The End Times Again? (Martyn Whittock) - A Review
It was on
the "Eve of Destruction" (a Barry McGuire song), as I pondered the
question posed by Larry Norman— “Why Should the Devil have All the Good Music”—
that I began to imbibe the apocalyptic messages found in the Jesus music of the
day and books such as Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth. That
was way back in the 1970s during my high school years. Of course, my story is
not unique. Many others joined me in believing that the second coming of Jesus
was close at hand. Lindsey hinted that it might take place sometime around
1988. While that was my apocalyptic moment it would seem that every generation
has its apocalyptic moments. Thus, Hal Lindsey prepared the way for Tim LaHaye,
and you could say that the current infatuation with Donald Trump (hailed by his
supporters as King Cyrus) is an extension of this worldview.
Being
that I'm co-authoring a book on eschatology, I am on the lookout for resources
that cover this area of interest. One of those resources is the recently
published book by Martyn Whittock—The End Times Again? In this
intriguing book, Whittock, who happens to have been born the same year as me,
takes us through the past two thousand years of the use and misuse of biblical
prophecy. In other words, there is very little that is new today.
While
Martyn Whittock was born the same years I was, he is British. Nevertheless,
though we were separated by an ocean, we share similar experiences with apocalyptic
literature. He also imbibed the works of Hal Lindsey and other similar writers.
He also pondered the question of who the antichrist might be. He writes that "the
seventies were a great decade to be a young millenarian" (p. 2). Indeed,
it was. Like him, I was one. However, Whittock seems to have pushed this
commitment further than I ever considered, such that he tried to join a
Christian militia that was headed to Israel to defend the border against
attacks from neighboring Lebanon. In other words, he was radicalized. Fortunately,
he never made it to Israel and over time he found his way out of that morass.
Indeed, both of us eventually found our way out of this morass, but it was
enticing, and that was before Facebook, Twitter, and all the other possible
ways of being radicalized.
After
his initial engagement with apocalypticism, Whittock went on to study politics
at Bristol University and then spend his career teaching high school history. Later
in life, Whittock became a lay minister within the Church of England and has
authored/co-authored fifty-three books covering a variety of historical themes,
from Celtic mythology to Hitler and National Socialism. Some of these books are
school textbooks while others are targeted to an adult audience. That interest
in making history relevant and interesting is present in this book.
What Whittock
does here is take us on a journey of exploration of apocalyptic writings and
movements that have emerged over the years, starting with the Jewish roots of
our Christian understandings of end times. That is, he begins with the Old
Testament and other similar Jewish literature. Thus, we encounter Daniel and
other biblical and apocryphal texts, and have conversations about how these texts
have been read, whether in a historicist or futurist manner. While he spends a
bit of time in the New Testament, that isn’t his focus. He wants to move
quickly to how these texts, both Old and New have been interpreted and used
over time. Thus, we move from early Christian interpretations forward through
time. As we move forward, he does offer a chapter that lists key passages and
the framework for interpreting them (chapter 4). Things really get moving in
chapter 5, where Whittock begins to delve into the various ways Christians have
interpreted these texts, starting with the Montanists and other Millennialist
groups. We encounter the impact of the conversion of the Roman Empire to
Christianity and how that changed the dynamic once the Empire was no longer an
enemy to the mainstream church. As the situation changed the mainstream adopted
more metaphorical and allegorical interpretations of these texts, such that a
form of amillennialism began to displace the earlier dominant premillennialism.
Though, premillennialism never goes away and indeed has gained prominence in
the last century.
Whittock's
focus is on a Western historical trajectory, but the east is not completely neglected.
It’s just not the main focus, since Whittock is interested in showing how the
Western/Latin church, following Augustine, interacted with the texts. Thus, the
chapters focus more on how the social, cultural, political instability of the
west contributed to continuing apocalyptic interests. So, he highlights some of
the contributors to this instability, including the impact of the Viking
invasions on the church's understanding of itself and its world. Could these
invaders of Christian lands, whether they be the Vikings from the north or the
Magyars from the east be the prophesied Gog and Magog? (Ch. 6).
