Left Behind Theology...A History of the Movement Part 2

Below is Part 2 of my series "Left Behind Theology...A History of the Movement." If you didn't read Part 1, you will be lost, so click here, and then come back and read Part 2.


Hold up, Hold up...we need to back track a little bit.

Who is Edward Irving and what exactly happened in his church? An utterance you say? huh?

Good question! Let me explain.

Edward Irving seems to have been a very popular preacher in England in the mid 1800's. He was known for his ability to take the customs of the time, mix them with satire and connect with individuals as he preached. One might say he wasn't as much a theologian (although he was extremely well educated) as he was a great communicator.

For quite a while, years even, Irving was consumed with the subject of prophecy. Irving was heavily influenced by a Jesuit priest named Manuel Lacunza. Lacunza lived a large portion of his life in exile due to the fact that King Charles the 3rd of Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1747.

We know that Lacunza ended up retiring to the outskirts of Imola, a town located on the Santerno River in the north central region of Italy. For the most part we know that Lacunza lived alone and spent countless hours in study, even to the detriment of his own health. His ideas about eschatology were first published in a 22 page tract called The Anonymous Millennium, which was widely circulated in South America. In 1790, he completed his 3 volume work entitled, The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty where he expanded his ideas of a future pretribulationl rapture and millennium.

Lacunza believed that human history ended at the second coming of Christ. At that time the living would be judged, the Jews converted, and Christ would establish his 1,000 year reign on earth. Lacunza also believed that before Christ returned and set up his millennial reign, there would be a general apostasy of the Catholic Church. Because of this belief, his work was eventually condemned by the Vatican.

Edward Irving was greatly influenced by the work of Lacunza, so much so that it is said Irving introduced Lacunza's theories to the early leaders of the Plymouth Brethren movement. One of these early Plymouth Brethren leaders was John Nelson Darby, who was attending the "prophecy conferences" at Powerscourt House around the 1830's.

So where did this so called "utterance" come from and how are all these people connected?

We know that these pretribulational premillenial ideas were floating around "prophecy circles" around Irving's church and the Powerscourt House. We also know that these ideas began to disseminate into the Plymouth Brethren movement as John Nelson Darby got a hold of them around the 1820's-1830's.

Margaret McDonald was part of a small charismatic sect in Scotland that was said to exhibit miraculous signs such as healing and speaking in tongues. Margaret McDonald is said to have been given a special prophetic "utterance" by God where she predicts a pretribulational rapture in Edward Irving's church.

You can read her "utterance" here.

After reading what Margaret McDonald said, I'm not fully convinced she was speaking about a pretribulational rapture or a posttribulational rapture. What is certain is that she was promoting a premillenial eschatological scheme in her "vision."

It is uncertain whether John Nelson Darby was influenced by Margaret McDonald, however we do know that Darby was a participant of the prophecy conferences at Powerscourt, and it is very likely he knew of Edward Irving's teachings and/or Edward Irving himself.

From this point on, we see "darbyism" spread to the United States.

So we will study "left behind" theology in America next time, I promise.

Be Edified.