PMW 2025-009 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

As I reflect on the presence of the small, but growing number of Christians committing to hyper-preterism, I have wondered what its drawing power is.

Initially, I thought that one of its strengths was that it is mutating so quickly that there are many versions floating about. Consequently, this conveniently allows for a great variety of options to anyone looking for a new theological hobby horse. The latest version of hyper-preterism (as of today, January 28, 2025) is Gary DeMar’s version, “Gospel Eschatology.” This has evolved from and is set over against other recent versions with their various distinctives. We can think of other versions such as Don Preston’s “Covenant Eschatology,” or Tim Martin’s “Covenant Creation Preterism,” or Max King’s “Transmillennialism” (aka “Corporate Body Preterism”) or Ward Fenley’s “Sovereign Grace Preterism,” or the “Preterist Universalists,” or of the work of the grandfather of hyperpreterism, J. Stuart Russell, author of The Parousia.

However, I really should not be surprised at the hyper-preterist aberration receiving a following. For I have long been amazed at the remarkable growth and influence of the eschatological movement known as the Latter-day Saints (i.e., Mormonism), despite its being patent heresy rooted in absolute absurdity. And as I continue wondering in ever-deepening perplexity and amazement, I am reminded also of the presence of another successful eschatological movement known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses: they have been among us for more than 100 years, happily knocking on our doors and delighting in being sent away without even being warmed and filled.

History teaches us that aberrant movements can gain a foothold within Christian circles and take on a life of their own (unless, of course, they drink the Kool Aid, as in Jim Jones’ “People’s Temple” cult: that movement is definitely “preter,” i.e., past!). It remains to be seen if hyper-preterism will be able to attract enough followers to finally establish itself as a full-blown church. Currently it is basically an Internet movement with occasional small conferences here and there, where self-published books are hawked. But still, I have wondered why some evangelicals are being attracted to it (in any of its several divergent, mutating forms). Recently, however, I believe I have uncovered a few overlooked reasons why some folks are finding it of interest. Consider its following advantages in three major areas of human experience.

Physical health advantages

Surprisingly, in our health-conscious world hyper-preterism can create many physical health benefits. It does so by helping prevent tearing, twisting, and stretching of tendons and other fibrous band tissues in the body. This positive result is brought about by reducing the necessity of lifting heavy objects in worship. By this I am referring to the fact that hyper-preterists can produce smaller, lighter-weight, stream-lined hymnbooks. These lighter hymnals can be created by removing silly hymns that hold that God will ultimately consummate redemptive history through Christ’s finished work in conquering the world that he created for his own glory and transforming it into a glorious physical new heavens and new earth beyond this fallen world. That is, hyperpreterists can delete all hymns (some containing five or more verses!) that speak of such nonsense as the second coming of Christ, the silliness of the physical resurrection of all men, the embarrassment of a final judgment, and the absurdity of a glorious, perfect material new creation to be established in fullness by God at the end of fallen history. Stuff that Christianity has been weighted down with for far too long.

When Shall These Things Be?
(ed. by Keith Mathison)
A Reformed response to the aberrant Hyper-Preterist theolgy.
Gentry’s chapter critiques Hyper-Preterism from an historical and creedal perspective.
See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

This hymnal-lightening move would also help reduce muscle cramping, tendon swelling, ligament popping, and vertebrae fracturing in the upper skeletal, but sub-mandible region of the human body. How so? This would be due to less strenuous uses of the scapula, clavicle, humerus, radius, and ulna while engaging in worship with unnecessarily overweight, cumbersome, and unwieldy hymnals. This also would prevent lumbar strains and spinal curvature misalignment problems resulting from the practice of awkwardly leaning forward to pick up (and/or return) a heavy hymnal from the hymnbook rack on the back of the pew in front of the would-be worshiper.

Furthermore, when having to sit back down after said physical movements, the hyper-preterist need not fear back spasms, gluteal muscle contortions, pelvic fractures, subcutaneous fat inflammation, or coccyx injury. These can occur when attempting to quickly sit on hard wooden pews while trying to decelerate from a standing to a sitting position while simultaneously replacing a heavy hymnal due to upper limb spasticity. This can lead to ataxia causing clumsy movements in the arms and legs after leaving church.

