The Kingdom Come

I have often made the connection that hyperpreterism is no more "Christian" than is Mormonism. Mormons ALSO appeal to Scripture. It has never been an issue about who does and doesn't read the Bible. Of course Mormons and Hyperpreterists read the Bible. The issue is INTERPRETATION of the Bible. Hyperpreterists like to ignore the presupposition that God sustains basic truth and the basic understanding of that truth, and even more especially among the New Covenant which has Jesus coming and revealing and explaining what the Old Covenant saints only saw in type and shadow behind the veil of Moses. If God doesn't sustain basic understanding of truth among Christians, then at any point along can come a charlatan boasting to have better understood God more than any other men ever in Christianity. Isn't this in effect what hyperpreterism claims???

I find it very interesting to think about the overarching premise of hyperpreterism and the FACT that their first and still most vocal leaders all come from the "church of Christ" denomination (Max King, Tim King, Don Preston, Wm Bell, Ed Stevens, Jack Scott, Virgil Vaduva). As you may know, the coC, like hyperpreterism in general advocates that there was an apostasy and that the true Church and true Gospel was lost and had to be "restored". Here is the Mormon connection. Let's see what Joseph Smith Jr and other Mormon leaders have said:

"I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet."
— Joseph Smith (History of the Church 6:408)

"But if men through apostasy had corrupted the Christian religion and lost divine authority to administer the ordinances of the Gospel, it was of the utmost importance that a new dispensation of the true Christian religion should be given to the world." -- B.H. Roberts - Mormon apostle and LDS church historian
History of the Church, vol. 1, p.XLII

"With regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world." -- Brigham Young - Mormon prophet Journal of Discourses 8:199

"What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing; yet these very men assume the right and power to tell others what they shall and what they shall not believe in. Why, so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest fools; they know neither God nor the things of God." -- John Taylor - Mormon prophet
Journal of Discourses 13:225

Had I not told the reader ahead of time that these quotes are from Mormons, they might as well thought these quotes came from any common blog post by a present-day hyperpreterist. All this talk is the same as the hyperpreterists' radical "paradigm shift" talk. They too are examples of "a new dispensation of the true Christian religion."

Hyperpreterists can try to explain away their hatred for historic Christianity, but their hatred is no different than that which the Mormons have displayed before them. It seems all cults and heresies MUST begin by trying to dismantle historic Christianity.

Before anyone attempts it, the Reformers in general did NOT claim the Church and Gospel had gone apostate, rather the Reformers opposed Papalism not the Church in general. Indeed, the Reformers known for the mantra "Sola Scriptura" are also known to appeal to the "ancient faith" and very strongly to the concept of  "REGULA FIDEI" - rule or regulation of Faith; which amounts to agreeing that interpretation of the Bible is never an individualistic endeavor. Hyperpreterism on the other hand is a rabid SOLO individualistic, anti-collective "paradigm shift" that puts the individual over the collective and over the sustaining ability of God. Hyperpreterism MUST claim that Jesus/the apostles/Holy Spirit were such ineffective teachers and conveyers of doctrine, that immediately after AD70, the whole Church went into apostasy and has supposedly remained there until about 1971 when Max King was the very first man to "boast" of the ability to rightly understand and apparently convey the supposed correct eschatological plan of God. How ARROGANT! But no less arrogant than the Mormon quotes above.

Hyperpreterists cannot claim to be in substance any different than their Mormon predecessors. Sure, Max King never claimed to be a prophet, but in practice how are his claims any different than Joseph Smith Jrs? Sure, hyperpreterists don't PRESENTLY have their own Bible, but they sure are talking about it, here and here.

So what is the difference between Mormonism and Hyperpreterism? Virtually none. They both are built on the same premises, and in due time will conclude many of the same faulty conclusions. Both are NOT Christian but something OTHER-THAN-CHRISTIAN, no matter how much they claim they are Christian.