Ronald: CAUTION- This computer may drop letters and words in posting. First, let me mildly clarify this matter of what post mils actually believe. The popular notion that a post mil eschatology is the arrival of a political golden age is a narrow 19th century interpretation. Today, the idea would have much more to do with the “puritan hope,” i.e. the conversion of the nations. (See Ian Murray, The Puritan Hope.) And this does not mean a process where oppostion suddenly vanishes. Scripture clearly teaches that the preaching of the gospel to ALL the nations goes on right alongside constant persecution. Dispy Pre mils read Mark 13 as all about the tribulation. Post and a mils read it as about history. The Gospel is preached to all nations and there is intense persecution at the same time. Yes, the greater hope is that the growth of the Kingdom will bear more and more fruit in history, and sure, shallow temporal notions of that in 19th century British and American Christianity did fold under the historical realities you mention. But that hasn’t dimmed my hope for the conversion of the nations. Read Revelation. it is the Nations in the New Jerusalem. Nations that I assume weren’t abandoned by missionary efforts.

And that really is the topic that must be explored. First, forget the number of missionaries represented by each view. Pre mils have more because pre mils te in the sending nations. The observation that there are more pre mil missionaries says nothing about pre mil as a system. It simply says pre mil tes in our ure, schools, books, etc. Second, pre mils do not believe in the conversion of the nations. They believe the nations are under and will be under the sway of the antiChrist. A pre mil view of the 10/40 window is “Yep. ’s stronghold.” My view is that God can turn the Muslim nations upside down in a day or a decade and we are to operate on that hope. There is a huge difference here!! Huge. Scofield pre mils look at history with pessimism, assuming all the nations are heading down the commode of history with a few souls plucked from the fire along the way. Post and optimistic A mils can look at history differently. Don’t tell me that pre mils saw the fall of communism as part of the plan. But Post mils see it as an example of what God can do.

I think this is why you see more post and a mil types in frontier missions like Frontiers and NTM. The overwhelming odds don’t seem overwhelming if you think history is going to see greater and greater manifestations of the triumph of the Gospel. Face it: American Christians are blaming their own sad and sorry decline on God by way of pre mil theology. According to the Pre mil Apostles, the chruch in America is in decline and apostasy because it is on the way to lining up with the RCC and the New Age and the AntiChrist. I see a world where Christianity is exploding!!! Literally exploding in Asia and Africa and South America. Europe and America are missing the party as the Gospel grows at a greater rate than ever before in history.

My old home church is building a $750,000 gym. Why aren’t they weeping and sending to the nations? Do they really believe the worldwide purpose of God is furthered by 3/4 million dollar gym? No- They have given up on the nations. Sure they do Lottie Moon, but they won’t even tithe that building program money to missions. That is American Christianity. Third world missionaries look at this as insanity because it is so inconsistent with scripture. And I think it grows in the soil of dispy pre mil’s accomodation to the world as it is, so let’s go shoot hoops. (I have an article on all this in the works.)

So, yeah, I do believe optimism FOR THE GOSPEL and the NATIONS is warranted and yeah I do believe that ultimately Scofieldism is detrimental to missions. Not to an individual Christian’s motives, but to the overall mindset of the church.