Eschatology and ReligionEschatology and religion is evident from the origins of our institutions of higher learning.It is a rather simple matter to discover that our teachers in society are preachers, parents and professors. By professors we mean all of societies teachers including those of professional status. The influence of our educators is largely religious. The nation's most prestigious universities were started by preachers or were in some way an adjunct of churches designed to perpetuate religious instruction. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia Universities all fall within this category. These institutions have for the most part, graduated to "higher learning" as they would put it. That being said, it is only necessary to show these schools were once highly influenced by religious thinking. So, our professors were once our preachers. That means our preachers were also our parents, likewise our professors who then both became our preachers? Thus the cycle of our teachers was established and perpetuated. Worldview Shaped by Eschatology and ReligionAs a result, our worldview has been shaped by eschatology and religious, influences from what might appear at first glance is secular society. Primarily, there are but two basic worldviews eschatologically speaking. One is that of pessimism and destruction, fostering lack and limitation. The other is one of optimism and growth, fostering endless opportunity and hope for victorious daily living and bright prospects of the future.Chances are high you fall within the category of futurists who believe that the world is soon to come to a cataclysmic destruction. In that worldview all things will progressively get worse and worse. It further holds that approximately three billion people are fated to die in a coming great tribulation, being left behind in the so-called Rapture. If so, then it is inevitable that your worldview is limited and destructive. You are accepting the fated end and perhaps in some way creating self-fulfilling prophecies of destructive outcomes. The futurists millennial views of eschatology, whether pr-post or amillennial, all share a common paradigm, --doom and gloom on the imminent horizon, Eschatology and Religion: Testimonies from HistoryHistory confirms that during the introduction of millennial views in religious thought, a shift in hope for the future occurred. The pendulum swung to hyper negativity, fostering a de-emphasizing of the importance of education, wealth accumulation, and preparation for the future. It also negatively viewed involvement in the political process and fostered the creation of socialist governments including communism and escapism, --in other words, the church's escape from society.We need not be surprised that religious influences are at low ebb. The title of Jack Van Impe's book, "The Great Escape" says it all. Let us abandon the mother earth ship enterprise and head for the heavenly hills. To hell with those left behind! The decadence of the world today bears the fruit of escapism at every turn. Carl Braaten: Eschatology and Religion
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