Welcome to Truthmission101. This blog will have an emphasis on truth - truth in theology, truth in politics, truth in media, truth in health, truth in economics, truth about 9/11, and truth about wars and terrorism. Many of us realise that we are often not told the truth by our media and politicians. This is particularly true when it comes to issues of war, where it has been ably said that "truth is the first casualty in war". Thanks to the internet and social media information is more readily available to people and harder for governments to control. As a result there is a growing "truth movement". The truth movement is characterised by people who have an insatiable hunger to know more about what is really going on in the world and to not uncritically accept the information they are told by their media and politicians.
As a Christian I endeavour to follow the teachings of Jesus, who said "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). There is freedom in truth. In contrast, lies enslave people. Lies lead people to fight in wars against people who have done nothing to threaten them. Lies lead people down a destructive path. In Christianity there is an emphasis on truth and as such it fits in well with the philosophy of the truth movement. Jesus himself claimed to be "the truth" when he said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Ideas have consequences. Bad theology leads to destructive consequences.
One example of bad theology that leads to destructive consequences is what might be called the "armageddon industry". The armageddon industry is that industry that sells books and makes money off peddling the disempowering myth that we are living in the last days. It is disempowering, because if you believe the bad things happening in the world are signs of the last days and are prophetically inevitable, then you are not going to be involved in activism trying to stop those things. Thus many people who might otherwise be active in fighting evil and deception and standing for justice and freedom end up getting sidelined and end up moaning and groaning about the last days while they wait for a rapture to get them out of here. Many last days adherents actively oppose the peace process in the middle east, wrongly believing that efforts to broker a peace deal are the work of antichrist. Christian Zionists who uncritically support the state of Israel end up supporting the military occupation that oppresses their own brothers and sisters in Christ in the Arab churches of the occupied territories. Christian Zionism supports America and Israel's wars to bring about an armageddon of their own making. Bad theology costs lives.
This author believes it is important to put the last days into their Biblical and historical context. The Bible teaches that the last days are in fact past days. The last days happened in the first century and were the time leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. This view is known as Preterism or Fulfilled Eschatology. Speaking of the signs of the last days in Matthew 24 (and parallel verses in Mark 13 and Luke 21) Jesus said to his first century disciples "I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened" (Matthew 24:34). Furthermore, the apostle John said "Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18). It was already the last hour when John wrote his first epistle and the last days apostates were already on the scene.
Since the last days are behind us, the events of our day are not prophetically inevitable. Therefore we have every reason to be active believing that in God's power we can do great things and change the world.
