PRETERISM
In the comments section of yesterday's post on The Last Disciple Karl was asking about preterism. Like dispensationalism (a hyper-version of which is the foundation of the Left Behind books), preterism is a fairly new theological trend.

In a nutshell, it argues that some or all of the prophecies in Revelation and the rest of the New Testament have already been realized or fulfilled in a spiritual sense. Furthermore, we don't need to look for a physical fulfillment because what counts is the spiritual fulfillment. IOW, you don't want to read too much literalness into the text -- especially those texts which are apocalyptic in genre.

There are various degrees of preterist thought. In the most extreme form the second coming of Christ is seen to have been an event fulfilled in the spiritual realm. In the milder forms the battles of Revelation were spiritual events with parallels in first century (or even the first three centuries of) AD earthly history. These prophetic fulfillments set-up the physical second advent of Christ -- which can now occur at any time.

Most of the preterists come out of a hyper-reformed (or Calvinistic) background. RC Sproul is representative of a milder form. Hank Hanegraaff, who has written The Last Disciple novel with Sigmund Brouwer, is probably even milder in his preterism than even Sproul.

The more systematized preterism becomes the more inconsistent it is with Christian orthodoxy. The milder forms actually bring some corrective to the modern notion that everything you can possibly read in the Bible as literal should be read as such. All forms of preterism involve considerable speculation in their attempts to match up the symbols and apocalyptic events of Revelation with actual earthly historical events. In some ways preterism is as speculative as the dispensationalism which stands behind the Left Behind books. And I suppose that's why it is all good fodder for novelists.