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Hope Resurrected: A Refutation of The Heresy: Full Preterism
This work provides a complete refutation to the growing heresy known as Full Preterism. Full Preterism is an eschatological belief system that promotes the idea that all prophecies were fulfilled with the 70 AD destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, including the Second Coming of Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead. This treatise examines the history of full preterism and analyzes the works of today's most popular full preterist works by Alan Bondar, Max King, Don K. Preston and Edward Stevens. This refutation is a "must-read" for any Christian struggling with the heresies found in this particular brand of eschatology, or anyone considering joining the full preterist movement due to their disillusionment with Futurism/Dispensationalism.
487 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2019
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June 15, 2025
Lance Conley has done us a huge service by providing a critique of full preterism from a layperson's perspective. I personally prefer Bryan Hodge's Problems with Preterism and Samuel M. Frost's Why I left Full Preterism. But Hodge and Frost are both trained scholars and therefore bring a certain perspective to the table that Conley is unable to bring. But I appreciated the unique perspective Conley was able to bring to the table, especially his perspective as a congregant in the Eastern Orthodox Church. For a layperson, he was able to gather an impressive amount of material to support his claims. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that as a result of Lance's efforts, Don K. Preston changed the notice on his website from "Preston’s book Who Is This Babylon, has been positively peer reviewed, and received a positive review in the official publication of the Russian Academy of Science" to "Don’s most popular book, Who is this Babylon?, a study of Revelation, has received international critical acclaim."
My next ebook to read is Max King's Irrevocable in which, I understand, he lays out his case for Christian Universalism. I wanted to read Conley’s book first, hoping that he might critique King's universalist perspective. Alas, Conley gives no critique, only mentioning that King is a universalist, as if that fact alone is enough to dismiss the whole idea. But for me, universalism is a feature, not a bug.
I am not a part of the target audience of this book, which is current full preterists or Christians considering full preterism. I am an ex-Christian, a rank unbeliever with no skin in the game. My interest in full preterism (which is solely academic) began in earnest when my friend Barry Isaacs invited me to join his Facebook group Preterist Perspectives Discussion and Debate. So I consider full preterism to be pretty silly, but I also consider the traditional Christianity that Conley defends in this book to be silly as well. So the digs at postmodernist liberal theology didn’t have me jumping up and down. I am no fan of theology at all, but I don’t find liberal theology to be worse than the traditional kind.
I think the best point Conley makes in this book is the point that if the end of the age occurred in 70 AD, then election ended in 70 AD as well. It should be noted that there is a branch of full preterism called Israel Only which agrees with this and claims nobody can be saved (or needs to be saved) after 70 AD. But these people are not Christians. For those full preterists who are Christians, this is a point that needs to be answered. I'm not sure Conley did a wonderful job explaining the point, making an analogy with human elections, claiming that once an election is over, it’s over. But on the human level, one can always have an election after an election. This seems to be what Ed Stevens is getting at when he says, “As long as God’s Word is available to men, God is able to sovereignly regenerate His elect independently of any human agency." There is a problem with this solution though, in that the Bible suggests that the number of the elect is fixed. It cannot be added to indefinitely. Sam Frost does a good job of explaining this in his book Why I Left Full Preterism, in a chapter entitled "Infinity."
I was very confused by Conley's use of the phrase throughout the book "argument from (or of) silence." For example, he writes, "He [Preston] asks 'Why did not one of them who was "left behind" sit down and write about the incredible things he or they had seen? This is a serious issue'. This writer agrees. Preston has an argument of silence and every single historical data source disagrees with him that Christ came back in 70 AD."
Conley seems to be implying that an argument from silence is always a bad thing. But actually Preston's argument is quite good. I had to look up the context of Preston's argument, because it was not totally clear what it was from the bit Conley quoted. Preston here is arguing against Ed Steven's view that a bodily rapture of the saints occurred in 70 AD, and asks why the Jewish opponents of the Christians said nothing about a rapture in 70 AD. In fact, Preston's argument against Ed Steven’s is so good that Conley uses it himself at least three times: "When did this happen? It is never recorded anywhere that this happened in any shape or form like this (p 502 Kindle edition)"; "Clearly, we have shown that history does not support the idea that Clement was taken in AD70. Nowhere is it ever shown that there was a rapture (p 512)"; and "If no testimonies are affirming that there was a rapture by AD70, then there is a large problem there for Stevens (p 518)."
Conley often accuses Max King of arguing from silence but it was never clear to me what he meant. Conley writes, "King asserts that '[Paul] entertained no future expectations that extended beyond the true restriction of "that generation"'and claims that 'it’s inconceivable that Paul would be ignoring the Matthew 24 sayings of Christ, encouraging the Corinthians to be waiting for another day, another end time, and coming of Christ beyond the one that was not yet fulfilled in Christ’s Olivet Discourse' King, however, can’t prove any of this.…The fact is, Max King is arguing from silence." How is this arguing from silence? King's first statement looks like an affirmation that is to be demonstrated, not a fact to be used in support of a logical argument.
