Under the caption, "A Timely Word on the War, Revelation, and the Future," Norman Huffman, head of the Department of Religion at Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia, deplores the fact that "many Christian people" possess a "faith in the Bible that is only a short distance removed from superstition." The fact that this article appeared in the Christian Advocate, official newspaper-magazine of Methodism, presents tragic evidence of the religious drift since the days of Wesley and Whitefield. Among other things, the author says:
"Any fakir, with a new 'interpretation' of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, can get a following. . . . The belief that the world is coming to an end usually originates in the Revelation of John. . . . All competent Bible scholars agree that the historical events to which the Revelation refers were contemporary with the author, not with us."
Mr. Huffman speaks of the scholarly criticism of the New Testament in the early centuries, and states that the Book of Revelation "was saved from complete rejection by the church only by being given allegorical interpretations." He refers to those who at different times have "waited for Christ to bring an end to the world," then asks :
"What basis have we for believing that anyone making similar claims today is right? . . .
"Neither can we of today conceive of a New Jerusalem descending out of the sky overhead, visible over the whole round world. Nor does the physical resurrection of disintegrated human bodies seem a reasonable, a necessary, or even a desirable basis for the future life."
After contrasting the Jewish and Greek teachings regarding the hereafter, the writer continues: "The Gospel of John is entirely inclined toward the Greek idea. It interprets the second coming of Christ as already realized in the gift of the Comforter, or Holy Spirit, and it drops the idea of the general resurrection."
Concerning the latter statement, how incredible that the clear and positive assertion of the Master Himself should be overlooked or ignored when He declared : "Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29.
In its concluding paragraph the article repudiates any attempt to interpret Bible prophecies in the light of current events. With this ultraliberal attitude, the magazine Prophecy takes decided issue, and in its January number, of the present year declares: "When Mr. Huffman says that nothing that could happen in 1941 could possibly be a fulfillment of anything in the Book of Revelation or any of the other apocalyptic prophecies, he is flatly assuming an infallibility in his knowledge of the future that he denies to all men of God who were 'borne along' by the Holy Ghost."
