The Great Falling Away: The Semantics of Hype

 

This blog recently published a chart authored by someone in a splinter group and showing a sequence of events for the end of the age. An interesting point is that in a gloss, the author identifies the "great falling away" of 2 Thessalonians 2:3. And something needs to be said about the semantics of this. Nowhere in scripture does it speak of a "great falling away." This coined term cries out for capitalization, like The Great Tribulation, so I will write it as The Great Falling Away (GFA). In particular, the word “great” is absent in the Biblical text. Apparently, Paul really had in mind just your “everyday” falling away.

Scripture clearly speaks of a falling away in this passage from 2 Thessalonians. But almost everything about it is unclear. It is uncertain if it is “the” falling away or “a” falling away. It has been translated both ways and the underlying Greek word translated as “a” or “the” really means something like “which.” Further, whether the article is definite or indefinite, does the term refer to a single monolithic event or to all apostasy generically that precedes the revealing of the man of lawlessness? And nobody knows who the man of lawlessness is. A candidate is Seleucid tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes. And nobody knows what the reference to the Temple really intends. It could mean what it says: the Temple of God in Jerusalem. Or some say it could mean the church. So we have a collection of elements of uncertain meaning. And using a particular stew of these elements to concoct a monolithic end-time event is difficult to justify.

To choose to give this terminology a particular rather than generic meaning – from “a falling away” to “the GFA” - requires some sense of the propagandistic value of language. There is no special event that could be termed The GFA as if it were a milestone in the prophetic future as the chart shows. Paul believed that Christ was going to come almost momentarily. And apostasy was to happen first. So it is really unlikely that he saw this falling away far down the corridors of time occurring as a “great” event of the 21st Century.

But this collection of uncertain elements could be packaged as a 21st Century prophetic event with a little imagination and the right semantics. It is done like this. First, without warrant, put the definite article in front of the name of the event. This would be like calling it “the great falling away.” Then it helps to capitalize it. And it becomes The Great Falling Away. It acquires the cachet of a single, isolated event not a phenomenon stretching over time. Then the most important maneuver: Invoke the type-antitype model. So there may have been a former and typical fulfillment. Nobody has identified this. So which falling away is the typical falling away? 

People have been apostatizing from the beginning. This falling away in Thessalonians is just one instance in a class of such events spanning the entirety of church history. But in case someone turns up something that seems unequivocally like the forerunner event, you have that covered. The important matter is that there is yet coming an antitypical end-time event. Finally, use this artfully packaged term in writing and preaching until it takes on a life of its own and becomes unquestionable.

As a sidebar, there is another problem. It is called presumption. Splinterists are afflicted with a hubris that leads them to believe that the great currents of scripture are all about them - little apocalyptic Millerite organizations with very few members and always on the verge of schism in the 21st century. Hence, The GFA is enlisted on the chart to refer to the splintering of Armstrongism, an event that nobody is even aware of except insiders. In this spirit, each Sabbath a globally significant drama, putatively, is played out at services. And the lead player in the dramatis personae is the little denomination itself. It is a profound but dubitable ego trip for followers.

One can note similar semantic issues in regard to "The Great Tribulation." A term of a generic nature is hyped into a specific terminology. Not a good technique for literalists. David Bentley Hart did a NT translation with special attention to what the source Greek actually was saying. And he stated in responding to a review written by Garry Wills: ". . . I had not been aware before reading it (the review) that the term “great tribulation” had any special association with certain nineteenth-century schools of Protestant chiliasm . . ." In other words, at the level of the source Greek, "The Great Tribulation" is a common language reference in koiné to a “really bad time.” It seems to have been recruited as a special term to support special pleading by Dispensationalists in recent history.

And, finally, it is only fair to state that the Protestant movement and the Roman Catholic Church both have interpretations of the passage in 2 Thessalonians. Of particular interest is the Roman Catholic view. It is the most like the splinterist view as to time element. “The Catholic Church, Anglican Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches have interpreted this chapter as referring to a future falling-away, during the reign of the Antichrist at the end of time.” (Wikipedia, under the title “Great Apostasy”.)

This op-ed has been about an interpretation and a debate in the spirit of Midrash. But the debate is sometimes hindered by the use of tendentious, neologistic terminology. The fact is, splinterists who are preoccupied with prophecy have their own lexicon and it does not always reflect the unadorned language of the Bible. So, if you have formed the impression that this is a confused issue of high uncertainty and making use of The GFA in any prophetic countdown cannot be anything but dubious, you have understood the concern. An event of such uncertain character in nearly every dimension should not be scheduled for the end-time.

By Neo