I want to thank Nick Norelli for taking the time to write a review of my book.
Check out other reviews he has written at his website.
Here is one particular paragraph in his review that I want to highlight:
There’s a popular slogan that says, “In the essentials unity; in the non-essentials liberty; in all things charity.” It’s a nice sentiment, and one that most would agree with, yet there’s always the issue of what counts as essential or non-essential. Speaking from personal experience, eschatology seems to be the stock example of a non-essential when this phrase is introduced. What is it about this particular locus of systematic theology that we find so elusive as to think that what we believe about last things doesn’t rate with what we believe about God or salvation?
Well said.
I do want to make two qualifying statements about a comment he made in his review: “(although I’m not quite convinced that Kurschner’s reading deals the death blow to the doctrine of imminence suggested on pp. 131-36 cf. 188-92).”
First, the book as a whole—that is, the main thesis of the Antichrist arriving before the day of the Lord—is an indirect attempt to deal a death blow to imminence. However, I think he was referring to pp. 131-36 cf. 188-92.
But it is a fair question for someone to ask why I did not write more directly against imminence. In one sense I thought I did draw sufficient attention to it. Nevertheless, I intended my book as a positive presentation of the prewrath position without interacting too much with pretribulationism. However, it was necessary at certain points to directly respond to the issue of imminence such as an entire appendix, as well as other pages in the book. But to keep the book focused on prewrath as a positive presentation, then, I needed to be selective in dealing with pretribulationism.
Second, because I believe in responding to pretribulationism and imminence is important, it deserves a whole–book treatment devoted to that issue. Accordingly, I have written, not just one, but two books responding directly to pretribulationism and imminence. The first book that will be released will be responding to the common arguments for pretribulationism, as well as to objections they have published against the prewrath view in recent decades. I am very excited about this book. I am hoping to have it released on October 3rd, the day when the Left Behind movie comes out. The second book will be specifically on refuting imminence. To be sure, I will have a few chapters responding to imminence in my book responding to pretribulationism. But my second book on imminence will be an important work exclusively challenging imminence.
All this to say is that I could have written much more on imminence in Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord. However, I have reserved this for later publications. For the meantime, I am confident that my main thesis in my current book—the Antichrist will arrive before the rapture and persecute the church—in itself disproves the pretribulational tenet of imminence.
