Eschatology: The Younger Generation

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Wednesday, June the twelfth, twenty twenty four. It is currently three twelve pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. And if you were not aware of this, times are a changing, all right. Times are changing. I mean, I mean, I mean that's I mean. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out, right, You don't have to be very smart to know times are changing, because that's what always happens. Right, If you go from the forties to the fifties, from the fifties to the sixties, from the sixties to the seventies, from the seventies to the eighties, we're not even going back to ancient times, more modern times, from the nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies. Times are always a changing that brings changes to the culture, that brings changes to the church, that brings changes to philosophy, to ideologies, to politics, to every aspect of life. Things are always changing. And I love at different times to turn on this microphone and try to figure out where the times are taking us.

1:22 The times are changing, that's obvious, right, They're always changing, They're always in flux. That's just a reality. But trying to figure out where they're going, Where are they going where? And especially when it comes to the world of Christianity, when it comes to the church, where's the church headed? Where's Christianity headed? Now? It's easy sometimes to just look at the current state of affairs and go disaster ahead. The end is near, it's over. And maybe sometimes that's very fair to say. There are other times that maybe are like, wait, that looks really positive, that looks great, and you give positive news. All you can really do is try to be as fair and as honest with the reality around you, and then try to take that reality and try to figure out where we're headed.

2:15 Sometimes you can look for clues. Sometimes you can look for clues. And I think recently all of us have been given a very big clue that something is going on. Right. It was happening on university campuses, and that's all the news was talking about. College kids were protesting, they were demanding things from their university, and they weren't upset about well, the condition of their dorm room. They weren't upset about curriculum, they weren't upset about something a professor did. They were upset because thereof what was going on in Israel and Gaza. They were upset, and they were these protests. I think it would be fair to classify most of them as pro Palestinian. I think it would be very they were. They were very pro Palestine and very anti Israel. Some I'm not going to say the majority of the protesters, but some of it would even I think be fair to say kind of just it kind of turned into anti Semitism. I think that would be very fair to say. And for some people they're like, wow, where is this you know, pro Palestine, pro you know, pro Hamas pro like, And people said, well, no, it's not pro Hamas, but I mean it was Israel that was attacked, right, Israel was attacked. Over a thousand people were killed, some people were taking hostage, and somehow the kids show up on campus to support, like I like, it's so it's almost kind of like, wait a minute, wait a minute, why wouldn't they

3:46 first pro up, first show up and say we are against this, you know, terrorist attack against Israel. How dare you don't do that now or something? But no, it just fell with and I know I'm gonna get emails and people on YouTube are gonna say, well, you just don't understand and you don't understand what the Palestinians have gone through. Look, there's been lots of very bad things that have happened in that part of the world, and we could find blame on everyone's side. We could blame the United States for many of the things that have happened in that part of the region. We can blame Israel, we could blame Hamas, we could blame the Palestinians, we can blame blame almost I mean, there's always plenty of blame to go around, but in this particular case, it was like pro Palestine and very anti Israel. In most cases, I think that's a fair way to say that. Now we could get into the geopolitical reasons, we could get into ideological reason we could try to take all of that apart, but that's not what this podcast is called theology central, So I want to look at it from a theological perspective. Is it possible what we saw on the college campuses, not so much a support for Israel. I think a very anti Israel stance would be fair to say, much more a pro Palestinian stance.

5:05 I think I think that would be fair to say. I think that's accurate, right, I mean, I know, I'm painting maybe in kind of a broad in a broad way, but I think that's pretty accurate. Does that indicate Does that indicate in any way, shape or form, that there is a shift changing in the younger generation that the younger generation is not pro Israel. They're very much, very much more in line with maybe Palestine, or very much more in ligne with maybe some of the Islamic countries that they at least support. That is there something going on there. I think that's something to look at. But that's what's kind of going on in the general culture. But when it comes to the younger generation within Christianity, the younger evangelicals, the young people who are going to become the leaders of the church moving forward, has there been a shift and their views about Israel? Now, something's going on in the culture. Sometimes what you do is you watch what's going on in the culture and you start looking to see how that is manifesting or showing up inside the church. Right, the church always follows culture.

6:21 I mean that's just historically true. Wherever the culture goes, the church will follow. It always does to some level. It's inevitable. It may take a little while, but it will follow. It always does. So if the younger generation seems to be very much more pro Palestine anti Israel, I think that's fair to say. I think I can't dogmatically assert, you know, percentages and be able to give you a statistical argument, but I think there's definitely a But it this way, we saw more on the college campuses of people going against Israel than standing with them. I think that that is true. I could be wrong, but I think that that's relatively true.

