A critique of dr. Kenneth gentry's books

Mayflower · #1 (**permalink**) 03-17-2009, 09:00 AM

Check this out:

A CRITIQUE OF DR. KENNETH GENTRY'S BOOKS "THE BEAST OF REVELATION " AND
“BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL” AND A SECOND RESPONSE TO PARTIAL PRETERISM

by J. Parnell McCarter

Eschatology

Galatians220 · #2 (**permalink**) 03-17-2009, 09:20 AM

Parnell McCarter is a friend of ours who often attends our church!

He has a variety of interesting articles out there... Thanks so much for posting this link!

Margaret

tcalbrecht · #3 (**permalink**) 03-17-2009, 10:27 AM

From MacCarter:

Quote:

By rejecting historicism, and especially by rejecting that the Romish Papacy is that Man of Sin of II Thessalonians 2 and the Anti-Christian Beast of Revelation 13, Dr. Gentry is promoting schism and harming unity among the reformed and Protestant churches. The Reformers correctly identified the Romish Papacy, as we even find exemplified in such confessions as the Westminster Standards and the Belgic Confession. …

Historicism, like literal six-day creation, should be considered necessary tenets of full subscriptionism to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

From the Confessions:

Quote:

There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof. (WCF, 25:6)

Their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the Word of the gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshiped by every one, as He commands in His Word. (Belgic Confession, Article 36)

Quote:

The [original] Westminster Confession is also the only creed of importance in the Protestant tradition which labels the pope Antichrist (XXV, 6). (Herman Hanko, A Comparison of the Westminster and the Reformed Confessions)

The position that McCarter espouses is a bit dated as far as the American church is concerned. There are orthodox preterists and idealists all over the Presbyterian and Reformed denominations who do not accept the hardcore Pope==Antichrist view. They are admitted as being fully confessional by their denominations. MacCarter is not arguing against Gentry per se, but against a large portion of the Reformed Church, at least in this country.

IMO, historicism is just futurism with a twist. It is one theory, but it does not explain everything we read in the Bible (as much as MacCarter wants to make it fit). We can have respect for our Reformation forefathers and the struggles they went through with the papacy. Christians today living among Mormons in Utah or within the Anglican or PCUSA churches might have a different identity for antichrist.

It is good that the Church does not make 17th century historicism a primary article of the faith.

Parsifal23 · #4 (**permalink**) 03-27-2009, 07:28 PM

Quote:

“No important contribution to exegesis of Revelation was made by [historicists], whether J. A. Bengel in Germany or Joseph Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, and William Whiston in England—eminent as these exegetes were in other fields of study. The book itself has suffered in its reputation from the extravagances of some of its interpreters, who have treated it as if it were a table of mathematical conundrums or a divinely inspired Old Moore’s Almanack." (Revelation, The International Bible Commentary, ed. F. F. Bruce, H. L. Ellison, and G. C. D. Howley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 1595.)

I also find it ironic that at this moment I am listining to W. J. Mencarow who is an Postmil Historicist and his view of Matthew 24 is primarelly an preterist interpretation.