A former Worldwide Church of God member and later minister has written a book about escaping from the dreaded apocalyptic fears that the church drummed into all of us, and continues to do in far too many of the splinter groups.
"A middle-aged couple who recently showed up at a progressive local church said, “We want to get away from doctrine.” Apparently they had decided they could no longer put up with the Bible-literalist teachings of the church they had been attending.
To all who may fit into that category and want to get help in rejecting a narrow-minded and mistaken literalism, I strongly recommend that you read “The End of All Things is At Hand: A Personal Journey from Apocalyptic Fears to Historical Reality” by Jack Pyle. That book reveals how Pyle, once a convinced pastor in Herbert W. Armstrong’s fundamentalist cult, was slowly forced by informed historical biblical scholarship, coupled with his own integrity, to confront and reject the misleading and erroneous literalism to which he had been subjected."
Amazon Review:
One hundred twenty-six million American citizens have stated they believe Jesus will return to this earth by 2050. Most of them await his arrival with mental pictures and images obtained from the blockbuster Left Behind series of books of LaHaye and Jenkins, or Hal Lindsey's portrayals in his book The Late Great Planet Earth. Both books are fictional images of the end of the world created from the nightmarish and ghoulish descriptions of the author of the book of Revelation who wrote of events he believed were to occur in the Roman world before the return of Jesus. It was to be a time of unimaginable horrors to come upon the world. We read daily of alleged apocalyptic signs occurring now which individuals believe point to the end of the age of which Jesus spoke.
When one reads in detail the book of Revelation, before the Prince of Peace sets a foot on planet earth, it will be a smoking mess resulting from plague after plague that Jesus heaps upon earth's citizenry before his arrival. Jesus is shown to arrive on earth much like that of the Dragon Lady in the Game of Thrones, heaping fire and brimstone upon the ecology of the earth and its inhabitants. He wears a garment dipped in blood.
This book is a bold walk through the Bible from beginning to end asserting that occupants of our planet are never going to ever see, the arrival of the characters portrayed in the prophetic books of the Old Testament nor John's already outdated visions on the isle of Patmos.
World renowned bible scholars and theologians now tell us that Jesus believed the kingdom of God was to arrive on earth in his day and that the kingdom of God would be ushered into the world through his work and ministry to the nation of Israel.
You will be introduced throughout to the Jesus of the Third Quest""a Jesus who is only understood by understanding the Judaic world in which he lived. He would have been potty trained like any normal Jewish child of his day. Jesus, it will be shown, obtained all his beliefs from his family, his synagogue, his community, and his society. This book will open your eyes to Jesus of the third quest. He was very human, capable of mistakes, and badly mistaken about the arrival of the kingdom of God.
Christians generally think of Jesus being incapable of error, possessing omniscience and omnipotence, and having prior existence as God""wholly man and wholly God, as did the author. Third quest scholars and theologians tell us Jesus didn't see beyond the world in which he lived. Jesus expected to rule on earth in his day along with the twelve apostles.
Most likely Jesus died feeling he was forsaken by God in what he set out to do. Of Jesus disputed last words on the cross, the most reasonable choice may well be those of Matthew's gospel"""Eli Eli lama sabachthani""(My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?")
James Boswell II writes (Author of The Dead Sea Gospel):
This book is especially intriguing because it was written by a man, Jack Pyle, who was once both a member and later a pastor in The Worldwide Church of God, a cult founded by Herbert W. Armstrong. As such, Pyle was a Bible fundamentalist who believed everything in the Bible to be literally true until the prediction that Jesus would return in 1975 and the deaths of two children who were denied medical aid because of church teaching caused him to begin reexamining everything. While studying some excellent scholars of "the historical Jesus," including Dale C. Allison. Pyle became convinced that their views were irrefutable, and that not only Jesus, but also John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul and all the authors of the New Testament were expecting the coming of the Kingdom of God to all the earth within their own generation, an expectation that went unfulfilled. Pyle thus challenges everyone to do the kind of honest thinking that he himself was forced to do and not be misled by predictions of apocalyptic horrors "soon" to come. (I find myself in nearly complete agreement with Allison and Pyle in my own views, which can be examined at Jesus Laid Bare Honest truths about Jesus.)
James Tabor (Former WCG member and prominent Biblical historian) writes:
When I speak of God, that word means to me the unseen force of all forces that drives this universe and cosmos of which we are cognizant and makes you and me the creatures we are with all the mystical existence we know and enjoy upon this earth.
Jack Pyle, Author of The End of All Things Is at Hand
In Hebrew "God" is 'EL which roughly translates as "Force" or "Power," and the plural, with a singular verb 'ELOHIM--could be understood as "that Force of all Forces," akin then to 'EL 'ELYON--traditionally translated The Most High, but again, quite literally, "the highest Force." All of this was well expressed by my friend Jack Pyle, former minister and author of a fine semi-autobiographical book, The End of All Things Is at Hand: A Personal Journey from Apocalyptic Fears to Historical Reality--about how biblical apocalypticism, both ancient and modern, is a flawed and failed enterprise. I highly recommend his book.
