I am relatively new to both "emergent" and preteristm; however, I've finally come to the realization that like it or not I am an evangelical "postmodern" or a post-evangelical or whatever you want to call it (having also been rejected by the evangelical church partly because, try as I might, I just don't get it.)

Therefore, I have been giving these two movements a great deal of thought and have come to the conclusion that preterism is perhaps THE key to the emerging postmodern theology.

Here is why:

In my opinion the marvelous thing about postmodernism is the openness to the spiritual world. We are just barely around the corner of this massive transition where the popular culture is seeking and beginning to explore spiritual realities. Movies like the Matrix, the CIA's Star Gate Remote Viewing program, Montel William's special guest Sylvia Brown, "psychic detectives", The Medium, Dr. Phil's recent program on demonic possession, etc. (What can I say, I'm a stay-at-home mom, I watch a lot of TV!)

People everywhere, regardless of education or status, are beginning to acknowledge that the world we see and experience everyday is in ultimate reality a SPIRITUAL world that is interacting with and manifesting itself in the physical world. This is indeed a massive cultural shift from modernity.

How, then, does preterism have a part to play in this massive cultural paradigm shift?

In my opionion, at the heart of preterism is the SPIRITUAL KINGDOM OF GOD; that is, a recognition of the spiritual world and a recognition that the spiritual world is more real than the world we see and touch. It is a recognition that human beings are spiritual beings and that salvation is a spiritual experience and that there is a spiritual "matrix" out there and that perhaps the reason much of the church has been so spiritually defeated is because we are still waiting "for Christ's second coming" and have not taken our the place of spiritual dominion that is rightfully ours as sons of God on the earth (Eph 2:6). Thus, if the world's in bad shape, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Eek!

Therefore, because preterism has at its heart the message of the spiritual kingdom of God that has invaded the earth to bring salvation, I believe it is a key to the success of the church in postmodern culture.

Once the church puts to rest the issue of the nature of the kingdom, we can begin to answer some important questions (the world, by the way, is asking and looking in all the wrong places for answers):

What does it mean that we are spiritual beings? What are the laws of the spiritual world? How can human beings live successfully in the spiritual world?
How can we activate our spirits so as to have full fellowship and communication with one another? What is the relationship of spiritual healing to physical healing and spiritual health to physical health?
What is the mysterious power of prayer, words, blessings and curses?
Are human beings really somehow capable of predicting the future or seeing the past?

Shall the church leave it to Harry Potter to answer these questions for the next generation? (Borders bookstore, by the way, has an entire section devoted to witchcraft in the children's department.)

Shame on us if we, the church, choose to leave it to occult religions to answer these questions. The alternative is that we find the courage to explore the answers to these questions for ourselves and to live full spiritual lives on the earth.

I think the truth of preterism just may have the power to give us that courage.