7:02 Right, And maybe many who were for Israel just were silent, and so maybe there was more of them, but they just did not decide to, you know, start a protest or a rally. But I think it's fair to say that there's something going on in the culture. So now how does that transfer or translate into the church. Is there a new generation that's like, you know what, we're not Nope, we don't support Israel, we're not pro Israel. And what follows that if you're not going to be pro Israel, you're not going to be so much the support of Israel. It's inevitable that your eschatology is going to have to change because certain eschatology, some systems of eschatology by definition, are going to be much more pro Israel.

7:46 God is not done with Israel. God is not done with the nation. He's going to fulfill promises for them, like they're still looking for the restoration of the nation. They're going to receive the land, there's going to be a new temple built, like all of these things are going going to happen, and so they are very much more pro Israel. Now there's still a lowed part of evangelicalism that is very pro Israel. Well, we're not talking about the majority of evangelicalism. We're talking about the younger generation. The younger generation that may not be as heard, may not be as visible, they may not be a scene because they may not be the leaders at this time in the evangelical world. But is there something going on in the younger generation moving them away from an eschatology that would be pro Israel to an eschatology that would be more like eh Israel. Whatever is there something happening? Well, I'm just going to put forth hypotheses that was presented on a podcast.

8:46 If I can find the page for the podcast, here we go. It actually was started as an article that was published June the eleventh, twenty twenty four, so yesterday, and the headline read this way inside the End Times, how young evangelicals shifting views on Israel could have major implications. And I was like, oh, that's got my attention. Let me read that to you again, inside the End Times, how young evangelicals shifting views on Israel could have major implications. Now, if you've been paying attention, we have been doing a series on eschatology. We've done kind of an overview, a survey of eschatology. We have looked at very specific systems post millennialism, a millennialism, premillennialism. We've looked at the Abrahamic Covenant, We've looked at the I don't think we finished the Davidic Covenant yet. We've been looking at very specific things related to eschatology, much more kind of an overviewway instead of going all in. But just and I have mentioned this kind of movea moving away from a pro Israel eschatology to some of these others that would be much less inclined to support Israel or not even be worried about the nation of Israel, thinking the nation of Israel's done and the nation of Israel has been replaced.

10:13 So I started talking about that and kind of warning about that. So when I saw this how young evangelical shifting views on Israel could have major implications, I'm like, oh, wait, this is something I was talking about. So I scrolled down and it says there is some shifting tides among young evangelicals and their support for Israel. I'm like, okay, okay, all right, this is what I thought that this is possibly was happening that many. Okay. I may not have left it for just the young. I think even in many of the older generation there's some moving away from a eschatology that's pro Israel. Okay. So I think there is a shift and views on eschatology. I think there is a shift happening in the church. I think that that's fair to say, and it may have been going on for a while, but I think there is. And I don't know if we can be dogmatic, but at least this is picking up my concern and what I was thinking, my theory, my hypotheses, and so here's what they say.

11:16 The Christian Post John Brown joins the Inside Story to explore how the number of young evangelicals in the United States who support Israel and view it as crucial to the end times is declining. And I'm like, oh, something is going on. But I'm like, okay, the Inside Story. What's the inside Story? And I'm like, oh, the Inside Story from the Christian Post. That's a podcast. So I'm like, let me go find said podcast. So I went and found the podcast. Now it took me a minute, and once I looked at it and I'm like, oh, the inside Story from the Christian Post. I remember this because when the Edifi Christian podcast app first, you know, came on the scene. They have the Edify Christian Podcast Network and only certain podcasts are a part of that network, okay, and they get promoted primarily on the Edifi Christian Podcast app. Now, to be fair, I've not looked at the Edifi Christian Podcast app and I don't even know how long. Part of the reason is I don't think they've done an update on the app in two years. I don't think they've updated the app. I think maybe in two years. Maybe I'm wrong.

12:26 It's been a long time. So it feels like they started this thing and they, I don't know, it ran out of steam funding attention. I don't know what happened. But the podcasts are still out there, just as far as the Edifi Christian Podcast app. I mean, you can go take a look at it today and see what you think. But I was really excited for what this thing could be, but it just never gained any momentum or traction. And I think the reason why is people are like, wait, I don't why am I going to go to the Edifi Christian podcast app to listen to these Christian podcasts when I can find these Christian podcasts on my normal podcasting app, and people, you know that's but then you think, but these are always the Christian podcast You may be able to discover more that way. I don't know. It just seems like it was very difficult to get people to embrace it or to even start using it. I was having a hard time even trying to get the audience of this podcast to go try it out. I mean, I had a very hard time to move anyone in that direction. People just kind of set in their way. So I don't know. I'm hoping the Edifi Christian podcast app gets a major update and they start talking about it more, promoting it more. Maybe they could do something with it. I think it still has you know, there's got to be something we could do with that. But I have no control over that.

