Antithesis 1

Jesus will not return as soon as Christians expect. The stream of teaching that spreads this view has been wrong over and over again for more than 200 years. The almost universal belief that second coming is close at hand makes Christians pessimistic about the Kingdom of God.

Those who predict the second coming have a strong track record of being wrong. Christians in nearly every age have believed that they were living in the last days and that the second coming was near (eg Martin Luther). Subsequent history has always proved them wrong. Even in our own time, the end-time prophets have constantly postponed their timetables. I can remember when Jesus was expected to come in 1988, a generation after the establishment of Israel. That prediction seems foolish now, as do many of their Y2K prognostications.