When it comes to Conley's statement that "We have shown repeatedly that the Old Covenant ended at the Cross," he didn’t actually have many unique arguments that the Old Covenant ended at the cross, and I wish that this point had been fleshed out more. Basically the two he mentions repeatedly are Hebrews 8.13 (this is his primary argument) and Acts 10.9-15. He mentions Acts 15 but doesn’t explain why this shows that the Old Covenant has ended. I suppose it is related to Acts 10 in that it is purported to show that the food laws have ended. There are a lot of problems with this. Without going into details there are many (such as Daniel Boyarin) who have argued that nothing in the N.T. has cancelled the food laws. More problematic is that showing that some of the laws of the Old Covenant have been cancelled doesn’t show that the whole Old Covenant has been cancelled. As I understand it, most Christians believe that the O.T. regulations remain in effect unless they have been specifically cancelled in the N.T. But I may be wrong on this point (I often am).
As to Hebrews 8.13, I don’t think it says what Conley claims it says. Even in English it is pretty clear that the Old Covenant is still in effect: "what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear." If something is soon to disappear, it hasn’t disappeared yet! Also to the point is the use of the perfect tense in the first part of the verse: "By calling this covenant 'new,' he *has made* the first one obsolete…" The perfect tense indicates a past action which continues through to the present. The Old Covenant was made obsolete way back when Jeremiah announced that God would make a New Covenant, but it continues to be obsolete (and not yet passed away) up to the point that the writer of Hebrews penned these words.
One of the things I dislike about the back-and-forths on preterist forums are the personal insults. Conley continues in this tradition, using terms such as ahistorical babblings, patently absurd, completely bogus, pitifully wrong, pseudo scholar, weird claim, postmodernist drool, jumbled mess, pathetic, makes up stuff, super bizarre, manipulate and butcher the scriptures, odd rant, blatantly false, heretical rambling nonsense, faking, pseudo-exegesis at best, complete malarkey, silly, nuts, easily dismissible, absolutely zero sense, not smart, no idea what he's talking about, piss-poor, literal cancer, hypocritical and ridiculous, desperately attempting feebly, arrogant, audacious, asinine, foolish, laughable, falls flat to common sense, stoop low, shameful, insane, making stuff up out of thin air, charlatanism, dishonest and wrong, historical revisionism gag. I'm not sure this is the best way to convert people to your views, however it is sure to bring joy to ex full preterists who may be happening to read this work.
My understanding is that Lance Conley is planning on writing a revision of this book, which I would welcome. I would get the print version next time around. The ebook contained large swatches of italicized text, which I found difficult to read. I would also welcome a chapter comparing Max King's non-Trinitarian form of full preterism to Don K. Preston’s Trinitarian version. Lance has told me there are significant differences between the two, but the differences are unclear to me.
My next ebook to read is Max King's Irrevocable in which, I understand, he lays out his case for Christian Universalism. I wanted to read Conley’s book first, hoping that he might critique King's universalist perspective. Alas, Conley gives no critique, only mentioning that King is a universalist, as if that fact alone is enough to dismiss the whole idea. But for me, universalism is a feature, not a bug.
I am not a part of the target audience of this book, which is current full preterists or Christians considering full preterism. I am an ex-Christian, a rank unbeliever with no skin in the game. My interest in full preterism (which is solely academic) began in earnest when my friend Barry Isaacs invited me to join his Facebook group Preterist Perspectives Discussion and Debate. So I consider full preterism to be pretty silly, but I also consider the traditional Christianity that Conley defends in this book to be silly as well. So the digs at postmodernist liberal theology didn’t have me jumping up and down. I am no fan of theology at all, but I don’t find liberal theology to be worse than the traditional kind.
I think the best point Conley makes in this book is the point that if the end of the age occurred in 70 AD, then election ended in 70 AD as well. It should be noted that there is a branch of full preterism called Israel Only which agrees with this and claims nobody can be saved (or needs to be saved) after 70 AD. But these people are not Christians. For those full preterists who are Christians, this is a point that needs to be answered. I'm not sure Conley did a wonderful job explaining the point, making an analogy with human elections, claiming that once an election is over, it’s over. But on the human level, one can always have an election after an election. This seems to be what Ed Stevens is getting at when he says, “As long as God’s Word is available to men, God is able to sovereignly regenerate His elect independently of any human agency." There is a problem with this solution though, in that the Bible suggests that the number of the elect is fixed. It cannot be added to indefinitely. Sam Frost does a good job of explaining this in his book Why I Left Full Preterism, in a chapter entitled "Infinity."