13:46 So as soon as I realized it was a part of the Edifi Christian podcast network, I'm like, oh, okay, I remember this one. I haven't listened to it and probably I don't know forever, but all right, the inside story from the Christian Post. So I grabbed the audio. You want to hear a little bit of it. It's only like ten minutes long. Let's see what they have to say in regards to this supposedly shift that is occurring that younger evangelicals are moving away from a support of Israel, and gets what the reason why they're not supporting Israel? They're changing their eschatology. Now you could argue, are they changing their eschatology because they no longer support Israel out of because that's what the younger generation are. They being influenced by the culture, and then they're looking for a philological reason to support that view, Like, hey, everyone around me, this younger generation, they're not supporting Israel. I'm not going to support Israel. Okay, Well, well I need I need, I need a biblical argument for not supporting Israel.

14:41 Well, here's these systems of eschatology that are not so pro Israel. Which is moving? Is it the culture moving young younger evangelicals to change their eschatology or did they change their eschatology and that's leading them to change their view on Israel? Like, what's the cause and effect? That's almost sometimes impossible to draw a dogmatic conclusion, but it is something to be like when you see the culture doing it and then all of a sudden you see young evangelicals doing the same thing. I mean, come on, it's not the young evangelicals influencing those young people on campus who are pro Palestine. It's not getting that from young evangelicals. So to me, I'm more concern that it's the culture influencing young evangelicals. But I cannot draw that conclusion dogmatically. Well let's see what they had to say about this. Let's do this. This is the inside story from the Christian Post. Look up the podcast. Subscribe to it wherever you get your favorite podcast. Here we go, Welcome to the Inside Story. I'm Billy Hollowell and I'm joined today by Christian Post reporter John Brown, who's going to be diving into a really interesting topic for Israel and what's going on when it comes to younger evangelicals and their support for the Jewish State. John, how you doing today? I'm good, Billy, Thanks for having me. So. You put together a really wonderful piece. We're

16:11 going to link out to it in the comments so people can read it. But we're going to be talking through this today. And the title is support for Israel Dispensationalism declines among younger evangelicals. This is based on a study. But you went really deep in just getting a lot of expert opinion on this. Let's just start with younger evangelicals. What is happening right now with young evangelicals when it comes to their support for Israel. Yeah. Well, The Jerusalem Post noted earlier this year that a recent study by two academics out of Boston University in UNC found that support for Israel cratered among them from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty one. So these two professors, one of whom talked to me. They presented their findings at Tel Aviv University earlier this year, and they found that about seventy percent of American evangelicals under thirty express support for Israel in twenty eighteen, but that that number had dropped to under thirty four percent by twenty twenty one. Wow, twenty eighteen, over seventy percent to like thirty something percent. We got to back that up. That's an app you talk about cratered. What happened? What was going on in the evangelical world.

17:22 That's like a that's like driving over to a cliff and just like you're looking over the cliff and then you're like that's it. Just go and you floor and you just fall off the cliff, Like what happened in the evangelical world. Hey, we support Israel? We boom, We're done with Israel? Like what happened? Okay, I gotta listen to that again. Those those numbers that that's not just like ah, well, that's just a small percentage. That sounds insane. Let's listen to that again. Let's listen to that again. At a recent study by two academics out of Boston University in UNC found that support for Israel cratered among them from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty one. So these two professors, one of whom talked to me, they presented their findings at Tel Aviv University earlier this year, and they found that about seventy percent of American evangelicals under thirty express support for Israel in twenty eighteen, but that that number had dropped to under thirty four percent by twenty twenty one. And also in twenty eighteen, only five percent said they supported the Palestinians in twenty eighteen, but in nearly a quarter said they support them by twenty twenty one. That is crazy, So like seventy percent to under thirty four percent support of Israel and then an increase and the number of young evangelicals who support the Palestinians. Okay, I look, I try to pay attention as much as possible, right, I try to pay attention to what's going on. I turn on this microphone and talk about it and talk about it.

