Thanks Peter for this. In many ways I am still trying to understand the general lay of the land in our forum so I can best communicate within its social framework. I agree with the futurist view. It would seem this forum has 2 major camps in eschatology. 1. Futurist and, 2. Preterist. It would seem these two views are of significant size in our forum. Would that be an accurate assumption?
As for the AC, my general position on that is that the church will likely not know who this will be. My leanings toward a pretrib rapture suggest this. But even more, 2 Thes 2 to me is midtrib focus. Whereas much of the watcher world would see implications of 2Thes2 to be when the AC makes a covenant with the many. Then we would know who the AC is.
I suppose my instinct on that would likely be that the watcher world, from what i have noticed, has been taken by surprise in how it would seem so slow-motion like that end times would seem to be forming around us. From language found in Luke 21:36 and even more like in “sudden destruction” of 1 Thes 5, I believe we have been surprised to see very slowly how things are falling into place. Giving a ton of time for the world to consider. At least that had been the feel a few years back, where it did seem very slow motion like in comparison to perhaps a more “suddenly we find our selves in the tribulation” shock. I believe one of the main reasons for this surprise is how we might have leaned on a sudden like situation to occur, otherwise it would be too obvious to the world what would be happening…effectively removing a need for such sudden language in scripture. And it seemed to make sense to us this way. But now we can see that prophecy can occur right out in the open “all over the place” and it not be obvious at all.
So i say all of that to say perhaps kind of the opposite when it comes to the AC. That we might think to find out. But if 2 Thes 2 language is midtrib oriented, then we won’t know because the reveal seems to be when he demands worship of himself. Then the world would have plain sight. And an angel warning not to take the mark. I bring this up because @Dr_S to me is pointing out that Christians can have overreaction to world events. Even in the watcher camps I would say this phenomenon is common. We can tend to make so many things “sensationalized.” Examples of rapture dates and also i think a pretty big wave (some may not know) coming from Craig Bong and thinking the tribulation was going to start in December of 2024 (according to United Nations charter language).
So I guess I am just trying to get a best sense of where arguments are coming from. I had been in the reformed camp for decades but am no longer in that camp at all. But it would seem there is a pretty significant reformed denominational presence here as well, would you say?