Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," July 2009
How Premillennialism Destroys The Wesleyan Holiness Movement
The Holiness Movement that John Wesley founded, and which later found expression in Methodist tradition, was firmly grounded in the historic "amillennial" faith of the Christian Church. This means that the preachers preached a general resurrection of the dead, and a universal judgment of all mankind that happens at the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Now, most of we holiness preachers are stymied in the Darbyite heresy. This means we do not preach the messianic kingdom of God as a present reality, because we were taught and believe that the kingdom has been postponed; that the kingdom is something totally separate from the church; and that the kingdom waits to be set up at the second coming. We also believe that the messianic kingdom of Christ centers about the Jews, whom we esteem to be God's chosen people, contrary to the plain teaching of the New Testament.
Not only do we "old guard" so-called holiness preachers not preach the kingdom of God as a present reality, we no longer hold the world accountable to a common universal Judgment Day, when God will judge every man (including racial Jews) according to their works, as the Bible clearly teaches (Matt. 16:27).
Many of the younger generation of holiness preachers now avoid dealing with most aspects of biblical eschatology like they would avoid the plague. If they do delve into these matters at all they soon get full of conflict and confusion, because they cannot make their latent and subliminal dispensational premillennial theory "square" with the honest teaching of the Bible.
So, rather than giving up on our recent non-Wesleyan traditionalism, with its heresy of premillennialism firmly entrenched, and returning to the "old paths" of sound Bible doctrine, we choose to ignore, pretending that the messianic kingdom and the eschatological Day of Judgment don't really matter to Christianity anymore, anyway. Stuck in this mentality gestalt we play church and wonder why the worldly drift.
Ideas influence! And bad outcomes do sometimes mean that ideas need to change.
Related Article Links
Premillennialism: Orthodox Faith Of The Protestant Church?
Was John Wesley Really A Premillennialist?
Why Premillennialism Is Heresy
Why Premillennialism Should Be Rejected