"The purpose of the [1977] Consultation was to encourage evangelical leaders to think futuristically and begin long-range planning for the church in the face of possible alternative futures." [emphasis added]
This quotation is from Evangelicals Face the Future, in a Preface written by Donald E. Hoke, identified as the Coordinator for the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois. The 1977 "Consultation on Future Evangelical Concerns" was held in Atlanta, Georgia.
Hoke explains that, "In early 1977 Drs. Billy Graham and Hudson Armerding and I called together a small group of evangelical leaders to consider the future of the church and evangelicalism in the last 23 years of this century." [emphasis added]
Hoke then explained the rationale for evangelicals to embrace futurism:
"Traditionally, evangelicals have thought much about prophecy but little about our more immediate earthly future. James Sire's penetrating question (Eternity, January 1976), must be faced: "What if Christ does not come -- for 10, 100, 1,000 years?"
It is quite clear that the evangelical leaders who met in 1977 had decided that the Biblical future, expressed in prophecy, was not adequate for a postmodern world "crisis." Hudson T. Amerding, Chairman, wrote in the Foreward that
"world events underscore the necessity of acting strategically to advance the cause of Christ. The acceleration of change and the magnification of issues having consequences around the world highlight the urgency of the task that lies before evangelicals." [emphasis added]
Even a cursory examination of the literature from the global missions movement over the next 28 years reveals that this language about "acting strategically" to "advance the cause" became the pervasive rallying cry. And the "acceleration of change" and "urgency" mantras, first taught by the futurists, became the raison d'etre for every novel program or practice -- particularly well-disguised in the doctrine of "advancing the Kingdom" and "fulfilling the Great Commission."
Don't be deceived! The global futurists that rose to prominence in the decade of the 1979s were not some benign group of rational scientists and academics. Rather, they were a group of wild and wacky Luciferians who had a rabid agenda which they wished to foist upon the world. These futurists do have an alternative future scenario. It is one that is well-documented in their literature. For example, Barbara Marx Hubbard, a close associate of Willis Harman, wrote that her "alternative to Armageddon is the Planetary Pentecost" which can only be escaped through "global cooperation" and participation in one's own "evolution to godliness." (The Revelation, pp. 157 & 174)
The Truth:
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming?" (2 Peter 3:3-4a)
Tomorrow: Hoke's 1977 presentation on the Club of Rome