toward simply about known end—the Second Coming of Christ. Lindsay is i of the really few writers to always convey 3 books on the New York Times best-seller listing simultaneously.
His best-known book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), has been translated into fifty dissimilar languages as well as has sold over 35 meg copies. He has since written simply about other 20 books, regularly conducts pro-Israeli Holy Land tours, runs an online newsletter, Hal Lindsey Oracle, as well as appears on the weekly Trinity Broadcasting Network intelligence show, International Intelligence Briefing.
The Late Great Planet Earth is a key document inwards the early on popularization of the trend of religious belief almost mutual amid evangelical Christianity inside the United States—premillennial dispensationalism. To empathize Lindsey’s significance, both inside biblical prophesying as well as inside the so-called Christian Zionist Right, it is necessary to come upward to a basic agreement of the theology espoused yesteryear his writing.
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Premillennialism is the agreement that nosotros are approaching the millennium: the thousand-year reign of Christ that follows the Second Coming. Dispensationalism asserts that God progressively reveals himself over a serial of ages or dispensations. During each dispensation, the onus placed upon humankind inwards price of their responsibleness to God changes.
At present, according to Lindsey as well as almost other evangelicals, nosotros are inwards the historic menses of the Grace or the Church historic menses (the 6th of 7 dispensations) during which our exclusively responsibleness to God is faith. The lastly dispensation, next the rapture—during which the faithful volition live called to God’s side—is the millennial kingdom.
The feel that the millennium is at mitt depends upon biblically based interpretations of electrical flow events. More specifically, it depends upon specific interpretations of the Book of Revelation. In this interpretation, the creation of the State of State of Israel inwards 1948 is the effect that begins the countdown to the millennium.
State of Israel plays a crucial business office inwards the premillennial dispensationalist version of the Last Days—hence the rigid back upward of State of Israel yesteryear Lindsey, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, as well as Jimmy Swaggart, who along amongst Tim LaHaye (coauthor amongst Jerry Jenkins of the immensely pop as well as profitable Left Behind series) are marrow members of the so-called Christian Zionist Right. (Incidentally, all of the aforementioned individuals convey rigid affiliations amongst groups funded yesteryear Rev. Dominicus Myung Moon’s Unification Church.) Without the continuing beingness of the State of Israel, the events that Pb upward to the lastly dispensation cannot come upward to pass.
The centrality of premillennial dispensationalism as well as its attendant Zionism to the U.S. Christian Right points to the significance of Lindsey as well as his writing to the contemporary political scene. The centrality of Christian Zionism to both political as well as religious life inwards the US has redoubled next the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Another key historical chemical cistron identified yesteryear Lindsey is the receive toward the unification of Europe. Lindsey reads the EU every bit the revived Roman Empire—the reemergence of which is key to the End Times scenario. One matter that has complicated Lindsey’s vision of the apocalypse is the autumn of the Soviet Union, which has served every bit his candidate for Gog-Magog. Gog-Magog are identified inwards the Bible every bit the nations that Satan volition Pb upon his escape from prison theatre at the cease of the millennium.
The autumn of the Soviet Union has non dissuaded Lindsey from his view: inwards an article from August 2002 Lindsey notes, “Just when yous laid out to wonder where is Gog as well as Magog inwards all this ... Russian Federation has continued to strengthen ties amongst all 3 of the countries branded the ‘axis of evil’ yesteryear President Bush: Iran, Republic of Iraq as well as North Korea. Hmmm” (Lindsey 2002).
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