Warning: Awful folk theology meets awful folk music!
I must thank my good friend and frequent dialogue/debate partner Jake Hunt for sharing this little doozy with me. While Jake and I differ on a few points regarding Biblical/theological interpretation (think Wesley and Whitfield!), we stand together in recognizing the foolishness of pop-eschatology (think “Left Behind”), which seems to generate no end (pun intended!) of geopolitical speculative scenarios. Case in point: This painful-yet-surreal-and-almost-hypnotic “anthem” Jake shared with me today!
I’ll leave it to my more musically-talented readers to critique the melodious nuances of this masterpiece and just restrict my comments to the Biblical aspects.
Simply put, there are none. (Though I must give him props for being willing to label America as “Babylon”…usually it’s some Middle Eastern country like Iraq or Iran who gets that title in pop-eschatology!) As someone who’s dedicated years to the translation, study and teaching of the book of Revelation, I have to say this is the epitome of how NOT to read it.
The “interpretation” of key figures as corresponding to current world events and leaders has one thing in common with every other attempt to do so in church history–it completely ignores the original meaning of the book and skews world events into a supposed timeline that Scripture itself NEVER gives.
Not that anyone is likely to be persuaded by such an “anthem” as the one above (though, God CAN use anything to reach people in unique ways…He has been known to communicate through an ass at least once in history, who says He can’t do so again??), but it serves as a great illustration of the need for solid Biblically-based and historically orthodox teaching on Biblical prophecy and the book of Revelation by Pastors and Teachers within the churches. Otherwise, we have only ourselves to blame when “interpretations” like this become more widespread among God’s people.
People hunger for good teaching, particularly when it comes to such “spooky” topics as End Times and Revelation. Pastors, Sunday School teachers, Small Group leaders, let’s not shrink back from giving them the meat found in Scripture! There’s really great stuff out there to choose from that can help you do just that!
Some of my recommendations for teaching or small group facilitating would be:
“Revelation: A Guided Tour of the Apocalypse” (DVD study) – Yours truly!
“Revelation and the End Times” (DVD study) – Ben Witherington
“Breaking the Code” (DVD study) – Bruce Metzger
“Surprised by Hope” (DVD study) – N.T. Wright
“With God on Our Side” (DVD & PDF study guide) – Stephen Sizer
“Apocalypse Now?? What the Bible says about the End Times” (Audio course for personal study) – Again, by yours truly!
There’s so much nonsense out there regarding this topic (not all of it as obviously silly as this video, though!) that we can’t afford, as shepherds, teachers and ministry leaders, to leave people to fend for themselves in finding solid teaching; we must equip them…that’s what Jesus Himself called us to do!
JM
Categories: Biblical Scholarship, Biblical Theology, Blog, Book of Revelation, Curriculum, Eschatology, Ministry, New Testament, Political/Social issues, Random/Funny, Teaching Products, Theological issues
I don’t know what to say. Words can’t do it justice. I’ll just mention my two favorite lines:
“She rides a beast, that beast is sore and now that beast will burn that whore.”
“The Antichrist is not your friend.”
You should do a corrective response video that’s also in song (or rap).
It could start like this:
The New Creation Anthem
The new creation is coming fast my friend,
The end is near your won’t need a rear end.
Your body will be glorified
As long as you’re in christ you will not fry
I hope Obama is in Christ
Or he’ll be begging for ice in the afterlife
Mr. Tapley I’m in awe
Your music is worst than lady GaGa
by Rich on Aug 3, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Nice, Rich! I think you should get a keyboard and a peaceful pond/dirt road backdrop and make music history…
Here’s a spoken word response, not to this video, but to pop-eschatology in general by a Ph.D student at Asbury who I’ve befriended over the past year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNkn-jLYjys
by jm on Aug 3, 2010 at 7:57 pm
There is no way this could possibly be true. That’s because although God may speak through prophets, and even the mouth of a donkey, there simply is no way that God can speak through a old white man wearing a striped izod shirt. Yes, God is present everywhere, but there are some places where God doesn’t exist, and one of those places is a keyboard drum machine.
Also, what’s particularly sweet about this is that the guy didn’t plug in his keyboard since he’s in the wilderness. This means he’s rocking power off of no less than SIX “D” size batteries. Does anyone still used “D” sized batteries? Where did he get these “D” sized batteries? I haven’t seen any since 1989. Is he stockpiling them since he’s going to be in the rapture?
He switches the instrument midstream from I think electronic harpsichord to electric piano. This also proves that God is not speaking through him, since God doesn’t EVER switch instruments in the middle of a musical number.
by Chris McCauley on Aug 3, 2010 at 8:31 pm