Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times - Conscious Evolution TV

138robin-bobin Rapture, Revelation, and the End TimesThe events of World War I, with its unprecedented killing anddestruction, fueled premillennialist evangelicals such as Blackstonewith apocalyptic anticipations. They were convinced that the warpointed to the beginning of the end times, interpreting theBalfour Declaration and the British takeover of Palestine as furtherindications that the ground was being prepared for thearrival of the messiah. Premillennialist joy and anticipation overthese developments dominated two evangelical prophetic conferencesthat took place in Philadelphia and New York in1918. 11Premillennialist evangelicals were further encouraged by thenew wave of Zionist immigration to Palestine in the early yearsof the British administration of the country, and publicized intheir periodicals events such as the opening of the HebrewUniversity in 1925 and the new seaport in Haifa in 1932.Premillennialist evangelicals interpreted these developments assigns that the Jews were energetically building a commonwealthin their ancient homeland and that the great events of the endtimes were to occur very soon. 12 Leading evangelical journals,such as Our Hope, The King’s Business, The Moody Monthly,and the Pentecostal Evangel, regularly published news on theZionist movement and the Jewish community in Palestine.Excited by hopes of the second coming, they lashed out atthe British for putting restrictions on Jewish immigration andsettlement and criticized the Arabs for their hostility toward theZionist endeavor and for their violence against the Jews. Theysaw attempts at blocking the building of a Jewish commonwealthin Palestine as equivalent to putting obstacles in the wayof God’s plans for the future of humankind. Such attempts, theyasserted, were futile, and the Arabs would pay dearly for theirrebellious acts. 13Few evangelical activists, however, pressed their protestagainst British policy beyond the pages of their own journals.During the 1920s to the 1940s, conservative evangelicals werenot very active politically as a group, withdrawing, to a largedegree, from the American public arena. Their political influence,both in Britain and in America, weakened considerably.robin-bobin