As I
noted he doesn’t neglect the eastern churches, because he discusses the use of
end times prophecy to aid the imperial/Byzantine cause. Here we have something
approaching what would become postmillennialism. Apocalyptic visions, such as
the idea of the Last Emperor, were designed to provide a theological foundation
for the empire serving as the kingdom of God. The belief among the Byzantines
was the empire would continue to exist until such time that the last emperor,
having cleansed the earth of impurity, would turn over the crown Jesus so that
he might reign in glory (ch. 7). For many, this will be a new way of looking at
apocalyptic literature, which traditionally has been seen as offering comfort
to the oppressed.
Whittock
takes up the role of apocalyptic theology and visions in the western medieval
world in chapter 8. Here we see how apocalyptic visions provided an impetus to the
crusades and helped interpret catastrophes such as the plagues that hit Europe.
The question concerned whether the Black Death was a sign that the end of the
age had come upon them? Whittock writes that when it comes to millenarian
beliefs in the medieval period, they influenced people at all levels of
society. Thus, "some people buttressed imperial politics using them, some
looked to contemporary kings to implement God's program, others condemned the
elites— including those in the church itself—for standing against the will of
God, some turned to extreme violence in order to bring in the millennial
kingdom as they understood it, and the accusation of Antichrist was thrown back
and forth" (pp. 109-110).
Of course,
the medieval world gave way to the age of Reformation (chapter 9), which brought
its own brand of interest in eschatology. While the mainstream Reformers tended
to follow Augustine's amillennialism, many others embraced more apocalyptic
visions. Of course, many of the Reformers, including Luther spoke of popes and
papacy in terms of the antichrist. Once again, a new movement led to questions
of whether the world would soon end. While many Anabaptists were pacifists, the
Radical Reformation included a variety of apocalyptic sects that took things to
violent extremes. They range from the revolutionary theology of Thomas Müntzer
that led to his leadership in the Peasants Revolt to the apocalyptically-infused
attempt at creating the kingdom of God in the city of Münster (the two should not to be
confused with each other).
Being
that Whittock is British it's not surprising that he focuses a chapter on the
apocalyptic developments of the seventh century in England. Religious ferment,
which led to the execution of the king, the eradication of the monarchy, and a
civil war/revolution, included the emergence of several apocalyptic groups,
some of which took a major role in the revolution of the mid-seventeenth
century. These included the Fifth Monarchist Movement, which was a military
movement, along with groups such as the Diggers, who sought to create a new
world order in England. With the Diggers, it was a socialist-type movement in
which everyone was to share all things in common. Ultimately these movements failed,
and the monarchy was restored. Nevertheless, they were inspired by the reading of
apocalyptic literature.
Chapters
11 through 13 take us step by step from the restoration of England’s monarchy
in 1660 to the present day. Whittock breaks the story down chronologically,
taking us first from 1660 to 1918 (chapter 11), then from World War I up to the
fall of the Soviet Union (both 1918 and 1991 are significant markers in
apocalyptic understandings). He notes that 1918 brought the fall of the Ottoman
Empire along with the first significant openings for Jewish resettlement in
Palestine under British supervision. He also notes that the fall of the Soviet
Union required a revisiting of the prophetic map since many interpreters viewed
the USSR as being the Gog/Magog of Scripture. With its fall the question
emerged as to who would take its place. Chapter thirteen has the intriguing
title of "The 'End Times' are 'Now Times.'" This takes us essentially
from the Left Behind series of books to the election of Donald Trump, which
included Trump’s support for Israel’s expansion, which gave great hope to
evangelical voters who see the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy
Land as a necessary precursor to the second coming of Jesus.
All in
all, Whittock takes us on an intriguing journey through time in The EndTimes, Again? He reminds us that apocalyptic visions are not a new
phenomenon. Of course, the Dispensationalism of John Nelson Darby is relatively
new, it’s not the first framework. However, it has become, as Whittock notes in
the closing chapters an important framework for the conversation. While
dispensationalism remains popular it should be noted that apocalyptic
understandings of God’s relationship to the world take on different forms in
different eras. Sometimes it supports the status quo and at others it
challenges it. Whittock’s book covers a lot of territory in a relatively brief
space, but for those who are willing to walk with him, there is much to be learned.
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