Why dispensationalism is like a barnyard dalliance. (Writers and words are co-dependent lovers.)

Jan Luyken's three-part illustration of the Rapture. Top to
bottom:  One in the bed, One in the mill, One in the field.
Matthew 24, 1795 Bowyer Bible (Wikimedia Commons).
Read more about the Rapture on Wikipedia > . The "rapture" in
the sense of Matt. 24 is not just an evangelical concept, it's
embraced by all traditional Christians and is an important
consideration in the doctrine of bodily resurrection.
It's the addition of the Millenium, Armageddon, and the
Tribulation (and the timing) that is unique to evangelicals
and Dispensationalism.

I know I'm going on a bit here; I think it's the embers of a recent discussion. Writers often write through their struggles as others might jog, overeat, yell, drink, etc. Writers and words are co-dependent lovers.

Ever learn something about people in your past that cast your own life in a new light?

I wrote earlier about a romance in Scotland between a stable hand and a domestic that led to me (and to this blog, to these words). Makes one wonder, doesn't it? The same thing happened on the other side of the family in the United States, involving a handsome brown-eyed gardner who played the fiddle and stole the heart of a young woman married to a dour teacher (who was probably a lot like me; dour, that is, or so says my wife; writers are boring, I guess.)

But today I wanted to write about John Darby and CI Scofield, two theologians who had an enormous impact on the evangelical theology that formed my own (and probably still informs it, though I've made a conscious effort to adjust it). They popularized an approach to the bible called "Dispensationalism."

Fundamentalist Christians mark some of the epochal changes in the bible with covenants between God and men (Adam, Abraham, Noah, etc). We live today (as I recall from my youth) in the Church Age, in which God is sort of patiently letting us mess things up until he returns to settle matters once and for all. These sections of history are called "dispensations," the last of which will be ushered in by the Rapture, an event in which Jesus returns and takes to heaven all living and dead who believed in him.

(The sudden rapture of the living, of course, provides for lots of drama - an airplane pilot suddenly disappears from a cockpit, a scalpel falls to the floor as the doctor disappears from the operating room, etc. Hollywood loves a good disaster of biblical proportions > ).

Now, FWIW, I think Dispensationalism is a helpful outline of bible history, but it's inadequate to explain the wide variety of ways humans viewed or responded to God. Aside from trivializing the human element, it conceptualizes God in ways that make the bible (and God) easier to interpret. Eg, "Well, of course God had strict rules in Leviticus, but we no longer observe them because we're under a new covenant and God deals with us differently."

In other words, it's convenient, if helpful.

The Rapture gets the Hollywood treatment
with Nicholas Cage in Left Behind. Traditional
evangelical theology holds that only the saved
will be caught up to heaven in the Rapture,
and only martyrdom will save those left behind.

Why is all of this like a barnyard dalliance?

Dispensationalism, the Rapture, and the necessary components are relatively new, the result of a few minds at the right time with an interesting idea. My theological DNA is a tapestry of colorful people like John Nelson Darby, CI Scofield, and William Miller, apocalyptics and end-times who filled a very narrow spectrum of Christianity that either picked a date of Christ's return or simply said it was very close and we should be heartened by wars and earthquakes and famine because they herald the end of this world and the beginning of the next.

I have crawled out from a narrow niche of doctrinal minutia that at one time captured the imagination of a generation, but I am a minority, and my background considered something of a cult by mainstream believers.

The discovery of fringe theologists in my past is much like that affair between a domestic and a stable hand four generations ago. They are things we don't talk about, but without which I would not be me.

What intrigues me even more, and more importantly:

Jesus was much more like a Millerite than a Baptist. He was an apocalyptic who preached the end of the world, and his followers believed that's exactly what would soon happen.

c0

Learn more on Wikipedia …

CI Scofield >

John Nelson Darby >

Dispensationalism >  

The Rapture >

A very interesting article on pre-tribulation theology >

William Miller and the Millerites >

c0