{"id":131,"date":"2011-06-24T09:57:37","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T13:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/isittheendoftheworld\/?p=131"},"modified":"2011-06-24T09:57:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T13:57:37","slug":"the-clash-of-worldviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html","title":{"rendered":"The Clash of Worldviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is an interesting &#8220;debate&#8221; going on within the evangelical Church today, and I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if I wind up on the losing side.<\/p>\n<p>In years past, the concept known as &#8220;Kingdom Now&#8221; was somewhat confined to the Pentecostal world. In short, Kingdom Now means that we should work to build the Kingdom of God here and now. <\/p>\n<p>The opposite view is the one I&#8217;d call the Bible Prophecy view\u2014that is, Jesus will establish His kingdom when He returns.<\/p>\n<p>I fall into the latter camp.<\/p>\n<p>One of the themes of Scripture, as it relates to the last days, is that the world will become worse: the creation itself is groaning under the curse, but people will also become narcissistic, thus (ironically) embracing Herbert Spencer&#8217;s &#8220;survival of the fittest&#8221; view. <\/p>\n<p>It seems clear to me that our world, our culture, is disintegrating into a meaner and more inhospitable place. I&#8217;m not sure at all why certain Christian leaders embrace the idea that man can establish any kind of &#8220;utopica&#8221; (my word) on this sin-wracked planet.<\/p>\n<p>But that is not such a popular view these days, in the Church. It&#8217;s all about building some sort of positive environment in which righteousness is the law of the land.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the popular writers and speakers and leaders today in the evangelical world promote the Kingdom Now philosophy. Oddly enough, this is exactly the view promoted by Darwinists in the 19th century. The idea was that man can evolve past his animal instincts.<\/p>\n<p>Bible prophecy, especially as it relates to the last days, is quite clear and not really hard to understand at all. Unless one&#8217;s narcissism compels him to believe he can interpret it or ignore it or re-fashion it.<\/p>\n<p>As always, though, the marker\u2014the signpost of history\u2014is Israel. The nation is fulfilling major prophecies right before our eyes (notice the intensifying pressure on the Jewish state, a hallmark of last days theology).<\/p>\n<p>Soon enough, we will all know who was right and who was wrong, with regard to the timing of the Kingdom of God.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m content to wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is an interesting &#8220;debate&#8221; going on within the evangelical Church today, and I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if I wind up on the losing side. In years past, the concept known as &#8220;Kingdom Now&#8221; was somewhat confined to the Pentecostal world. In short, Kingdom Now means that we should work to build the Kingdom of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Clash of Worldviews - Is it the End of the World?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Clash of Worldviews - Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is an interesting &#8220;debate&#8221; going on within the evangelical Church today, and I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if I wind up on the losing side. In years past, the concept known as &#8220;Kingdom Now&#8221; was somewhat confined to the Pentecostal world. In short, Kingdom Now means that we should work to build the Kingdom of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-24T13:57:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Fletcher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Clash of Worldviews - Is it the End of the World?","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Clash of Worldviews - Is it the End of the World?","og_description":"There is an interesting &#8220;debate&#8221; going on within the evangelical Church today, and I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if I wind up on the losing side. In years past, the concept known as &#8220;Kingdom Now&#8221; was somewhat confined to the Pentecostal world. In short, Kingdom Now means that we should work to build the Kingdom of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html","og_site_name":"Is it the End of the World?","article_published_time":"2011-06-24T13:57:37+00:00","author":"Jim Fletcher","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html","name":"The Clash of Worldviews - Is it the End of the World?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-24T13:57:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-24T13:57:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/e4febb70ba13f920c6255f1d7aaf0c96"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/06\/the-clash-of-worldviews.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Clash of Worldviews"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/","name":"Is it the End of the World?","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jim Fletcher","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/e4febb70ba13f920c6255f1d7aaf0c96","name":"Jim Fletcher","description":"Blogger and researcher Jim Fletcher has worked in the book publishing industry for 15 years, and is now director of the apologetics group Prophecy Matters. His new book, \"Truth Wins,\" provides important analysis of Rob Bell and his Emergent friends.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/author\/jfletcher"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}