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To Whom Honor Is Due: Virgil Vaduva
by Tim King
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Virgil, please tell us about your background and how you came to believe as a Christian.
Tim, first thanks for giving me the opportunity to share some of my experiences with your readers. I believe that your ministry is doing a fantastic job at promoting awareness about God’s Kingdom and the reality of His living presence.
When I lived in Romania, we had a neighbor who was a Jehovah’s Witness. For some reason, Communists really hated Jehovah’s Witnesses. I think it was this mix of political antagonism and an anti-Communist message that attracted my father to our neighbor’s message. Because of the many late night conversations with this individual, my father started reading the Bible on his own, and discovered God, but also discovered that the message he was hearing from his friend was not exactly biblically sound. Soon after, my father got all of us out of bed early one Sunday morning and took us to the local Baptist church. That was a turning point in my life; I was baptized and became a Christian.
What got you started studying fulfilled prophecy?
In 1992, I came to the United States to study Computer Science, and I attended a Baptist school here in Ohio. For several years, I was seeped in Dispensationalist theology and its accompanying world-view, to the point that I became a socially impotent Christian. I had no motivation to read the Bible, and “positive thinking” was beyond my grasp. I was definitely struggling to have a relationship with God. After college, I married a wonderful girl. Of course, during our courtship we talked about Christianity and Church, but fortunately eschatology never came up until after we got married.
I remember, one evening making an off-hand comment about “the rapture” to my father in law, Terry Hall, at which point he kindly informed me that he does not believe in such a thing, and that the Second Coming of Christ already happened. I thought, “What did I get myself into? These people are weird!” I could only wonder, “How can anyone believe such a thing?”
That was another turning point in my life. For my wife’s sake, I decided to sit down and take a look at this thing so I could prove it wrong. Little did I know that attempting to prove it wrong would only result in avidly reading my Bible and furiously studying everything I could get my hands on relating to the fall of the temple in A.D. 70. The rest is history.
When did you decide to start your website "PlanetPreterist" and what motivated you to do so?
During the Reformation, Martin Luther used the power of the printing press to promote his revolutionary ideas about Church and theology. I believe the Internet has been the modern equivalent of the printing press, so it would only be logical to harness its power. The Internet is pulling audience away from radio and television, so it is a perfect medium to use. I always have insisted on high quality from myself, so I decided to create a top-notch website where believers can actively interact with each other, share information and discuss eschatology, social issues, politics and science.
The wonderful thing about living in the United States is that freedom motivates hard work and innovation. When a market need becomes obvious, someone can step up to the plate and satisfy that need. Because in only two years PlanetPreterist has become what many perceive as the online leader in promoting fulfilled prophecy, I can confidently say that the website satisfies an acute need. The almost 3,000 daily visitors and over 7 million hits in 2004 speak for themselves.
Based on your ministry, what hope does this give you for the future of believers and the world at large?
I have seen a lot of growth in the fulfilled prophecy movement, and I am encouraged. Just like Presence Ministries, we are all trying to promote truth and understanding of God, His plan and His relationship with humanity. This requires us to challenge tradition that is thousands of years old, so we are fighting an uphill battle. We are the underdogs. Instead of seeing it as a negative, I view it as a good thing. We are continuously forced to respond to critics and review our answers. What more can we ask?
Another encouraging trend I see is the willingness to go beyond just eschatology. I never intended PlanetPreterist to focus on eschatology alone. As Christians, I believe we need to be involved in education, politics, social issues and science. We can start by studying “Preterism”, but “isms” never gave anyone hope. Peter Viereck said “Formalism, by being an ‘ism,’ kills form by hugging it to death.” I see encouraging signs and tendencies of moving beyond the “isms” which are so easy to embrace and become enslaved to. I see Preterists being excited about more than just eschatology, and I am confident that the influence of Presence Ministries has a lot to do with this trend.
Eschatology is a great field to study, but we should motivate each other to live full lives-- to once in a while visit a museum, go to a piano concert, study the String Theory, to protect the environment, and to read up on the Sociology of Knowledge. And what can be more exciting than doing all these things in the presence of God?
What is the biggest obstacle you face in sharing this message with newcomers to the field of fulfilled prophecy?
Personally, I think the biggest obstacle to sharing fulfilled prophecy is overcoming our own arrogance. When discussing this issue with newcomers, I do not believe exegesis, Greek studies, or theology in general are the largest obstacles. Sometimes, we forget about being meek and kind to others, and we adopt a “superficial superiority” because of our supposed “better” way of understanding Scripture. I do it myself too often, and it is wrong. We are to be Christ-like and show understanding and patience to those willing to listen. It is not easy, especially considering how many people who embrace fulfilled eschatology are being treated, but nothing worth doing is ever easy to do.
How do you find time to balance family, work and then all of the effort it takes to keep PlanetPreterist afloat?
Since I am not getting paid for doing it, it is a really tough challenge. We have a few website subscribers who donate money on a monthly basis, and that is a tremendous help. Our columnists play a big part in the PlanetPreterist experience. I want to say thanks to all of them. Besides money, time is much more scarce, and my wife Jamie has been very gracious and understanding. A lot of my evenings and weekends are occupied with writing computer code to improve the site, or fixing minor bugs and problems discovered by users. It would be quite easy to just keep a website running, but I continually seek to improve it all the time. One example is the addition of the blog feature to the website. It took a lot of work to make it possible, but users will be able to maintain a blog, express their thoughts and keep a diary on a daily basis. We did not have to do offer this feature, but we are doing it anyway. So, those who enjoy PlanetPreterist on a regular basis should not thank me; they should thank my wife.
What is the one thing you would like for people to know about you as a person?
I think it is important for Christians to understand the necessity of accepting our fallibility. Under the old futurist paradigm, we were being told that fallibility was a result of sin. I now understand that sin is the result of fallibility and fallibility is necessary in order to be saved. Salvation was only possible after fallible mankind was reconciled to God through Christ. Rather than passing judgment when one of us displays the characteristics of a fallible being, we should embrace that person and bring him closer to us rather than push him farther away. If God saw the wisdom of using our sin to bring us closer to Him, how can we dare to do otherwise? I am a fallible person and I thank God for it. If I wasn’t one, I would not need God, and that is a scary thought.
URL:
http://www.presence.tv/cms/soc-honor-vaduva.php
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