Monday, July 18, 2011

Jason Bradfield Reveals Why Sam Frost Left The Hyperpreterist Movement

After months of hyperpreterists speculating as to why Sam Frost left the movement, Frost's protege; Jason Bradfield has finally revealed the real reason.  First, we know Frost's departure from the movement is not as clear-cut; after all, Frost STILL calls hyperpreterists his "brothers in Christ" and Frost maintains a podcast show co-hosted by hyperpreterist Mike Loomis.  Even Bill Hill of CovenantRadio.com distanced himself from his co-host Jeff McCormack when it became obvious that McCormack was promoting hyperpreterism (source).


Further, as Frost made his so-called departure from the movement, he at first tried to reshape his heresy into a modified, personal version.  The first attempt was latching onto his mentor's version; Kenneth Talbot of Whitefield Theological Seminary tried to proffer a version called "Realized Preterism" which was supposed to be a synthesis between hyperpreterism and "partial-preterism".  This was rejected by both "full preterists" and "partial-preterists" and went no where. Next, Frost put forward what he called "fuller full preterism".  Frost introduced his brand of hyperpreterism with this:

"I was going to entitle this series, “Preterism Has No Future”, but decided against it. I think certain forms of what has come to be known as Full Preterism (FP) has no future in terms of surviving outside the internet community."  -- (Towards A Fuller Preterism, Part 1  - Oct 31, 2010 - source).
As you can see, Frost didn't like "certain forms" of FP, so he was attempting to introduce his own "form".   No one except a few devout Frostians got on board.  Lastly, Frost tried to claim he was now a "David Chilton-type of Full Preterist". (source)  Chilton's form of "full preterism" is considered heretical as well, no matter how much Frost attempts to make it less so.  Again, this did not get Frost what he so desperately desires; acceptance within scholarly Christian circles.

ENTER THE SANDMAN

Finally, as Bradfield left the movement BEFORE Frost, this gave Frost the canary in the mine moment he needed to see what would happen if he did the same.  Besides -- Frost couldn't survive long without Bradfield propping him up -- you see, Frost would virtually have no web presence if not for Bradfield maintaining Frost's website all these years.  And now here is the ACTUAL QUOTE from Bradfield that reveals why Frost left the movement:

" i left full preterism without [Sam Frost]! i was days away from leaving RCM [Frost's website] altogether, and in the process shared my "criticisms" with him." (source)

SCREENSHOT

See, when Bradfield shared his "criticisms" and Bradfield's possibility of leaving Frost's website, this had to scare Frost.  Frost had to see he would be nothing without Bradfield propping him up.  I've always thought there was a role reversal with Frost as mentor and Bradfield as protege.  Bradfield is much more consistent than Frost, even if it is being consistently rude.

So, there you have it from Bradfield himself -- Frost left the movement AFTER being told by Bradfield that Frost was going to have to fend for himself.  In reality, Frost HASN'T left the hyperpreterist movement, this is merely another attempt at promoting his own personal version but calling it by another name.  Don't be fooled.

1 comment:

Ken Galloway said...

I got your email on this...thanks...just what I expected to see. Good work Roderick.