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THE CHALLENGE Preaching the gospel is the primary mission of the Christian church, according to the words of Jesus, at the last time the Bible says he spoke to his disciples, before his ascension into heaven. Logic dictates that if the directive to preach the gospel were such a high priority, as to be the main work of the church, then God would act quickly and decisively once this mission was accomplished. A great way to go challenge Fundamentalist Christians is to suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the second coming of Christ was in 1973, a date in the modern era, with great significance in the archeological history of Jesus and Christianity. Let us then try to defend this argument by using the events relating to Jesus in that time and try to find some correlation to biblical prophesy. In 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar was a Toni award winning show on Broadway. The Movie was nominated for an Oscar for best picture, beat out by "The Godfather", one of the most popular movies of all time. The song "I don't know how to love him" made it to 37 on the top 40. Combined with the proliferation of global satellite communication, 1973 would be the first time in the history of the world, when it was technically possible to hear the gospel of Christ, in every country on the earth. This fulfills the prophesy that the disciples would preach the gospel to all the world. The scriptures refer to the rapture as Jesus returning to earth after the sound of a trumpet, then the shout of a crowd, followed by Christ appearing in the clouds. Then the dead Saints will be resurrected and meet Christ in the sky. After which, the Saints in Christ who are alive, will rise and meet Jesus in the air. What if Jesus appearing in the "air" could actually be the broadcasting of the message of Christ. In the process of Christian broadcasting, a radio or television signal is in fact the spirit of Christ physically in the atmosphere, in the form of electronic waves or microwaves. Maybe this was the only way the concept of broadcasting could be explained in the time of the writing of the Bible. Jesus could have returned in the form of Christian broadcasting, this would fulfill the prophecy of Jesus coming back in the clouds and his presence will be known simultaneously by all the Saints on the earth. Many of the massive Jesus rallies of 1973 were actually broadcast live, and most of them featured the trumpet and shout, to commemorate this prophesy. This could in fact have actually been the fulfillment of the prophesy. These huge festivals were a significant event of the early seventies, culminating in 1973, as the Jesus People and Jesus Freak movements peaked. Growing out of the ranks of disillusioned hippies, these and other like-minded groups produced the largest numbers of believers, in the history of Christianity. These groups produced millions of converts to Jesus, all over the world. One cannot simply dismiss the significance of the whole "hippy movement" and how it was modeled after the anti-materialism and pacifist teachings of Jesus, a long forgotten cultural icon at the time. Was this just a reaction to the materialism of the 50's, or something more revolutionary? |