18:48 What did I miss? Like? Where where was I like? I was I asleep at the will on this one? Now? I've been talking about this a little bit. But I mean I had no idea. I mean I knew the shift was happening. I felt that it was happening. And older generations, right, the pastors or podcasters that I knew from the past, like kind of changing their views a little bit on eschatology. I felt like, okay, but I like that is a dramatic. So all of a sudden, the younger generation wokeme like, hey, we don't support is or anymore, and we're more propellate, we're more for Palestine. What happened. Let's see if they offer any more information. So one of the professors told me that premillennial pastors are a lot older than a millennial and post millennial pastors, and they all they're also less ethnically and racially diverse, which he thinks might be playing into this. Yeah, it's really interesting. So premal pastors are old, all mail and postmil are young. So the younger people are being influenced by the younger pastors, not the older pastors. So are we reaching a time now? This could be a different a different shift in the evangelical mindset. Is the younger generation like, I don't like those old pastors. I don't like those old pastors they're out of touch. They're not they're not as diverse, they're they're set in their way. Like is the younger generation I want the younger pastors and the younger pastors are we're all

20:22 mill and we're postmil the pre mill that's old, that's antiquated, that is something of the past. That's the past generation of Christianity. That's your grandma's dispensationalism. And we don't want grandma's dispensationalism. We want the younger new all millennialism and post millennialism. I know, philologically speaking, the all millennialism is not young, but I understand it's an old view. I understand that, But is there I wonder is that Is it that simple that the younger generations, like I don't want to listen to those old pastors. Now that that could be problematic, Right, if you're an old pastor now you just can't.

21:12 You're not going to attract a younger You're not going to attract a younger audience because the younger audience wants a younger person to listen to. Is that not throwing out the wisdom of the older? Is that is that kind a contrary to a biblical worldview. Hey, these older men, forget them, We want these younger guys. They're all millennial, they're post millennial. So now we can be anti Israel. I'm pro Palestinian. Let's see if they give us some more information here, sang. And obviously we're throwing out a lot of Christian terms. Some believers might know what they mean, some might not. When it comes to you know, pre millennial just give a little bit of a background on what exactly that term means. When it comes to to belief in the end times, well, there are different types of pre millennialism, but basically all of them believe that Jesus is going to return after the tribulation mentioned in Revelation seven and other chapters. And they also separate the second coming in the Last Judgment in different ways. So the famous Left Behind series portrayed what's called the pre tribulational form of it, which teaches that the church is going to be raptured before the tribulation. Other premals think that the Church is going to be raptured at other times during the tribulation. But the pre tri pre Mills especially believe that the modern nation of Israel was a major step in God's timetable for the Second Coming. Yeah, and obviously this discussion about Israel's especially pertinent in light of what's going on in the world right now because it will impact in some ways potentially what a person believes about the current

22:45 conflict in Gaza, when it comes to Hamas, when it comes to the questra of Palestinian state. It will color some of that discussion obviously. And you know, with young people moving more towards the amillennial and the post min eschatology, let's just talk a little bit about a millennial post millennial there, just help break those down. I know, again, we've got a lot of terms here. I hate when I hate when they like, well, I know we've got all these terms, and maybe people won't understand. How can anyone been a Christian for fifteen minutes and not know those terms? Pre millennial, a millennial, post millennial? I mean, what what are you doing in church other than having donuts and drinking coffee? I mean for crying out loud? Okay? If I always hate when pastors are Christian podcasts like, we're afraid to use these terms because people may not now if your audience has lost people, then okay, but any Christian who goes to a even a poor church that's sure, and poor means poor in their theology, should be able to know those story. If your church just avoids theological terms or like, oh, those theologians use these big words, but we're not going to use those, then then that's a problem. That's a problem. Okay, you don't dumb down philological education. You make the people rise up to it. You don't dumb it down. I can't stay I hate that, Like, well, these terms we okay, but for anyone Okay, we have covered all of these terms in our series on Eschatology. I'm gonna place this episode in that series so you can find all the other episodes and we go through pre millennial, a millennial, post millennial, we go through all

24:19 of them. So, but there's a there's a major shift from pre mail to a MIIL and post Now they're the people who did the study. They're basic reasons were well premal pastors are old and they're not as diverse. There's gotta be to see I'm gonna reject. I mean, look, the people who do the study no more than me. But in my brain I just can't see that it's that simple. I think the younger generation is being influenced by the culture, That's what I think. And they're sinking out the pastors who are awe male and postmont who just happened to be younger. I don't I don't think they're like that old guy over there. I'm not going to listen to I. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong. I don't know. That would be interesting to find evangelicals under the age of thirty and see if we could find out. Hey, when you listen to Christian podcasters or listen to sermons, do you avoid sermons from people who are like older, like fifty or over? Like if they're fifty or over, you don't listen to them. You only want to listen to people between the age of twenty, in their twenties, thirties, and forties.

