During a recent “circle the wagons” conference where hyperpreterists got together to comfort one another that their movement isn’t collapsing but actually growing, Sam Frost gave a lecture called, “World Getting Better: A Biblical & Statistical Answer”. (source)

The speech was a classic proposition not for preterism but for postmillennialism yet Frost never really brings this out.  Frost being a studied man has to know that what he is preaching is actually postmillennialism yet throughout the speech he credits preterism.  This is the on-going tactic of hyperpreterists.  They will say such things as, “[full preterism] has been widely known & embraced in centuries past” (source)  It is a lie.

It does not require the lies & errors of hyperpreterism to see the “world getting better” – postmillennialism has been saying this for centuries.  America was even founded on the concept of postmillennialism – that the mustard seed kingdom is ever advancing (Mt 13:31-32).  America so much embraced this concept of an ever advancing Christian influence on the world that it even at one time held the notion of “Manifest Destiny” wherein it is “allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions”  (source).  At one time, Americans saw the mission of expanding freedom as synonymous with expanding Christianity – it was the concept that only Christ sets men free. (John 8:32-33)

So, why was Frost not talking about postmillennial Christianity & how it has shaped many Western cultures?  Because it doesn’t fit the program to advance hyperpreterism.  Just as hyperpreterists have deceptively taken the historic theological term “preterist” & claimed that the only true preterist is their kind of heretical preterist, here too we see Frost taking all the positive concepts of postmillennialism & crediting hyperpreterism.  How is he able to do this?  Because his audience is mainly former dispensationalists who like Frost “in [his] world [he] didn’t grow up with the contributions of Christianity, we just heard how the world was falling apart”.  Hyperpreterism is a reaction (over-reaction) to dispensationalism & since many of hyperpreterists had never experienced classic postmillennial thought, they easily embrace hyperpreterism as the positive alternative to flawed dispensationalism.  IT DOES NOT REQUIRE HYPERPRETERISM TO SEE HOW CHRISTIANITY HAS & CONTINUES TO POSITIVELY INFLEUNCE ALL AREAS OF LIFE; education, arts, medical, scientific, politics & so on.

The next time you hear a hyperpreterist railing against the negative “doom & gloom” message of modern Christianity, know that they are blindly reacting to 200 years dispensationalism & that they have little knowledge of the centuries of classic, historic Christianity that has had such a huge impact on cultures & societies.

Hyperpreterism is merely a little heretical faction trying to take credit for generally positive productive message of Christianity.