Today’s New Reason To Believe

Kenneth Richard Samples

The Christian world-and-life view speaks about both the past and the future–addressing humankind’s origin and destiny.

In part four of this series I began a discussion of the major areas of difference among Christians when it comes to the controversial areas of eschatology (study of “last things”).

Three Major Areas of Christian Eschatological Differences

1. Understanding of the Bible’s Apocalyptic Literature

2. Relationship between Israel and the Church

3. Nature of the Millennium

The word millennium comes from Revelation 20:4-6 and refers to the “thousand-year reign of Christ.” The various millennial perspectives have different understandings of the nature of this era. Some view this era as being a literal one thousand-year period. Others view it symbolically. Millennial perspectives also adhere to different chronological orders of such events as the great tribulation (intense period of earthly trial and suffering), the rapture (the snatching away of the church), and the second coming (the glorious second advent of Jesus Christ).

Here are four major views on the millennium held by Christians throughout the centuries. The viewpoints appeal largely to the same set of Scriptures, but interpret them differently.

a. Historic Premillennialism:

This viewpoint asserts that the second coming of Christ will take place prior to the millennium, but after the great tribulation period (Matthew 24:3, 21, 29-30). The millennial reign consists of a literal one thousand-year period. According to this view, there is no secret rapture of the church. Rather the rapture takes place at the same time as the second coming. The raptured saints usher in the coming of their Messianic King.

b. Dispensational Premillennialism:

According to this perspective, the second coming will take place prior to the millennium. Like historic premillennialism, this viewpoint sees the millennial era as literal one thousand-year period (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). However, this perspective asserts that Christ will come secretly to rapture the church prior to the great tribulation period. Afterward, Christ will return publicly at his second coming to inaugurate his earthly millennial kingdom.

c. Postmillennialism:

Unlike the previously mentioned interpretations, this view asserts that Jesus Christ returns after the millennium (Isaiah 2:2, 4). According to this perspective, the millennium refers to a long period of peace and spiritual advancement made possible through the preaching of the gospel message. A distinctive feature of this perspective is that the Christian church is successful in winning the world for Jesus Christ and moving civilization and culture in a morally positive and peaceful direction.

d. Amillennialism:

This perspective proclaims that there is no literal earthly millennium (Revelation 20:4-6). Rather it is interpreted as being the period of time between Christ’s first and second advents (the church age). Jesus’ second coming takes place after the great tribulation. After Christ returns (an event that corresponds with the rapture), he engages in the works of resurrection and judgment of humankind, and then creates the new heaven and the new earth.

Differences concerning the millennium have been evident throughout Christian church history and remain an area of dispute and debate among Christians today. Therefore it is important that Christians be made aware of the different perspectives held concerning these critical future biblical events.

The nature of the millennium is the third of three broad areas of contention that reflect the essential conflicts that Christians have concerning last things. But, to underscore, it is very important to remember the broad areas of agreement that all Christians share (see parts two and three of this series).

Future articles address other issues relating to this controversial topic.

For an introduction to the topic of general eschatology, see Donald G. Bloesch, The Last Things and Robert Clouse ed., The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views. For a summary of the millennial positions and their Scriptural support, see John Jefferson Davis, Handbook of Basic Bible Texts.

Design of Bird Brains for Long Migrations

by Hugh Ross, Ph.D

Many migrating birds fly all night long. Some fly nonstop across huge ecological barriers like the Gulf of Mexico. For decades, biologists have wondered how these creatures can survive the severe sleep deprivation brought about by such migration habits. Now, a team of American biologists and neuroscientists appear to have found an answer that reveals a previously unknown level of life design and design convergence.

During the research, seven Swainson’s thrushes–birds that remain active all day and fly all night during their migration–were put into a cage where the scientists induced artificial sunrises and sunsets that mimic the migration season. For each of the birds they implanted electrodes to monitor brain activity.

The team discovered that during the simulated daylight hours the animals took mini-naps with one eye shut and the other open. The electrodes revealed that one hemisphere in each bird’s brain manifested electrical patterns resembling nighttime sleep while the other showed patterns indicative of daytime wakefulness.¹ The research team concluded that the thrushes rested their brains, one half at a time, in order to catch up on sleep.

In order to remain ever vigilant against attacks these birds do not relax both brain hemispheres at the same time. Their nighttime migrations limit the risk of exposure to predators and avoid overheating.

To date, neither biologists nor neuroscientists understand how it is that the brains of migrating birds let one hemisphere sleep while the other is awake and allow the two hemispheres to periodically trade their sleeping and waking modes. Yet, there is no question that such a capacity is an amazing design feature. The idea that it could spontaneously evolve defies a naturalistic explanation.

This outstanding brain design is not unique to birds taking long migration flights. Scientists have observed the same kind of brain behavior in several marine mammals such as dolphins and whales. Thus, this particular design feature provides yet one more example of what evolutionary biologists term “convergent evolution.” A more accurate label would be a “repeated design outcome.” Two species (thrushes and whales) that are completely unrelated on any Darwinian evolutionary trees exhibit an identical and extraordinary brain characteristic. The only reasonable explanation for such an outcome is a supernatural, super-intelligent Creator repeating an optimal design. This explanation is all the more compelling in the context of hundreds of other examples of purposeful convergence for species unrelated in an evolutionary context.

1. T. Fuchs et al., “Daytime Micro-Naps in a Nocturnal Migrant: an EEG Analysis,” Biology Letters (November 5, 2008): 10.1098/rsbi.2008.0405.

Previously Posted on Jan 11th, 2008 by David H. Rogstad, Ph.D.

In the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, originally broadcast in 1980, Carl Sagan, the highly successful popularizer of astronomy, coined the phrase “we are made of star-stuff.” While not a new idea, nevertheless, it called attention to a remarkable fact related to our growing understanding of how the universe began and developed over time.

Dr. Sagan outlined this process, beginning with the Big Bang, where the lightest elements, hydrogen and helium, were produced. He then proceeded to describe the various generations of stars that were formed, aged, and eventually “went supernova,” finally coming down to the formation of our solar system made from the ashes of these earlier stars. The end result is that humans, who are made from “the dust of the Earth,” originally came from material that was “cooked” from lighter elements in the very heart of stars and their subsequent supernova.

With NASA’s 1999 launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory into orbit around the Earth astronomers have been able to use this new tool to detect many different objects in a band of light beyond what’s visible to human eyes, and at a much higher resolution than previously available. A recent press release revealed a spectacular new image of the supernova remnant G292.0+1.8. A supernova remnant is the expanding debris field blasted out from the parent star as it explodes. G292.0+1.8, which contains large amounts of oxygen, is one of only three remnants in our Milky Way Galaxy. The image shows an intricate structure in its debris field that contains element such as oxygen, neon, and silicon that forged before and during the explosion.

Understanding the details of G292.0+1.8 is especially important because astronomers have considered it to be a “textbook” case of a supernova created by the death of a massive star. Supernova events such as this have been determined to occur in the neighborhood of our solar system prior to its collapse, seeding the cloud out of which the Earth formed with elements critical for life (see the 23 January 2007 edition of Today’s New Reason To Believe ).

With instruments like the Chandra telescope, astronomers are developing a deeper understanding of the processes that clarify in detail Sagan’s observation that we are made from material that originated in stars. At the same time, the evidence supports the fine-tuning necessary for the “star-stuff” to have just the right amounts of the various elements to allow life to exist and survive. Not only do we have spectacular images of the “stuff,” which “declare the glory of God,” but we also have better understanding of the processes for making that stuff that reflects the hand of an elegant designer.