25:33 But once they get over their fifties, you're just kind of done listening to them. Is it an age thing? I think there's something in the culture impacting But all right, he's not going to explain a little bit of all millennialism of post millennialism. Of course they're going to do this within just a couple of seconds. You can go listen to our discussion on all of these in our series on eschatology. Right, but let's see what they have to say. Kind of move on after that. But I think it's helpful for people to understand. Yeah, it's very complicated. My eyes were researching all this stuff. But basically, all millennials and post millennials don't believe that the nation of Israel features much in God's timetable for the end times. Post millennials believe that the Church is going to be triumphant in this world and that Jesus is going to return after that. But all millennials believe that the millennium in Revelation twenty is symbolic and that we've been in the end time since the first century. Basically, so both schools of thought believe that the Second Coming and the Last Judgment are going to take place at the same time, which is not what the pre mials believe. Yeah, the all millennials essentially are waiting for the Second Coming, right now, you know, you're in the you're in the end times. There's not going to be essentially this one thousand year you know, literal reign of Christ on earth. There's just going to be sort of the second coming. Would that be accurate? Yeah, yeah, the post millennial perspective. Just to sort of you know, add on to that a little bit. They they would essentially believe that, you know, Jesus's return when when he comes, that the Church is ready in that the Church is sort of the world has sort of gotten to a better place.

26:57 The Church has impacted the world so much that things improve essentially, right, Yeah, they post Mills believe that will basically, you know, we will usher in the Kingdom of Heaven in some way, and when Christ returns, he will find an earth that has been dominated by Christianity. So the millennium. The main thing is, since they're talking about the support for Israel Amil and post Mill, for the most part, they're done with Israel. I mean Israel, Israel as itself has been replaced basically by the Church. I mean, maybe an oversimplification, but they're not looking for a future regathering of the nation of Israel in the land. Get all of the land promises, get all the promises fulfilled. No, no, Israel's done. We're the Church. The promises to Israel are now ours. Those promises now have been made spiritual. They're not necessarily physical land or this or that, and so that's that's the big difference when it comes to at least as we keep it in the context of which system of eschatology is going to support Israel and which ones are not, or which ones are may not be motivated to do so or feel like they have more freedom to say I'm going to support the Palestinians in a way is like a symbol of Christian dominance on the earth, which I personally I find that hard to believe, but I do respect people that believe it. Yeah, it's interesting the connections because the pre Mill and the a mil would probably share more in the things may not get better, right, you know, the pre Mills they believe things are going to get worse.

28:26 You know. Obviously there's a lot of conversation which we won't get too deep into, about the Antichrist and you know, chaos and all and the tribulation period, all of this sort of coming to ahead, you know, before the second coming with you know, a rapture sort of mixed in there. As you were saying, somewhere along the line, depending on where you stand, why do you think, just getting back to the generational divide, why does it matter? Well, I think it's important because the way Christians in this country view Israel is going to have a geopolitical impact. Well, first, why matters is because not all the systems of eschatology can be right. There can only be one right one. So it matters because it's an issue of truth. And but here I cannot stress this enough and all so many podcasters missed this when it comes to all millennialism, post millennialism, pre millennialism, the issue here, let me make it very clear. It matters because these issues are profoundly connected to hermeneutics. You cannot be all millennial and then have a hermanutic that's going to say well, that's literal Israel, that's literal land, and that's literally going to be fulfilled. You got to come along and go, no, that's not really Israel. That spiritual Israel, which basically means the Church, and that land promise is not going to be actually land. It's power influence that's going to go to the church. Your hermautic has to allow for that. If you're pre millennial, you're gonna be like no, it says Israel. It's Israel. When the New covenants made with the House of Judah, the House of Israel, the House of Judah

29:56 that's literally made with Israel. God's going to do all of these promises for Israel, like because you hold to a much more a you'll say literal. I know a millennialists hate that and say, well, we're literal too, but yeah. But the point is there's a massive difference in hermineutical approach to Old Testament prophecies from an all millennial perspective and a pre millennial perspective, which greatly impacts hermoneutics because if you're going to change your hermaeutic in these areas, and then how do you proceed forward and other passages of scripture? Same with post millennialism. These are hermeneutical issues. Everybody wants to fight, well, my system of eschatology is better than your system of eschatology. Look, I got no problem fighting for your system because your system is either true or false.

30:42 And obviously you believe your system is true, which makes all the other systems false by default because they both all they all can't be right. But to me, the greater issue is this is a hermeneutical issue. This is not an eschatology. An eschatological issue is a hermanutical issue. Eschatology is all about hermaneutics. How did you derive that that's not Israel and that's not Land and that promise is not going to be literally fulfilled? When the chapter before, the chapter after gives a prophecy about Babylon, or gives a prophecy about there's going to be a virgin who as a child, and you're like, well, that's literal Babylon, or that's literal, that's literal Land, or that's literal Israel, and all of that's literal. But then another part you're like, well that's not literal Israel and that's not literal, Like how do you just change your herminutic. When it's a prophecy about the first coming a Christ, you're like, that's literal. When it's a prophecy about the second Coming, you can get like, well I don't think that's literal, and that was fulfilled in the church. Well why did all of a sudden it become non literal. It's a hermeneutical issue, so it matters because only one system of eschatology can be right and it matters because this has profound impacts on hermonutics. And as he's saying, it also matters because it's going to have major geopolitical implications on Well, if the younger generation isn't pro Israel and they're pro Palestine, they're not going to vote for candidates that are pro Israel,

