Another Ex-Hyperpreterist -- Praise Christ Jesus

Ed Hassertt was often called the "pit bull of preterism". He was ready to defend the "FP view" tooth and nail. After the final straw of interacting with MoGrace2U/Robin, Ed finally has repented of hyperpreterism.

Some comments from him include:

"The only times I don’t like what I see in the mirror is when I am defending preterism, or talking with preterists. I wonder why that is?

Preterism tends to be filled with mavericks who do their own thing, walk away from any authority, and want to make their own permanent mark on the church. There is no real community, just a whole bunch of bandwagons that people are constantly jumping on and jumping off. The movement is in serious trouble."

Exactly, hyperpreterism is arrogant from the core. It adherents MUST claim Jesus, the apostles, and the Holy Spirit were unable to convey God's plan in a sustaining way. That supposedly, the day after AD70, all the known Christians either forgot or didn't understand the eschatological plan until along comes Max King who can somehow explain it better than Jesus, the apostles, and the Holy Spirit. Really??

"To me it seems preterism has become a convenient theology for those who want to have a “biblical” excuse to leave the oversight and authority of a local church, and want to be on their own. It also seems to be the attracting option for a lot of people with weird, crazy and novel theories about scripture that they just adapt to preterism to get their voice heard somewhere."

Exactly, hyperpreterists ARE their own authority. They think they are being loyal to Scripture when they ignore Jesus came to found a collective, not a bunch of radical individualists. We already have seen hyperpreterists who like to call themselves "the voice of preterism". They are all trying to be everyone else's teacher while claiming implicitly that Jesus Himself must have been an ineffective teacher to the 2000 years of Christians that have come before them.

"The final analysis is that I cannot reconcile scripture with the preterist views of the resurrection, or biblical hope, and I cannot reconcile preterist practice with the community scripture calls us to be."

Ah, the resurrection is much stronger and more important than people realize. Remember when DeMar used to claim that hyperpreterist believed in the resurrection too??? DeMar was missing the point.

"Preterist are constantly coming up with new, novel, ridiculous speculations about theology that is just absurd. Are we to genuinely believe that every Christian before us was just plain stupid?"

There it is, the so-called "Roderick Argument" -- hyperpreterism MUST believe 2000 years of Christians were stupid.

"Preterism, in my opinion, leads to a belief that God is no longer working and ultimately is really a theology of deism…trying to justify a deistic view of the world by scripture, removing the wonder, miracle, and hope from life."

See, even Ed sees RiversOfEden is correctly and consistently carrying the FP to its logical conclusion.

"There is no praxis. Most preterists, including myself, avoid churches and fellowship and accept no authority over them whatsoever. It is a movement of radical individualists who want to shed any obligation to the past saints who have gone before us, or the physical church today."

There is the key phrase; "It is a movement of radical individualists..." a phrase I keep repeating. A phrase hyperpreterists have told me to stop repeating. I will CONTINUE to point this out until my dying breath.

"I have come at my doubts about preterism through seeing the character it produces in me as well as the real lack of Christian living among its adherents."

Wait, aren't hyperpreterists always trying to tell us that we shouldn't talk about the character of any of them??? Hyperpret Ward F. once said, "People may be able to talk about my character but they can't beat me in a debate" -- the comment itself is self defeating for hyperpreterists. Hyperpreterism either destroys a persons virtuous character OR it attracts people who already lack virtue. You decide which is which.

http://thereignofchrist.com/ed-hassertt-comes-clean/