Thomas Ice is the Executive Director of the Pre-Trib Research Center in Washington, D.C. The Research Center was founded a few years ago by Tim LaHaye and Mr. Ice to research, teach, proclaim, and defend pretribulationism. He has also written and co-written over 20 books and articles on the Rapture, and serves as an Associate Professor of Religion at Liberty University. A collection of his contributions to this important area of research can be found here.Among Ice’s research is globalization. The thing is that globalization is, rather obviously, a reversal of God’s decision to disperse the people of the world after the tower of Babel. Hence, globalization is strong evidence for the imminence of the Rapture. The U.N. is unbiblical for the very same reason. Ice is no consequentialist. Add to globalization the existence of Israel (“No doubt that Israel is God’s super sign of the end-times”), and we have something close to a proof.
Good thing Ice is here to dispel the myths of the Rapture for us (together with one R.A. Huebner). He also rightfully dismisses the Christian reconstructionist Gary North as “Scary Gary” (for his Y2K babble: ) – apparently North was only out to scare us.
A better example of the rigorous scholarship and erudition of the participants in the Rapture debates would perhaps be Ice’s debate with Robert Gundry, recounted here. And surely an article called “Dispensational hermeneutics” must be convincing – not to mention his discussion of God’s hailstones.
Diagnosis: A living, breathing, self-unaware parody of scholarship, Ice seems to be completely detached from reality and sanity. The combination of post-modernist techniques and fanatic Biblical literalism is fascinatingly bizarre, although I guess his impact should not be overestimated.
( I saw this web shortie not long ago. Reaction? )
ReplyDeleteCarl Sweatman, a PhD student in England, has penned an electrifying "tribute" to Bible prophecy specialist Thomas Ice that all Ice fans and others may enjoy reading. To read it Google "be careful in polemics - 26 December 2012."
Pretrib Rapture Pride
ReplyDeleteby Bruce Rockwell
Pretrib rapture promoters like Thomas Ice give the impression they know more than the early Church Fathers, the Reformers, the greatest Greek New Testament scholars including those who produced the KJV Bible, the founders of their favorite Bible schools, and even their own mentors!
Ice's mentor, Dallas Sem. president John Walvoord, couldn't find anyone holding to pretrib before 1830 - and Walvoord called John Darby and his Brethren followers "the early pretribulationists" (RQ, pp. 160-62). Ice belittles Walvoord and claims that several pre-1830 persons, including "Pseudo-Ephraem" and a "Rev. Morgan Edwards," taught a pretrib rapture. Even though the first one viewed Antichrist's arrival as the only "imminent" event, Ice (and Grant Jeffrey) audaciously claim he expected an "imminent" pretrib rapture! And Ice (and John Bray) have covered up Edwards' historicism which made a pretrib rapture impossible! Google historian Dave MacPherson's "Deceiving and Being Deceived" for documentation on these and similar historical distortions.
The same pretrib defenders, when combing ancient books, deviously read "pretrib" into phrases like "before Armageddon," "before the final conflagration," and "escape all these things"!
BTW, the KJV translators' other writings found in London's famed British Library (where MacPherson has researched) haven't a hint of pretrib rapturism. Is it possible that Ice etc. have found pretrib "proof" in the KJV that its translators never found?
Pretrib merchandisers like Ice claim that nothing is better pretrib proof than Rev. 3:10. They also cover up "Famous Rapture Watchers" (on Google) which shows how the greatest Greek NT scholars of all time interpreted it.
Pretrib didn't flourish in America much before the 1909 Scofield Bible which has pretribby "explanatory notes" in its margins. Not seen in the margins was jailed forger Scofield's criminal record throughout his life that David Lutzweiler has documented in his recent book "The Praise of Folly" which is available online.
Biola University's doctrinal statement says Christ's return is "premillennial" and "before the Tribulation." Although universities stand for "academic freedom," Biola has added these narrow, restrictive phrases - non-essentials the founders purposely didn't include in their original doctrinal statement when Biola was just a small Bible institute! And other Christian schools have also belittled their founders.
Ice, BTW, has a "Ph.D" issued by a tiny Texas school that wasn't authorized to issue degrees! Ice now says that he's working on another "Ph.D" via the University of Wales in Britain. For light on the degrees of Ice's scholarliness, Google "Bogus degree scandal prompts calls to wind up University of Wales," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning," and "Walvoord Melts Ice."
Other fascinating Google articles include "The Unoriginal John Darby," "X-raying Margaret," "Edward Irving in Unnerving," "Pretrib Rapture Politics," "Pretrib Rapture Secrets," "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," "Pretrib Hypocrisy," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," and "Roots of Warlike Christian Zionism" - most from the author of "The Rapture Plot," the most accurate documentation on pretrib rapture history.
Can anyone guess who the last proud pretrib rapture holdout will be?
[the preceding observed on the net!]