Okay, here we go, the Second Coming.

First, if all you had was 1 and 2 Thessalonians, you would not be confused about end times and Christ’s Second Coming. Some scholars believe that these two letters are, perhaps, the oldest writings in the New Testament. Others think Galatians or the Corinthian letters are the oldest. The point is that the Thessalonian letters are very ancient and represent the earliest strata of apostolic teaching on Christian theology, practice and eschatology (study of end times). In these two letters Paul lays out a basic but clear description of what will take place leading up to and at the Second Coming. Additionally, in the second letter, Paul was trying to straighten out the Thessalonians on the timing of Christ’s coming. It seems that someone had confused them and may have convinced them that Christ had already returned. Therefore, he was being exceptionally clear. Now if you were a Thessalonian that had the opportunity to receive teaching from Paul and study his two letters, this is what you would probably believe regarding end times:

1 Thessalonians 4

1) Our dead Christian brothers and sisters are with Jesus in heaven.
2) When Jesus comes back He will bring our departed loved ones with Him.
3) As Jesus returns, the bodies of our loved ones will rise from the grave and they will be resurrected joining their spirits coming from heaven.
4) If we are still alive when He comes, we will be caught up to meet Him in the air to live forever with Christ, our bodies being transformed at His coming.

2 Thessalonians 2

1) Before Christ comes back there will be a period of rebellion against God.
2) The rebellion will have a leader who will oppose the things and people of God, will seek to be worshiped, do incredible things by the power of Satan, and delude masses of people into following religious practices that are spiritual but immoral.
3) Jesus will destroy this rebellious leader at His coming.

That’s it. The main thing that Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to do is to keep an eye peeled for the upcoming rebellion and the revealing of its lawless leader. There is no suggestion that they go to seminars, develop charts and graphs, stay current on the progress of Israeli-Palestinian relations, or figure out how many days, weeks, months and years it has been since the establishment of the Israeli state. This may sound cruel, but be honest, don’t you think the Thessalonians would have been confused by such nonsense and, frankly, thought it was just plain goofy?

My mom used to say, if it was good enough for Paul and Peter, its good enough for me.

I know, I know, you’re going to tell me that I’m the one who’s supposed to be against “venting.” And I grant you that. So I am going to call this a personal rant. I also know that I should be doing a blog-post on the Second Coming of Christ and I will get to that, but in the meantime, here we go.

My favorite cable network, the History Channel, has fallen lock-step in line with the typical Politically Correct nonsense about the Crusades. The nonsense goes something like this. There was this wonderful antiquity and the glory of Greco-Roman culture and then there was the Renaissance and Enlightenment. In between these two periods was the horrible Dark Ages with its mean-spirited religion and ignorant and aggressive warmongering culture. The low point of the dark medieval period was the Crusades when bumpkin-headed clerics lead vicious European warriors to sack, rape and pillage the peaceful, pristine and sophisticated Islamic culture of the Middle East. Sound familiar? Sure, you have heard it over and over again, only one problem, it is not true.

A simple review of history, along very general lines, confirms an obvious truth: Christianity has constantly been on the defensive when it comes to Moslem aggression; this has been the case from the beginning until now. For example, the so-called Crusades were an armed pilgrimage to try and reopen a safe route to Jerusalem and assist the eastern Mediterranean Christian-culture which was under assault by armed Muslim aggression. We probably need to remind ourselves that Islam had been on a four-hundred year march of conquest before Pope Urban II called for the first Crusade. If it hadn’t been for Charles Martel and the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 720 AD, we would likely now be worshipping at our local Mosque. Even in Africa at present there is a bloody offensive by the Moslems to convert ethnic groups that the heroic sacrifices of generations of missionaries had succeeded in converting. Admittedly, the Crusades were an act of war and not pretty; however, they were limited and lasted around 200 years. Islam began its conquest in 624 AD and last attacked Europe in the early 1600’s. How long does the Christian West need to feel guilty for actions done in self-defense, and for keeping the road open for pilgrimage to its most holy places, which was the reason for the Crusades?

For a balanced and factual presentation of the Crusades check out the article on the web titled “The Real History of the Crusades,” By Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University.

I have a theory about Christ’s second coming—it goes like this. Everything anyone needs to know about the last things can be found in 1 & 2 Thessalonians. The reason I believe this is because these two New Testament letters were written by St. Paul to help confused Christians get unconfused about Christ’s coming. Additionally, I think that any so-called system of eschatology (the study of end times) that doesn’t match-up with 1 & 2 Thessalonians is mistaken. I am pretty leery of any end times system that has to have some expert and a lot of charts to explain it. I just don’t think it is that complicated. If 1st century, mostly illiterate Christians, could grasp 1 & 2 Thessalonians without the need of seminars, charts, graphs and experts, then so can the average contemporary Christian.

I am in the process of writing a blog-post on the “second coming made easy.” However, I am interested in your thinking. Do you want to venture a thought or two about when and how Christ will return? Don’t be afraid, at Theology for dummies we tolerate differences.

I think I’ve done it again. I was on another person’s blog and I kinda’ got into a battle of wits with another blogger making comments over a semi-political issue. I apologize to the poor blogger—Dazey, because I’m sure I was “driving her” crazy. And normally I avoid political issues; buuuuut, this one has theological implications.

The issue is poverty and inner city blight. I believe that ultimately the solution to inner city devastation is primarily a moral/spiritual matter and not a political issue. My main thought is that the majority of people on public assistance and living in poverty are single female-headed households. The consequence of this is that as high as 70-80% of children in our inner cities are raised without fathers living in the home. It just so happens that the overwhelming majority of criminals come from fatherless homes. Nearly everyone who studies this issue recognizes the relationship between out-of-wedlock births and crime. High crime rates lead to middle-class flight from inner cities. Note I state “middle-class flight” and not “white-flight.” The reason I state the issue this way is because upwardly mobile African-Americans are moving at a higher rate (per capita) out of inner cities than are whites. People are basically the same, they all want the best and most secure environment for raising their children.

Now here is the moral/spiritual component, if you haven’t guessed it already. A moral revival that returns men to sexual fidelity and family life is the answer. Without committed fathers in the home we will not have safe streets. It is as simple as that. Certainly there are other issues involved, but that’s the core factor.

As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly:

The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation's mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "Dan Quayle Was Right," Atlantic Monthly, April 1993.

My wife is a Christian Marriage/Family Therapist. Obviously, she hears lots of “interesting” things from people. She’s told me that on a number of occasions she has had people say something like this: “I’m going to get a divorce and marry so-and-so because God would never want me to be unhappy.” In the original Biblical-Greek the word for this is “baloney!” Hopefully, we all know that God isn’t into passing out happy pills. In fact, what do you think about this idea; at times God actually wants us to experience deep sorrow? I don’t mean that He just allows us to experience sorrow; I mean that He actually wants us to be sorrowful on occasion.

Why? Well, one of the great things about sorrow is that it can make us evaluate our lives and, hopefully, correct our misbehavior. Paul was actually happy that he made Christians sorrowful (2 Corinthians 7:9-10). Imagine a modern pastor telling his congregation I’m happy I made you sad. If you make a modern audience unhappy, you’re likely to be preaching to the sound of chirping crickets the next Sunday. Here is a little thought from Aquinas:

“Moreover, this (sorrow) proves useful for avoiding evil: since, just as good is more readily sought for the sake of pleasure, so is evil more undauntedly shunned on account of sorrow…” [Summa I-II, 59, 4]

I’m not saying I want to go to church to feel bad, but maybe there is a time and place for godly sorrow.