Have We Missed the Second Coming:
A Critique of the Hyper-preterist Error
by Ken Gentry

This book offers a brief introduction, summary, and critique of Hyper-preterism. Don’t let your church and Christian friends be blindfolded to this new error. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

For more Christian educational materials: www.KennethGentry.com

Mental health advantages
Not only would lighter-weight, highly-mobile, more-easily-stored hyper-preterist hymnals cause less physical stress on the skeletal and muscular structure of the body, but there would be great mental health advantages, as well. And in an age where the secular world celebrates mental problems and social abnormalities, the hyper-preterist can take comfort in fewer challenges to his brain, especially to the brain’s temporal lobe containing the hippocampus. Let me explain.

The hippocampus, the neo-cortex, and the amygdala can be strained by the stress of trying to remember too many hymns, such as those sung in historic, orthodox churches. Being unburdened by learning fewer hymns would help maintain memory, learning, reasoning, and even navigation processes due to greater brain health brought about by less wear and tear.

So then, since the hyper-preterist hymnal could be reduced to perhaps just a dozen or so hymns, this would help not only physically (as per discussion above), but also mentally! The few remaining hymns would be those that rejoice in the the destruction of the temple and delight in the devastation of Jerusalem, as well as those having a few stanzas that mention the year “AD 70” or that have words that rhyme with “70” (note, for instance, that “seventy” almost rhymes with “heavenly”).

Why Not Full-Preterism? by Steve Gregg
This work exposes some of the key flaws in Hyper-preterism by someone who has formally debated them. Much insightful material for those who might be tempted to forsake historic Christian orthodoxy.

For more Christian educational materials: www.KennethGentry.com

Furthermore, the hyper-preterist would no longer feel intense anxiety generated by their being claustrophobically suffocated, stifled, and trapped in churches filled with orthodox Christians joyfully fellowshiping with one another, while seeking the peace and purity of the church as they worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth. In addition, these hyper-preterists would also need not fear even cleithrophobia! The positive benefits of this include relief from shortness of breath, fast heartbeat (tachycardia, a favorite malady since it employs the Greek word tachos, which means “quickly”), sweating, shaking or trembling, choking, blushing, body stiffening, nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, hot flashes, hyperventilation, chest tightness or pain, confusion or disorientation, headaches, feeling faint, and ringing in the ears, as well as a compulsive checking for exits or escape routes and a sense of impending doom. This can even lead to agoraphobia, and, surprisingly, even aichmophobia (since they are confident they have made a point in their “reasoning”). And in highly liturgical churches, they would also enjoy welcome relief from genuphobia.

This would allow the earnest hyper-preterist to set out on an invigorating, unimpeded quest for establishing a new religious movement, perhaps even allowing each individual convert to be the head of his own portion of an ever-fracturing movement. Especially if he can think of some innovative interpretation of some unfamiliar passage of Scripture that will bring him laud and praise for his innovative insightfulness demonstrating that he is truly a “prophecy expert”!

Time saving advantages
Hyper-preterists can also promote better, more efficient, effective, and productive time management. This would be accomplished by reducing the unnecessary length of worship services. This can easily be done by removing all wasteful expressions of the historic, corporate, public, universal, systematic Christian faith. This would include especially the removing of all formal creedal statements, distinctive confessional vows, short doxological praises, and brief benedictional pronouncements that allude in one way or another to historic eschatological truths. Such would apply especially to those that were written before the late 1980s when J. Stuart Russell’s book was reprinted after languishing for almost a century. Each of these could save as much as 15 to 20 seconds!

And they can even drop the Lord’s Prayer as wholly unnecessary. For in it the supplicant prays “Thy kingdom come,” which is unnecessary because the kingdom has already come in fullness. This saves memorizing 66 words (if one uses the King James Version). And that number is perilously close to sounding like 666! (I shudder at the very thought.) And the devout utterance of this passe prayer can take as long as 22 seconds (stutterers may take as much as 10 seconds to 20 minutes longer still!).