I was very confused by Conley's use of the phrase throughout the book "argument from (or of) silence." For example, he writes, "He [Preston] asks 'Why did not one of them who was "left behind" sit down and write about the incredible things he or they had seen? This is a serious issue'. This writer agrees. Preston has an argument of silence and every single historical data source disagrees with him that Christ came back in 70 AD."
Conley seems to be implying that an argument from silence is always a bad thing. But actually Preston's argument is quite good. I had to look up the context of Preston's argument, because it was not totally clear what it was from the bit Conley quoted. Preston here is arguing against Ed Steven's view that a bodily rapture of the saints occurred in 70 AD, and asks why the Jewish opponents of the Christians said nothing about a rapture in 70 AD. In fact, Preston's argument against Ed Steven’s is so good that Conley uses it himself at least three times: "When did this happen? It is never recorded anywhere that this happened in any shape or form like this (p 502 Kindle edition)"; "Clearly, we have shown that history does not support the idea that Clement was taken in AD70. Nowhere is it ever shown that there was a rapture (p 512)"; and "If no testimonies are affirming that there was a rapture by AD70, then there is a large problem there for Stevens (p 518)."
Conley often accuses Max King of arguing from silence but it was never clear to me what he meant. Conley writes, "King asserts that '[Paul] entertained no future expectations that extended beyond the true restriction of "that generation"'and claims that 'it’s inconceivable that Paul would be ignoring the Matthew 24 sayings of Christ, encouraging the Corinthians to be waiting for another day, another end time, and coming of Christ beyond the one that was not yet fulfilled in Christ’s Olivet Discourse' King, however, can’t prove any of this.…The fact is, Max King is arguing from silence." How is this arguing from silence? King's first statement looks like an affirmation that is to be demonstrated, not a fact to be used in support of a logical argument.
When it comes to Conley's statement that "We have shown repeatedly that the Old Covenant ended at the Cross," he didn’t actually have many unique arguments that the Old Covenant ended at the cross, and I wish that this point had been fleshed out more. Basically the two he mentions repeatedly are Hebrews 8.13 (this is his primary argument) and Acts 10.9-15. He mentions Acts 15 but doesn’t explain why this shows that the Old Covenant has ended. I suppose it is related to Acts 10 in that it is purported to show that the food laws have ended. There are a lot of problems with this. Without going into details there are many (such as Daniel Boyarin) who have argued that nothing in the N.T. has cancelled the food laws. More problematic is that showing that some of the laws of the Old Covenant have been cancelled doesn’t show that the whole Old Covenant has been cancelled. As I understand it, most Christians believe that the O.T. regulations remain in effect unless they have been specifically cancelled in the N.T. But I may be wrong on this point (I often am).
As to Hebrews 8.13, I don’t think it says what Conley claims it says. Even in English it is pretty clear that the Old Covenant is still in effect: "what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear." If something is soon to disappear, it hasn’t disappeared yet! Also to the point is the use of the perfect tense in the first part of the verse: "By calling this covenant 'new,' he *has made* the first one obsolete…" The perfect tense indicates a past action which continues through to the present. The Old Covenant was made obsolete way back when Jeremiah announced that God would make a New Covenant, but it continues to be obsolete (and not yet passed away) up to the point that the writer of Hebrews penned these words.
One of the things I dislike about the back-and-forths on preterist forums are the personal insults. Conley continues in this tradition, using terms such as ahistorical babblings, patently absurd, completely bogus, pitifully wrong, pseudo scholar, weird claim, postmodernist drool, jumbled mess, pathetic, makes up stuff, super bizarre, manipulate and butcher the scriptures, odd rant, blatantly false, heretical rambling nonsense, faking, pseudo-exegesis at best, complete malarkey, silly, nuts, easily dismissible, absolutely zero sense, not smart, no idea what he's talking about, piss-poor, literal cancer, hypocritical and ridiculous, desperately attempting feebly, arrogant, audacious, asinine, foolish, laughable, falls flat to common sense, stoop low, shameful, insane, making stuff up out of thin air, charlatanism, dishonest and wrong, historical revisionism gag. I'm not sure this is the best way to convert people to your views, however it is sure to bring joy to ex full preterists who may be happening to read this work.
My understanding is that Lance Conley is planning on writing a revision of this book, which I would welcome. I would get the print version next time around. The ebook contained large swatches of italicized text, which I found difficult to read. I would also welcome a chapter comparing Max King's non-Trinitarian form of full preterism to Don K. Preston’s Trinitarian version. Lance has told me there are significant differences between the two, but the differences are unclear to me.
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