32:13 meaning the younger evangelicals may move away from support from Republicans who tend to be pro Israel. Wow, that could be a that could be a good thing. All right, Okay, I won't get into my whole. When I get into people get all confused. But my issue is I think the church has been so politicized that the best thing that could happen is we have no political party to vote for, so that the church would stop worrying about voting in politics and elections and start worrying about theology, doctrine and the Bible and the Gospel, etc. Okay, so but we won't get into that. All right, let's see let them finish this up. Historically, the US has been a key ally of Israel, and a lot of that support was because of evangelicals. And I think if evangelicals stop seeing Israel as a key part of the end times and of their faith, they might become more critical of that country, which could end up having a major impact in terms of how we treat them. But that that remains to be seen. Yeah, and you know, there's so much, there's so much notta unpackt But the numbers are I mean, the numbers are pretty shocking when you look at the support that you sort of laid out, you know, in in the piece here, you had you know, thirty three point six percent of young evangelicals under thirty expressing support for Israel in late twenty twenty one, but that was sixty seven point nine percent twenty eighteen. And then you know, conversely, on the other side, in twenty twenty one, you had twenty four percent of young evangelicals saying they supported Palestinians, up from just five percent in twenty

33:46 eighteen. So to your point, now, even he is somewhat shocked by those number, those numbers are utterly shocking. Like, I mean, like those numbers are insane. I don't eveven know what's going on with those numbers. Now, Like what happened Now some of you may want to put the well, the church started stop teaching eschatology, the church stopped emphasizing eschatology. I don't know if we can put the blood what happened that those numbers are staggering in my mind. I mean, that's not just like a oh, it's a it's a ten percent drive. It's just like it's just like the whole thing just imploded. There is going to be, you know, a potential impact on those views in the geopolitical sense. What what do we think is driving these shifts in these changes? Well, that's the question. I mean, I don't I don't think we can really say yet. But I interviewed doctor Richard Land, who is the executive editor of the Christian Post, and he's a premillennialist, and he believes the shift might be happening because there's an anti Semitism problem at American colleges, which is obvious to anyone who's been watching the news, and he thinks that might have seeped into the church.

35:01 And Okay, so Richard Land seems to think it's a culture, the culture influencing the church. I would agree with Richard Land, because history just always what uh what uh? History always leads that direction that the culture influences the church. I mean, history proves that over that was going on in the Church of Corinth. It's always happening. The culture influences the church. So the culture is seeping into the church. And now we have this massive shift and move away from support for Israel. And guess what you need. If you're not going to support Israel, You've got to change your eschatology. There's no way you can be dispensational premillennial. There's no way you can be dispensational pre millennial and say I don't support Israel, I support the Palestinians. There's just no way. You're going to have to be a millennial or post millennial.

35:51 You're going to have to be if you're going to maintain any adherence to your Christianity. You're going to have to convinced younger people to adopt eschatologies that don't emphasize Israel. And that could definitely be playing a role. But I also talked to doctor Charles Hill, who is a theology professor at Reform Theological in Orlando. He actually used to be a dispensation list, but he said his studies convinced him that the millennial perspective is what the early Church believed. He came to believe that the land promises to Israel and the Old Testament were actually pointing to Christ and symbolic of his ownership of the world, and that the Apostles believe this too, and that's what they were teaching. So I think there are a lot of issues. That's such a reform position. Hey, we believe in all millennialism because the Early Church did well, we're going to go back to everything the Early Church believed. Go listen to my discussion about the Early Church and early and some of their beliefs about baptism back then.

36:47 Those things were baptized in the nude. Crazy things, just crazy thing. So just because the Early Church believes something does not make it necessarily true. Because my understanding is Scripture is the final authority, not the Early Church. If we're gonna make the Early Church the final authority, then I guess we just go back to Roman Catholicism, where we have a magisterial authority. Right, But we don't have a magisterial authority. It's supposed to be Scripture. We judge the Early Church. The Early Church does not determine what we believe. We judge what the Early Church believed by scripture? Is that not the non Catholic view? And then did you hear that that those land promises, that point they points to christ ownership of the earth, and that's what the disciples believed. Yeah, that's what the disciples believed. That's what the disciples believe when they asked us to see this question, is he I think it's in the Book of Acts. Let me see if I can find it really quick. Jesus is about to ascend. Yeah, this is what hey, hey, those Old Testament promises. They're appointing to your ownership of the earth. Right, and so hang on, all right, here we go.