Furthermore, we must remember that the Lord’s Supper was to be practiced in order “to show the Lord’s death till he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). Thus, since he came in AD 70, we no longer need to practice this old, interim, last-days sacrament. This one move could reduce the length of a worship service by perhaps as much as twelve to fourteen minutes on a Sunday in which the Lord’s Supper is served! This times-saving could be put to good use by allowing hyper-preterists to get out of church early in order to beat the Baptists to the best restaurants. This would also produce economic benefits, by saving money for the church as it cuts down on exorbitant wine and bread costs, as well as expensive communionware along with its care, cleaning, and storage. It is a win-win situation!

And finally, enormous amounts of time could be saved by disengaging from the time-consuming great commission. This last-days practice was intended to be engaged only until “the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18–20), which means until the very last stone of the temple was removed in AD 70. (That last stone removed was probably the first stone put in place by Herod in 20 BC, where the thousands of tons of backfill material flattened the top of the mount on which the temple was erected. This would have been the first of the massive ashlars that were cut from a nearby quarry at the Shmuel HaNavi in Jerusalem [which spread across the entire slope from the Musrara Quarter to the Sanhendria Quarter and Ramat Shlomo] and finished off with a special flat-facing and embossed edging. This stone is located in a section of the Western Wall north of Wilson’s Arch, below ground level, which can be accessed through the Western Wall tunnels. It is part of the Great Course, the tallest and longest course [layer of stones] of the Western Wall. But I digress.) Think how much time we have wasted in seeking to disciple the world beyond the time-frame of the commission specifically set by the Lord himself! Especially since this was fully accomplished by September AD 70! We have been blindly following historic Christianity for too long!

This is all the more a grievous waste of time since all prophecy has been fulfilled. Thus, we are now living in the world as it always will be forever and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever and and ever and ever. (I will add more “and ever” phrases later when I have more time for this important endeavor, but for now I have grown weary in typing. Furthermore, I am impeded by having a very old typewriter: it types in pencil.)

Conclusion
Sadly, hyper-preterism is reductionistic and Gnostic, for: (1) It denies God’s salvation of, or judgment over, the whole man, both body and soul (Matt. 10:28). And this is despite the fact that man was originally created by God as such (soul and body) and precisely in order to be a body-soul unit (Gen. 2:7), thereby distinguishing man from angels.

And (2) hyper-preterism diminishes and impoverishes the ultimate, consummate, eternal expression of the kingdom of God. It does this by reducing its final cosmic, expansive, material glory to a narrow, individualized, ethereal hope in heaven that is virtually Gnostic at heart. It gives exclusive importance to the individual’s life in eternity over against the broader expectation of all men (believer and unbeliever alike) standing before God at the Final Judgment. And after the Final Judgment there will follow the re-establishing of the physical new heavens and the new earth where the whole of redeemed humanity (as created by God: body-and-soul) will dwell forever.

We must be aware that the relationship of mankind and nature derives not only from the fact of God’s original creative act by which “man” (Heb.: ‘adam) was fashioned out of the very dust of the “earth” (‘adamah). But also in that both man and the earth (and all of creation!) are the objects of God’s loving concern and both are responsive to his redeeming activity for his own glory. The relationship between man and the earth as created by God is an indispensable presupposition of God-ordained reality. God created the earth before man and for man. The redemptive work of Christ has yet to be fully realized in its ultimacy, for it is to include the whole created order which was established to bring glory to God. In hyper-preterism redemption is reductively collapsed into anthropology thereby effectively nullifying the significance of the created order.

To engage this new, Gnostic, hyper-preterist movement, evangelical and Reformed Christians will have to develop an appropriate apologetic response against these various physical, mental, and temporal advantages. Until we do so we are going to continue losing dozens of Christians a year to this movement. But we may at least take heart in the fact that at least they don’t show up on Saturdays knocking at our doors. For this we can be thankful. Now if we can just them to quit roaming into evangelical churches and cornering people so that they can debate them.