Hal Lindsey Back in the News
When I was just a teen, newly "converted" (despite a life spent in church to that point) one of the first Christian books I read was "Late Great Planet Earth." Later I would read and buy into "Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth." Back in the mid 1970s, these books were our guide books for reading the Bible and contemporary events.
Hal Lindsey never picked dates like William Miller or later the Jehovah's Witnesses, but he laid out the scenarios for when Jesus would return. And we bought into the idea that we'd be gone by 1988. Why, because Jesus was supposedly going to return within the generation after Israel's restoration, and Lindsey let us know that a generation was about 40 years. So, we waited -- except, as teenagers, you still go on with your life and I did. I believed in Hal, but I still lived as if life would go on as normal.
Anyway, Hal is back in the news, in an LA Times article by Roy Rivenburg, because he's reconciled, kind of, with Paul Crouch's TBN. Apparently TBN knocked him off the air because of his virulent anti-Muslim views. TBN decided that such views didn't bode well for evangelizing Muslims. Their reconciliation in part is based on new technology that lets them block programs from being broadcast in the Middle East. It's not that TBN disagrees with Hal, they just find his rhetoric imprudent!
Hal denies being date setter, but he keeps moving things up. Apparently his most recent deadline is 2007 -- 40 years after Israel ceased Jerusalem. Well, it's 2007. So we'll see. Perhaps if we want to get some practice, we can play Left Behind. I'm sure that since I'm now beyond the pale of Dispensationalist Orthodoxy, I'll likely be left behind. And so be it!
Anyway, take a read of the article. It's quite enlightening. And for a better understanding of this movement read Barbara Rossing's Rapture Exposed.
Hal Lindsey never picked dates like William Miller or later the Jehovah's Witnesses, but he laid out the scenarios for when Jesus would return. And we bought into the idea that we'd be gone by 1988. Why, because Jesus was supposedly going to return within the generation after Israel's restoration, and Lindsey let us know that a generation was about 40 years. So, we waited -- except, as teenagers, you still go on with your life and I did. I believed in Hal, but I still lived as if life would go on as normal.
Anyway, Hal is back in the news, in an LA Times article by Roy Rivenburg, because he's reconciled, kind of, with Paul Crouch's TBN. Apparently TBN knocked him off the air because of his virulent anti-Muslim views. TBN decided that such views didn't bode well for evangelizing Muslims. Their reconciliation in part is based on new technology that lets them block programs from being broadcast in the Middle East. It's not that TBN disagrees with Hal, they just find his rhetoric imprudent!
Hal denies being date setter, but he keeps moving things up. Apparently his most recent deadline is 2007 -- 40 years after Israel ceased Jerusalem. Well, it's 2007. So we'll see. Perhaps if we want to get some practice, we can play Left Behind. I'm sure that since I'm now beyond the pale of Dispensationalist Orthodoxy, I'll likely be left behind. And so be it!
Anyway, take a read of the article. It's quite enlightening. And for a better understanding of this movement read Barbara Rossing's Rapture Exposed.
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