38:09 See. Therefore, when they had come together, so Jesus has died, buried, he's risen, risen from the dead. He's about to ascend to the Father. The disciples are there with him, and they and they say, when they had come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel. They're looking for a literal fulfillment, a literal Israel being literally restored. And of course, and any restoration of Israel is going to include the land. And what does he say? Hey, guys, guys, guys, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no no no, it's the Church. Now, it's not going to be Israel. No, he says, it's not for you to know. The times are the seasons which the Father have put in his own authority. He doesn't deny that it's going to happen. He just says it's not. It's not it's not for you to know the time. But he doesn't deny that it's going to happen.

38:54 So you're going to read the Old Testament, go, hey, these promises of land and a rest restoration of Israel, that's all just symbolic of Christ and his ownership of the earth. Everyone in the Old Testament would have been like, oh, that's not real land. We're going to get good. Look from all the discussion of land in the Book of Genesis to Abraham and his descendants, land land, land, land, land, land, land land, even the passages that deal with the New Covenant, land, Jerusalem restoration. This it's it's insane how you can do that. And trust me, I went to all millennial school, so I know the view relatively. Well, it's just see it's a hermaeutical issue. See to me, at that point, it's a hermoneutical issue. It's not even about eschatology, and it's like, how can I make my hermaeutic work to say that when the land was promised, that it's fulfilled in Jesus and it symbolically shows his ownership of the earth. Like what in the world that sounds so so spiritual.

40:00 It may sound so academic, and we can always say the Early Church, the Early Church, the Early Church, the Early Church. Well, if the Early Church is the authority, well then we need to develop some kind of magisteral authority that continues to have that same authority, right, playing into why younger Christians are moving away from, you know, the premal point of view. But it's going to take time to see how that plays out. Yeah, you know, I think when people, you know, go into the book of Ezekiel, for instance, and they look at the value of dry bones and Ezekiel thirty seven, it does become, you know, when it comes to Israel complex because you have what appears to be nineteen forty eight, right in some ways, I know there are different takes on what's going on in the Old Testament in Ezekiel, but I do think the big sticking point here for everybody that they do have to hash through is what are the odds that a country would go away for almost two thousand years and be back on the map again. You know, how does that happen? What other country has that ever happened with? And I think we know the answer is none. So this Israel really is a central piece of the puzzle here.

41:07 And I would also say, and that you know, I don't want to over editorialize here. It is strange that the entire world it's not as though this country came back and there's no conversation about it. Israel is very much the centerpiece of most of the headliness, as is the Middle East going on for the last you know, two or three decades right internationally, so even longer than that. So there's there's a lot there to unpack. Did just one other question for you as you were going through working on this piece, because I know a lot of work went into it, did it shift or change your perspective or challenge your perspective at all? Your personal eschatology? It just convinced me that I'm not sure what I believe on these issues because it's so complicated and it's it's you know, I often think that when Jesus came the first time, no one had everything right. You know, none of the Jewish secx understood good all of the prophecies correctly. So I don't think that anyone probably has everything right. I probably tend towards an amillennial perspective personally.

42:08 But again, this is not about salvation, so you know, I welcome any sort of debate. But that is where I think things started going wrong because I heard lots of pastors start saying, you know, eschatology, it's not it's not about salvation. So you can believe whatever you want. You can believe whatever you want. You can believe whatever you want about eschatology, right, And that sounds so wonderful and so great. But what you don't realize is what's happening is for you to believe certain things about eschatology has an impact on your hermeneutics that is profoundly disturbing and concerning. Right. So I think that was the first issue is where we're just not gonna worry about it. We're not gonnaorr about We're just gonna we're's gonna play down what's gonna play down? Second thing, I think started happening is churches. I can't dan the way many churches operate because they operate under this assumption. Right, They're like, hey, here's what we believe, and we're only gonna present this side, right, We're gonna we'll just barely mention the other side just to criticize it or say this is what they believe but it's wrong, but not really dig into each side or let the people struggle through it. Like okay, wait a minute, this side says this. Okay, guys, if that is true. Let's see if that's true. So we're gonna look up every reference to this word or this term, and we're gonna look at every scripture to see what conclusion we can come to. In other words, the churches just loves to just say this is what you're supposed to believe.

