This made me pause while reading Kingsnorth, “Against the Machine” (p239): “… because Christian tradition has long taught that the emergence of one global religion […] will be the prelude to the coming of the figure known as Antichrist.” I don’t think that “long taught” is true?

@joshuapsteele I mean you’re the trained theologian here, but in my understanding that’s more of a dispensationalist invention than some long church tradition.

@joshuapsteele I don’t recall any such teaching in the Church in which Kingsnorth and I both are communicants.

I do recall something rather opposite: that the Church’s eschatology is “from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.”

@cjhubbs I mean, certainly in the way Kingsnorth goes on to describe “Antichrist” and “global religion”, it sounds like the much more recent dispensationalist/Left Behind crap…

@joshuapsteele Yep, exactly.

@cjhubbs @JohnBrady @ReaderJohn Yeah, I’m 99% sure fears about a “one-world religion” don’t go back before Dispensationalism. Anyways, I agree with Kingsnorth’s worries about “The Machine” in very broad brushstrokes, but have been quite disappointed with the book beyond its opening chapters…

@joshuapsteele @cjhubbs @JohnBrady @ReaderJohn Also, have any of you read “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco? Thinking about the history of interpreting Revelation reminded me of that book. What a wild ride.

@JohnBrady It’s pretty great. A seminary professor assigned it as required pre-reading for his Medieval Theology course in our “History and Doctrine” sequence at Beeson.

@joshuapsteele Sure seems like economics is the one world religion currently in place that is viewed perhaps more dogmatically than any “religion” as commonly known. Further, if you take a view that the Book of Revelation is about Romeand the churches views towards it, I think one can see how the norm of civilization is still very much the norm.

@frankm That’s a fascinating insight. Gonna chew on that one a bit.

@joshuapsteele I’m just about to begin the book. Thanks for pointing that bit out. And no, it does not remind me of any long-established teaching of Christian churches.