Don Preston Debate postponed

This post may seem like a sequel to a movie that hasn't come out yet for many readers, but I also know that many of those who read this blog keep up with me through other avenues, and this is one of the best ways I know to keep everyone on the same page.

Some background for those not already in the know: A couple of months ago, a few weeks before Pesach, I was pinged to a thread on FR in which the opening article had been written by one Don Preston espousing a preterist view of Scripture. A number of Don's supporters, including Bill Fangio, who started the thread, signed onto FR for an impromptu debate. Unfortunately, the swarming of the forum for the express purpose of promoting Don's point-of-view did not meet with the approval of the mods, who erased the thread and banned the newcomers. However, before this happened, I had agreed on the thread to debate Don.

Confession time: At the time, I assumed that Bill meant for a written debate online similar to the one between Samuel Frost and Tim Warner here. When I realized that we were discussing a live, on-stage debate, I took the matter before the Lord in prayer as well as before Gavri'el, seeing as I would be representing Beth HaMashiach and Yeshua HaMashiach Ministries, before accepting. The date for the debate was originally given as late August.

Unfortunately for those looking forward to the debate (including me), scheduling conflicts both for the venue we wanted and for advertising and radio interviews leading up to the event arose which gave us a choice: To seriously scale-down the debate and risk lacking an audience, or to push it back until May of 2007. We agreed that we would rather delay gratification than to have the debate fizzle for lack of time and advertising.

The link to Don's website and announcement of the debate is here.

I'd like to go ahead and take the time to say that Don is a wonderful, affable, gentlemanly Christian with a love for the Word and an earnest desire to know God's will and obey it. The fact that I believe that he is off-track in his eschatology and ecclesiology (and he believes the same of me) does not alter this fact one iota.

I'll keep updating here as we know more, and as we get closer to the date and lock down some details, we'll hopefully be posting those details on the Beth HaMashiach website.

Shalom.