Christ the Center is pleased to welcome Kim Riddlebarger to the program to discuss amillennialism. Dr. Riddlebarger is senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California (www.christreformed.org), visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California, and co-host of The White Horse Inn.
In 2003 Dr. Riddlebarger’s book A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times was published by Baker Books. It has proven to be a tremendous resource for people struggling to make sense of various eschatological positions. Riddlebarger has also written a book titled The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist.
Links
- Riddleblog
- Monergism links to Riddlebarger resources
Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, Kim Riddlebarger, Nick Batzig
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The ones who are taken away in Matt 24:36ff are those who are swept away in Judgment!
The ones “left behind” are the righteous.
I just found out this week that the Left Behind Series is being re-released with a section at the end of each book describing the theological viewpoints of the authors (LaHaye/Jenkins). The books (12 in the original series) will also be updated for more modern technology usage such as texting rather than a beeper going off.
I wonder if a fictional series on a particular eschatological viewpoint is as much a help to understanding, as it is a way to make a living. Either way, I suggest Dr. Riddlebarger should get together with a good fiction writer and make an Amillenialist version to counterbalance all the titles on the other side.
Fiction book on Amillenialism-Hank Hanegraaf already did it (“The Apocalypse Code”).
Are there any plans on having Keith Mathison or another contemporary supporter of Post-Millennialism to answer some of the charges made by Dr. Riddlebarger?
Nevermind. Noticed you had already interviewed Keith Mathison.
At the beginning of the program the recent Heidelberg Conference on Reformed Theology was mentioned. Here’s the link to the videos (& audio): http://www.heidelbergconference.info/media/
Is this the article by Bahnsen that Kim Riddlebarger mentioned on the show? “The Prima Facie Acceptability of Postmillennialism” http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pt031.htm
If so, it seems to me having now read Bahnsen’s essay that Bahnsen’s arguments and claims were treated very shoddily in this episode. Bahnsen in this essay denies some of the positions attributed to postmillennialism in this essay (for example, when Riddlebarger implies that postmillennialism teaches that sin won’t exist in the millennial age), and the sense in with Bahnsen talks about amillennialism being pessimistic is not the same sense Riddlebarger claims Bahnsen means it, in fact, Riddlebarger seems to agreed with Bahnsen’s sense (e.g. by being pessimistic that the gospel will have an evident effect on human governments).
As postmillennialism and amillennialism are the two positions I struggle with and jump between, I would greatly appreciate an episode dedicated to just those positions, with both sides being fairly represented, even if the show were just Riddlebarger invited back solely to give the positive case for amillennialism over postmillennialism. While it makes sense to focus on premillennialism and dispensationalism given their larger demographic and the huge differences when compared to the a-/postmillennial position; still, it seems nearly impossible to find more than a drive by critique of postmillennialism vs amillennialism from either side, and I greatly crave a more detailed and in depth discussion of the two.
This is one of the reasons I recommend Cornelis Venema’s book on Eschatology (“The Promise of the Future”) over Dr. Riddlebarger’s book. Dr. Venema is about the only scholarly writer I have come across that treats Post-Millennialism with any respect, at least enough respect to get their arguments correct.