OH, NO, I'M NOT EVANGELICAL!!!

Here is the latest snippet of discouragement which I encountered while exploring Praxis Church online. I found it in their study guide to the sermon, "The Survivor's Guide to the Apocalypse."

"Debates about eschatology (the study of end times) go back to the very beginning of the Christian faith. In fact, Paul deals with such discussions in 2 Timothy 2:18. Men named Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching that Jesus’ second coming had already occurred and so the people were waiting in vain. Paul calls this teaching “irreverent babble” that could lead people astray. Ironically, I think much of the recent debate about Eschatology could be described the same way." [emphases mine]

Here is the clincher:

"Full preterism—which insists that every prophecy and promise in the NT was fulfilled by a.d. 70—is not a legitimate evangelical option, for it:

• denies Jesus’ future bodily return;
• denies the physical resurrection of believers at the end of history; and
• denies the physical renewal/re-creation of the present heavens and earth (or their replacement by a “new heaven and earth”).

However, preterists who (rightly) insist that these events are still future are called “partial preterists.” [bullet points added]

Why does a sincere challenge by fellow Christians toward preterism engender this struggle within me to run back to futurism? Can I be that wrong, that I am utterly deluded by preterism's simplicity-- its logical conclusions, its water-tight explanations, its contrarian reputation, its minority report among evangelicals? I don't know.

I know condemnation is not from the Lord to His people. I know who it comes from.

Still, I feel I must justify my position, such as it is, or abandon it completely. So help me God.