The Preterist Blog ~ 100% Hyperpreterist Free|we can haz rezurekshun?

This is a repost. Originally posted on May 30, 2006

In dealing with and discussing hyperpreterism, I have found an analogy to be had with the abortion debate.  Many times debate over abortion scenarios will be posed and questions asked if abortion would be justifiable in such and such situation or at such and such point in time of gestation.  However, those arguments ignore the fundamental issue which must be answered before any other issues are examined, and ironically, determining THE issue makes the rest of the questions irrelevant.

Enter the hyperpreterist controversy.

Hyperpreterists believe/hold themselves out to be in Christian communion and part of the historic Christian faith.  They desire to have their voice heard as one more legitimate option in the eschatological debate right alongside of historicism, futurism, and preterism.  However, similarly to discussing the appropriateness of abortion, one cannot even consider the question of hyperpreterist communion until one first decides what hyperpreterism actually is.  And that is exactly what I do.  Taking the facts as we know them, that being the various positions that are undeniably within the historic Christian faith, we must then look at what hyperpreterism is to see if in fact they have a place at the debating table as another legitimate Christian view.  However, once we perform this exercise, just as with abortion, the very nature of the thing itself renders all other claims moot.  Thus, once it is determined that the unborn is in fact a human being, that means that things such as rape are not a justification for murdering that human being.  And with hyperpreterism it is very clearly and absolutely heretical in its very nature by the explicit teaching of NOT only the creeds, but ALSO the early Church Fathers, AND the Bible itself.  It is under all three tests the destruction of the Christian hope and an abominable heresy.  As once we see what hyperpreterism IS in relation to the views that it hopes to commune with, it is patently obvious that communion is impossibly broken.

To further the analogy, if the unborn is a human being, there is no justification, save the preservation of the mother’s life, for murdering it.  And if the unborn is not a human being, no justification is needed whatsoever for abortion.  Similarly if hyperpreterism is at its core heretical and completely antithetical to the other various Christian eschatologies and foundational orthodoxy itself, there is no argument or justification for giving it a voice in the Church.  If Hyperpreterism is not a radically antithetical to the Christian hope, no justification for giving them a voice is needed.  Hyperpreterist wish to skip this step and force the Orthodox into a presumably “Christian” debate when the doctrine isn’t Christian all.  Hyperpreterists have some serious “dealing with it” to do on this issue.

I am sure some hyperpreterist out there will wax hyperliteral once again and claim that I have compared hyperpreterists to abortionists.  Of course I have not. But it’s a heresy folks, just as surely as the unborn is a baby.