Southern Baptist Theology in the Late Twentieth Century
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 54, No. 2 – Spring 2012
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
Edited by Craig L. Blomberg and Sung Wook Chung. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. 208 pages. Softcover, $24.99.
Distinguished New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg and his colleague, Korean scholar Sung Wook Chung, have edited the latest apology for “historic premillennialism.” However, the work is not totally apologetic in character, which is revealed by the polemical subtitle, “An Alternative to ‘Left Behind’ Eschatology.” By “Left Behind” eschatology, Blomberg and Chung attempt to prejudice the reader from the outset by referencing the fiction of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins in the popular series of novels about eschatology. The attempt is to wrap the dispensational premillennialist package with a “Left Behind” ribbon in the hope that the package will never be opened and seriously considered.
Contributors to the volume include a number of well-known evangelicals with historian Timothy Weber in the initial historical survey of competing premillennial movements. Richard Hess adds a chapter on “The Old Testament and the Millennium,” followed by a chapter on “Judaism and the World to Come,” which does little to address the actual subject of the book but in other ways may be the best chapter in the book. Then Craig Blomberg writes, “The Post-tribulationsim of the New Testament: Leaving ‘Left Behind’ Behind,” followed by the perceptive chapter by Don J. Payne on “The Theological Method of Premillennialism.” Donald Fairbairn asks the historic question about the early church and its position regarding contemporary millennial and tribulation debates, while Sung Wook Chung argues that Reformed and Covenantal theology can certainly embrace a form of premillennialism without compromise to its own principles. The final chapter by Oscar Campos places premillennialism within a holistic missiology in the Latin American context.
Like most such books, the chapters differ in their respective contributions. Weber’s assessment of the history of the millennial movements breaks no new ground but does succeed in providing a readable and succinct account of the oft-repeated history of the two movements. Generally, he is fair, except for some assessments such as, “Sometimes all that was needed to keep the dispensationalist rank and file happy was a good second edition. Dispensationalists have proven themselves to be quite willing to forgive and forget their teachers’ mistakes, and they seem eager to accept new explanations” (18). One need only respond that the same thing might be said of “historic premillennialism” as well as other positions. Furthermore, Weber complains that part of the problem is that “dispensationalists simply have a better story to tell” (21). Such special pleading falls short of scholarly assessment.
The chapter by Richard Hess, “The Future Written in the Past,” makes the point that the whole discussion is not just about Revelation 20. Hess, in one of the shorter chapters, points to the Old Testament text as the basis for millenarianism. Hélène Dallaire’s chapter, “Judaism and the World to Come,” is probably the most informative chapter in the entire book. There are places where she is perhaps less than forthright in her representation of dispensationalism, but she does bring a wealth of information from Jewish sources such as the Talmud and the Psuedepigrapha that are rarely seen in a book of this nature. Furthermore, she has clearly grasped the content of these and provides significant wisdom. Blomberg’s chapter on the post-tribulation view of the New Testament basically is no more than a recounting of what has been said by a large number of scholars before him. If one is looking for new insight, this chapter is probably the most disappointing in the book.
Don Payne’s chapter, “The Theological Method of Premillennialism,” is a fair assessment and is worth the price of the book. The chapter will be valuable to premillennialists of all stripes. Donald Fairbairn’s chapter on the witness of the early church, by which he means the developing church after the first century, is fair and accurate but fails to mention the fact that the early church, while closer to the New Testament than anyone else, still got some things wrong. For example, it is difficult to believe that Ignatius’s advocacy for episcopacy represents the New Testament pattern. The issue ultimately is not how the early church conceived anything although their witness is important. The issue remains: What does the Bible teach? In Sung Wook Chung’s chapter on premillennialism among the Reformed, he not only documents the fact that there have been Reformed scholars who have also been premillennial, but also provides an adequate assessment of why such a position is entirely plausible within the contours of the Reformed faith. Finally, the chapter by Oscar Campos takes the whole matter into the Latin American arena where Christianity is growing rapidly and brings to bear the insights of particular theologians such as Rene Padilla, Samuel Escobar, and Emilio Antonio Núñez.
As a general statement favoring post-tribulation-premillennialism and as a polemic against pretribulation-premillennialism, the book is standard with the same arguments being repeated from the past, differing only in that they are less effectively presented in this volume. On the other hand, some legitimately new ground is broken, and there are insights to be gained from several of the chapters, as mentioned above. Roger Olson, Craig Keener, and J. Andrew Dearman all provide glowing affirmations of the volume, and Baker Academic Press adds viability for those who wish to have a survey of the present waterfront in eschatological studies. While I can certainly commend the book as the kind of reading that seminary students and pastors ought to encounter, the book must be read with a couple of continuing questions in the mind of the reader. First, “Is this really a fair presentation of the opposing position?” and second, “Have the authors of these chapters actually succeeded in painting a compelling picture for ‘historic premillennialism?’” This reviewer’s conclusion, while itself undoubtedly biased, would find the overall drift of the case less than compelling.
