So yesterday afternoon I noted that the next church on our short list for visiting during the Church Search was probably Cedar Valley Bible Church. I know a few folks there, including the couple that has brought Andrew Peterson and company to town twice for concerts. I’ve been to a wedding there, too, and my overall impression was that the church might be a little further over into the conservative homeschooling culture than I’d be comfortable with, but then, it might be OK.
The only other note I’d made about Cedar Valley thus far was when perusing their Doctrinal Statement online, it seemed to me that they had a far more detailed and lengthy statement on the End Times than do most doctrinal statements I’ve read. A very literal, pre-trib, dispensational sort of end times view. Still, as of yesterday, the church was still on my short list.
Then last night I cruised on over to the Cedar Valley website again to check out Sunday morning service times, and I noted this link on the sidebar: “2008 Second Coming Conference“. That’s right, in November Cedar Valley Bible will be bringing in a special speaker from Friends of Israel to speak three times over two days. The topics:
- “Close to Construction” – Presentation on the movement in Israel to rebuild the Temple and how it could fit into Bible prophecy.
- “Pre-Tribulation Rapture” – A look at some different views of the rapture along with Biblical proof for the pre-tribulation position.
- “Signs of the Times” – Biblical evidence that we are now living in the end times.
And that’s just about a deal-breaker for me. Let me explain a little bit why.
I grew up in what I’d consider a pretty standard set of evangelical churches. We attended a C&MA church for a while in Fremont, NE, then a Bible church in Granbury, TX. I got the basic dispensational teaching on the end times – basically, Left Behind without all the dramatic stuff that made LaHaye and Jenkins best-sellers. Imminent rapture, followed by a 7-year tribulation, followed by Christ’s return for 1000 years, followed by Satan being let loose again on the earth, followed by another clean-up and the ultimate destruction of the earth and creation of a new one, etc. Most of the time I was just confused by it. Maybe it was partly my practical engineering nature – we’re not gonna know what’s happening until it’s done, right? So who really cares?
I stayed basically in that theological position until reading N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope a year ago. In Surprised by Hope, Wright explains, among other things, the amillennial position on end times in a way that actually made sense to me. It turns out there is a whole ‘nother way to interpret the passages in Peter, Thessalonians, and Revelation that I had never been introduced to. And that there were legitimate, reasonable Christians who believed it. Talk about an eye-opener. Since then I’ve read a couple of books by Kim Riddlebarger on amillennialism, which too have been helpful. At the moment I’d say I’m at the point of leaning toward an amillennial position, but feeling no need to be dogmatic about it. There are far more important things to get worked up about than the end times.
Which leads me to my end-times deal-breaker with Cedar Valley Bible. This (apparently second-annual) “Second Coming Conference” shows me that they’re very interested in being dogmatic about a pre-trib dispensational end-times viewpoint. And while I’m OK with them believing that (heck, Noelridge, Imago, and Stonebridge all have the word “premillennial” in their doctrinal statements), I’m not really OK with a church being dogmatic about it. That just won’t work for me.
Becky and I had a good talk about end-times stuff last night and why I feel this way about it. I don’t know that we’ve decided anything yet, but I’m really leaning toward taking Cedar Valley off our list.
[N. T. Wright's Surprised by Hope at wtsbooks.com]
[Kim Riddlebarger's A Case for Amillennialism at wtsbooks.com]
[Kim Riddlebarger's The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth about the Antichrist at wtsbooks.com]
That’s pretty much where I find myself.
SHAME ON YOU! You probably already have the mark don’t you!?!
[...] An end-times deal-breaker – chrishubbs.com (tags: gfmorris_comment) [...]
[...] more last night and agreed that Cedar Valley Bible Church is off our short list for the reasons I discussed earlier. So now we’re back to looking at our short list, figuring out where to head next. Not sure if [...]
Hey Chris… how’s it going! Never responded to a blog before, so this is a first. Just wondering though… and maybe it depends on how you define “dogmatic”, but it doesn’t make any sense to me that a church wouldn’t be dogmatic about what they believe in – otherwise it comes fairly close to crying wolf. I guess I’d be more skeptical of a church that said, “Hey, we believe in such and such, but we’re not really going to act like we believe in it.” So at the very least, I’d give Cedar Valley kudos for supporting what they say they believe in. By the way, this whole church search thing… I imagine it hasn’t been easy for you, but what great insights you have – it’d be great if the churches you’ve visited could see this! I’m sure they would benefit greatly!
Hey Thad, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Good stuff. Let me expand a little bit and see if I can formulate a reply.
I’m definitely in favor of churches being dogmatic, being outspoken, being intense about what they believe in. As James points out, faith without actions to back it up probably isn’t real faith at all.
What I am suggesting, though, is that we’re careful about the things we’re dogmatic about. Just as it would be scary to see a church where everyone dressed exactly the same, talked the same, drove the same cars, and so on, I think it’s scary to see a church where everybody agrees on every fine point of theology exactly. There are lots of theological places where we can agree to disagree and still have fellowship as believers in Christ.
And so, to come around to the topic of this blog post, in my opinion, eschatology, within certain bounds, shouldn’t be non-negotiable. As Pastor Aaron said from the pulpit when we visited a couple of weeks ago, Bible-believing people can read their Bible and come up with differing, Bible-believing opinions when it comes to the end times.
Now, I’m not saying that a church necessarily shouldn’t take a position on the end times – both Noelridge and Imago have some end-times stuff in their doctrinal statements, and I’ve signed on to both of them. But what made Cedar Valley’s apparent position a deal-breaker was that their specific view of eschatology is so important.
There are a lot of things that I think are important enough that our churches should have yearly conferences to focus on them. Missions. Evangelism. Engagement with popular culture. And so on. But eschatology isn’t one of them.
Anyhow, that’s where I’m at on the topic. I know a bunch of folks that go to Cedar Valley, folks who I like a lot, so I’m not trying to take broad swipes at their church – I’m just explaining why I don’t think it’s for me.
[...] be a long list. We started with three churches that were our primary focus, and after ruling out one of them midway through, it was really down to two: Maranatha Bible and Stonebridge. We visited both of [...]