43:40 But times are changing. Times change. Young people could be like, okay, well you can tell me that. Get on their phone in five seconds to fourteen Google searches, ask AI, look up fifteen podcasts and go no, sorry, don't believe anything you said and you misrepresented what you did say. So what you have to do now is I think you have to tell you have to present to your audience. Hey, guys, guys, look, we're gonna be dealing with eschatology. There's lots of views out there. So what we're gonna do is we're going to lay aside our presuppositions and we're going to start brand new because our past understanding has no present influence on our present study. It's useless in our present study. So all right, here's what I'll millennialists believe. Here's claim number one. All right, well, now let's go challenge this. So we're going to look up this and look up this. Now, guess what. Most churches won't do that because the people will get bored and they won't like it, and it's tedious. Well, when we were looking up, you know, arguments about Israel versus spiritual Israel. What did my church do? We spent six I think it was almost six months looking up every use of the word Israel in the entire Bible.

44:46 I think it was over three thousand times the word was used. And we go, is that national Israel or is that so called spiritual Israel? How do we understand that? What are we basing that on? Wait a minute, okay, the people say the land is this or this, let's look up every use of the reference to the word land, or all the times it's it it talks about Israel and Land. Let's go through e and we we would just go looking up one reference after another, reference after another reference, night after night after night, a Monday, Sunday night, a Wednesday night, a Sunday school doing hour hour and it was tedious, and probably anyone would have walked in would have been like, I don't want nothing to do with this church. But guess what, when we were done, there was no question or speculation or like they were like, look, I've looked at I've looked up every verse. I know what the Bible actually says.

45:36 But churches didn't do that. And I think I think that that was a by saying, hey, this is not salvation related, so don't worry about it. No, but it's only hermoneutic related. That's that's profoundly impactful because that goes how you're going to interpret parts of the Bible. So even if it's not salvation is not dependent upon it, you're in our hermeneutical system could be dependent upon it. So that's number one and number two stop with this, just like, here's what we believe, and we're only going to say this. There's gonna be people out there who are going to be looking at all the different systems. Go ahead and embrace the fact all the information is out there and struggle through all of it. There's some of my thoughts, I really just genuinely don't know well, and I love that you said that too, because a lot of Christians get very upset on some of these issues. There's a lot of argumentation, especially on the rapture. But these are not salvation issues. They are important issues to talk through and hash out.

46:39 But you know, this is not the centerpiece of Christianity. It's a big piece of it. You know, it does impact what we think about the world around us and theology, and again it's important, but it is not a salvation issue. And hey, it's not a salvation issue, so don't worry about it. We did a podcast on it, but don't really worry about its salvation issue. Hey, these numbers utterly createred. They could have a massive impact on our geopolitical future. Hey, don't worry about it. We're not gonna deal with the hermonutical issues. Okay, But there you have it. That is the inside story from the Christian Post. Please find their podcast subscribe to it. You see how short it is gives you.

47:21 It kind of keeps you up to date with what's going on in the world of Christianity. So it's definitely worth subscribing to. I need to subscribe to it on all my other podcast apps I used to. I think I used to have it on my Edify Christian podcast app, but I probably need to find it on all the others. I think it should be relatively easy to find. It should be. I've got another story that they that kind of builds on this. This one was published on May the twenty ninth, twenty twenty four. The headline here is support for Israel dispensationalism declines among younger evangelicals, and it's a study evangelicals under thirty increasingly embrace all millennialism and postmillennialism. The Church is changing, Ladies and gentlemen, the Church is changing. If the younger generation, the younger evangelicals, are moving that direction, then guess what the future is going to be. Maybe ten, maybe twenty years from now, it's going to be dominated by a millennialist and post millennialists. What will be the implications to the church and what will be the implications to hermonuitics.

48:28 Now, there could be a shift back, but something is changing. I mean there was a time the church was pro primarily amillennial, right, I think that's fair to say, And then there was a major shift that began to occur, and then everyone started moving to a pre millennial view and pre millennialism dominated the church. Now we're going to be going back to maybe an anmillennial dominated or a post millennial dominated view. What does that mean? So what I'll do is I will send if you're using church one app Church, if you go to the Apple App Store at Google Play Store, download church one app churchne do a search for Theology Central that turns that app into our app basically, and because it pulls everything in from our SS feed, so you'll have all of our content, I can send out notifications on that.

49:19 So I'll send out a notification which will contain a link to this article. Support for Israel dispensationalism declines among younger evangelicals, and you can look at that as a supplemental material for this. Because it's now forty nine minutes that we've been talking, it's now four to oh one I've yet to have lunch, and I'm going to die, all right. Maybe that's a little bit of exaggeration, but my stomach is starting to growl, like it's telling me, you need food. So that's what I'm going to go do. So you have food for thought. I would like to believe that food for thought would sustain us, but we do need physical food. Fortunately, we have to have it. Okay, it takes up a lot of time and it can be irritating, but we have to have it, all right, So there you go. I would love to get your thoughts. You can email me NEWSI F at yahoo dot com. NEWSI F at yahoo dot com.

50:14 Everyone have a great day, a great evening, and times are a changing. God bless