As mentioned to TC on a different thread, when one is so focused on building the kingdom here on earth, it gets easier and easier to “spiritualize” the return of Christ, and especially since everything else has already been spiritualized.
I would say that post-millennialism is a great danger to post-mil Christians.
That aside, though, I can certainly see how preterism is a HERETICAL danger that will easily betray post-mil Christians.
Do you know anyone on this board or in person who holds to this view?
Oh, don't get me wrong, there are a few. In fact, the Reconstructionist Chalcedon Report and orthodox preterist Ken Gentry have written volumes againt this form of preterism, which they call the Hymenaen heresy.
Engelsma knows this, which makes his tome far less important than it could be.
I would say you are wrong. An eagerness to proclaim that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords is the heart of our evangel. The proclamation of a Jesus who confines His work to "the heart" lobotomized and emasculated evangelical Christianity over the course of the last century. If all I want is a "personal spiritual adviser," I can go visit Madam Rose the tea leaf reader. For a few extra dollars, she'll even throw in a few extra thrills.
Discovering that Jesus is Lord over the universe around me as well as the "universe" within me was truly liberating, transforming my walk with God, my family, my vocation, and my effectiveness as a Christian. You might say the proclamation the "Jesus is Lord" (not "will be any day now," but is) can restore the Christian man's mind, and balls. Let me cite G. K. Chesterton's rollicking rebuttal to the value of mere mysticism, from his book Orthodoxy:Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.
My soul is far safer in the keeping of my Lord, than it was when I sought a cosmic guru.