SPECIAL REPORT LETTER
THE PRESENT CHRISTIAN DELUSION:
a doctrine our founders never knew; Dispensationalism
by Dorothy Seese
This might come as a shock to many serious, Bible-believing Christians,
but the doctrine of dispensationalism was totally unknown to the Puritans,
Pilgrims, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and
others who were the early religious settlers of our nation. It was
unknown to our founding fathers who were Christians. In fact, it was an
unknown doctrine until the middle of the 19th century, yet almost all
fundamental Christian denominations are espousing this product of John
Nelson Darby and Dr. C. I. Scofield.
Basically, the idea that national Israel has a key role in all end
times events, that Israel must exist as a nation to bring about the end of
this present age and the second advent of Christ comes straight out of the
dispensational handbook as written by Dr. Scofield and promulgated by
Dallas Theological Seminary. No such ideas ever prevailed in the
early Church, the Reformation, or the Christian faith as practiced in the
first hundred years of this nation's existence.
Darby's theory of a "secret rapture" of the Church and of the
separation of Israel and the Church were treated as oddities in Biblical
teaching by his own Plymouth Brethren in England. Prior to that
time, established doctrine treated national Israel's mission as bringing
forth the Messiah and once that was accomplished, there was nothing more
for national Israel to do in the service of the Kingdom of God. The
Resurrection of Christ, as explained in the New Testament in detail by the
Apostle Paul, had brought forth "one new man" from among Jews
and Gentiles, and henceforth the earth consisted of two groups of people,
those who were in God's Kingdom (the saved) and those who were not (the
lost). Even St. Paul, in Romans, laments the fate of his Jewish
brethren for rejecting their Messiah.
What Darby produced was a doctrine of two "second comings" of
Christ, one secret for the purpose of "rapturing" the church to
heaven prior to the end times, and the second advent at the finale of end
times prophecies for the judgment of the world. No hint of any such
double advent is given by Jesus in His description of the end times given
in Matthew chapter 24 or Luke chapter 21.
From Darby's work, Dr. C. I. Scofield set about to advance his theories
and produced an annotated "Scofield Bible of 1909" in which his
dispensationalist doctrines, first devised by J. N. Darby, are set forth
in the form of notes "explaining" the meaning of various
passages of the Bible. For the past seventy years or so, the
dispensationalist explanation of the book of Revelation and the 70th week
of Daniel have dominated nearly all fundamental Christian denominations.
They are, as a rule, rejected wholly by the liturgical churches that
retain the Christian faith in its post-Reformation state of believing in
the Church as God's people, whether in heaven or on earth (sometimes
called the Church Universal), including both Jew and Gentile, and
rejecting any role of a national Israel in Bible eschatology (end-time
events).
Having begun in late 1968 to find out about Christianity, my schooling
has included just about every form of belief and doctrine being taught,
but today the dominance of dispensationalism is influencing not only forms
of belief in the Church, but in the way that Christian people look at
Israel and the duties of the United States of America with regard to the
nation of Israel.
Do I anticipate a one-world government? Yes. That is entirely possible whether Israel exists as a nation or not. Would I be surprised at the rise of an antichrist at the helm of the one world government? No. Various forms of antichrists have existed since the birth of the Christian church, so to have one final world ruler, a position to which many have aspired throughout the ages, is not dispensationalist. Do I believe in a "zap rapture" of the church before all the troubles begin? No. I find that most people who are preoccupied with such a rapture are people with deep and serious problems on earth and who find that path of escape the most desirable idea presented in the churches that adhere to dispensationalism. It would be a magnificent exit to simply be swooped up by the Lord with all His people on earth and carried away from all our problems, pains and other sufferings here in this short lifetime. I simply do not believe that such a secret "second advent before the real second advent" is in the Bible. It has been put there by Dr. Scofield and taught with absolute authority by some of the most prominent Bible teachers and theologians in America, particularly those from Dallas Theological Seminary. Authors Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye have advanced the cause of dispensationalism with their books, some of which have gained the status of a latter-day gospel among their fans.
While that's a normal flow of religion and delusion, it is not "the faith once delivered" or rightly dividing the word of truth. As a matter of fact, it is a form of "Christianity" that would have been labeled total apostasy during and after the Reformation and until the early 20th century when it took hold in America.
All of this information regarding Scofield, Darby, dispensationalism and Christian thought is for a single purpose. It is to demonstrate that if American Christian churches had stuck to the faith of our fathers and the early Christian settlers in the colonies, even the faith preached from the pulpits through most of the nineteenth century, the United States would not be under the pressure it is today from the Christian churches whose adherents are ardent dispensationalists and believe in a restoration of Israel, the building of a third temple, and dozens of other tenets of dispensationalism.
Without dispensationalism, we would have a nation still largely believing in the theology of the Reformation and hence Israel as a nation and political entity would have no influence on the Church, "the Israel of God" and the "one new man" of God's Kingdom, bought with His own blood.
Dispensationalism places the Church under the delusion that Christians
must support the nation of Israel at all costs in order to put things in
place for Christ's secret return and eventually, at Armageddon (one of the
most misunderstood words/ideas in the Bible) the final conflict between
good and evil, Satan's minions and God's people. Almost every major
error in the Church has either originated with a misunderstanding of the
book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to St. John on the Isle of Patmos.
Other errors do occur, such as the snake handlers who "prove"
their faith by handling vipers, but essentially the Book of the Revelation
has been the source of most of the major doctrinal errors in the Christian
faith, at least those arising after the Reformation.
The theology of the Reformation as held by the LCMS (Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod, of which I became a member some years back) is basically
the same doctrine as held by the founders of our nation, who were largely
Calvinists. Luther and Calvin were contemporaries and had their
differences, so the Lutheran church has some doctrinal differences with
the Calvinist theology. But both reject the dispensationalist view
as a latter day delusion brought about first by the popularity of a
"rapture" that would allow Christians to escape all the world's
evils, and then developing into a complete reliance of the Church's
mission on the existence of a national Israel. This persuasion is so
strong among fundamental Baptists and Pentecostals, Nazarenes and
unaffiliated Bible and charismatic churches as to be the primary Christian
doctrine in America today.
The tragedy of all this lies in the influence of Darby and Scofield not only on the basic theological construct of the Christian faith as taught in fundamental Christian churches today, but in the influence those churches have on the national policies of our nation, without which the United States may very well not have the commitment it does to the Middle East and its myriad problems.
Of course the commercial interests regarding oil would still influence both our foreign policy and our foreign strategy, but undergirding the US policies abroad are the dispensationalist Christian beliefs, just as fundamental Islamic beliefs underlie and provide underpinnings to their Jihads.Unfortunately, most Christians who go to church haven't a clue as to what the above essay says because they haven't the foggiest notion of theological constructs, never heard of Darby, might have heard of Scofield, and are just seeking the Kingdom of God and following their leaders. Come to think of it, that seems to be the reason we still have Republicans and Democrats who have changed their political constructs and no one notices or thinks it matters.
Religion and politics really shouldn't mix with one another, but they do because of human nature. It is just well to remember that both are inflammatory and can produce, in fact will produce, a new holocaust on earth. Just give them a little more time.
Dorothy A. Seese, carrot710@yahoo.com
resides in Sun City, Arizona. She retired after 25 years as a legal
secretary/assistant and, prior to that, over 15 years as a business
systems and procedures analyst. Her hobby is freelance writing.
originally published in http://www.tech.com.au/flagship
