Last year, Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara Pastor David Guzik communicated to me his willingness to participate in a public moderated rapture debate: Pre-trib vs. Pre-wrath. Some of you wanted to know what the status of it is.
I am sorry to announce that it will not happen. Guzik and I were planning a debate in the spring. However, he could not come to agree with me on the format of the debate. To make a long story short. I wanted to have a traditional public moderated debate with rebuttals and cross-examination—something that I thought he was on the same page with when he showed interest in a debate. He was eventually not willing to agree on this and thus wrote me this week stating: “Thanks, but I think that it’s best to pass.”
His proposed format I felt was watered down and lacked the meaningful interaction that was necessary to engage on this important subject. It was not worth my time to fly literally across the country—New Jersey to California—for what would end up being basically two monologues with a few questions for each other thrown in there.
So there you go for those who were interested. I wish I had better news.
But there is a positive note in all of this—something I have mentioned before. The fact that pretribulational teachers are not willing to defend their pretrib position in public with a prewrath proponent speaks volumes to their pretrib followers. Don’t underestimate that. I am willing to defend my prewrath view under their cross-examination. But they are not willing to do the same with theirs.
