Satan comes as an angel of light
Some very interesting points were made by the people who commented on yesterday’s post. Let Father Orthoduck do some quotations.
I don’t recognize the God they are talking about when they start the–if you want to go to heaven, you have to be just like me or else you will be caught in the tribulation and suffer and suffer and wish you were dead and rue the day you didn’t agree with me. Somehow loving Jesus gets lost in the argument as does attempting to grow more Godlike and doing to the least of them and caring for the widows and the orphans. You have to say the right set of words and once you do, you have a punched ticket to heaven and will be swept up in the rapture. Nevermind the grandchildren you have in the car with you when you go! — one poster.
Very tolerant. More often (just like with Young Earth Creationism) it becomes “DIE, HERETIC!” and “HAVE FUN IN HELL! HAW! HAW! HAW!” . . .
Even if you were in their church I don’t think it would have helped. At that point “Wretched Urgency” and “Soul-Winning” enters the picture: “ARE YOU SAVED? ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU’RE SURE? ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE CERTAIN YOU’RE SURE?” ad infinitum. In the heyday of Hal Lindsay, there was this art to breaking down the mark’s existing Assurance of Salvation so you could lead him in the Magic Words, Win His Soul, and put another notch on your Bible for brownie points with God. . . .
Maybe that’s it. It’s not just Dispensationalism, it’s not just Pre-Trib Rapture, it’s not just Young Earth Creationism, it’s not just Wretched Urgency, it’s all one big package containing all of these that you find among today’s Evangelical Christians. — another poster.
Frankly, the quotes above fairly well cover most of what Father Orthoduck wished to say. But, here is the important point that is not covered by the above quotes. Dispensationalism, as a theology, is not triumphalistic per se. For instance, both Larry Norman and Keith Green were dispensationalists, yet their songs express a strong love for humankind and a desire to aid the widow and the orphan. In fact a couple of days ago, Father Ernesto posted a Keith Green song that challenged Christians to become involved in the world, not merely through evangelism, but also through committed social action. Failure to reach out to the sick, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner is stated in the song to be that which makes someone a goat.
In other words, there used to be dispensationalists whose theology drove them not only to evangelism, but also to a deep desire for social involvement and a desire to touch mankind. Thus, please be careful not to blame dispensationalism for certain very wrong attitudes. That would be very unfair to dispensationalist theology.
But, it is also true what was said in the quotes above. There is strong strain of Christianity in the USA today that has mixed a particular form of hyper-literalism (including a mandated Young Earth Creationism), with a “wretched urgency” approach, with a strong belief in various conspiracy theories, with a vocal commitment to social outreach while in reality not really doing much. (Now, let Father Orthoduck immediately exclude some very dedicated people who are like Keith Green and Larry Norman in their social involvement.) Many in this camp are also dispensationalists, regardless of their denominational membership.
It is also all too true that this camp tends to include an unhealthy persecution complex, that is, any disagreement is seen not simply as disagreement, but as proof of Satanic persecution. Thus, even in fields where Christians used to be able to disagree, such as politics, the statement is now often heard, “how can you be a Christian and support that policy?” Or in science, the question is, “how can you believe in the Bible and hold that particular scientific theory?” But, there are many fields in which either the Christian answer is not clear or in which, historically, disagreement has been allowed.
But, there is one more element to add, and it is an element that even more strongly leads to the type of reaction comic seen in yesterday’s post.
===MORE TO COME===
It reminds me of the old joke. Saint Peter is escorting some newbees in their orientation tour around heaven. As he got to one specific corridor, he said, ” We have to tiptoe and whisper as we go down this hallway.” Newbee and Pete tiptoe and whisper past a carefully closed door. After they had past the newbee asked Pete, “what was that all about?” Saint Peter laughed and replied, “That hallway is for the . They think that no one else is here.”
Alix
It should also be noted that dispensationalism is not a monolithic system. Many camps, many nuances. At best it is an inconsistent system and it doesn’t claim to be absolute. So, many dispy Christians can be just as “Christian” as others. Over time, since the Scofield and Ryrie bibles, many dispensationalists have become Calvinists to varying degrees, as well as other belief systems, so there are many hybrid systems out there. Many have reformed all the dispensationalism out of their systems except the eschatology for some reason.
For many, even though they believe they’ll be outta here next Tuesday because the Rapture is that close, they still may go to school, become linguists, move to some jungle somewhere, spend several generations learning a native language and translate the bible into a new written language. So as quirky as some things are within a system, the rest of the Word of God can trump those specifics. FWIW.
Steve, I’ll agree about the quirks and inconsistencies. Sometimes these work in the dispensationalists’ favor. While I think that dispensationalism is too legalistic, I mentioned earlier that its understanding of history as distinct periods can be useful if we don’t get carried away. Some of the heavy-hitters are Charles Ryrie, as you mentioned, and also Charles Swindoll. Both are well-respected, but it’s the crazies that get most of the shelf space in the Christian bookstores and it’s the crazy part of the rapture side-show (freak show) that most people follow.
One inconsistency that dovetails with your mention of missionary linguists: there is a missionary organization that I was interested in a few years ago (they work in South America and may be some of the same people you are talking about) that holds a dispensationalist theology—including a denial of the gifts of the spirit for today, which includes healing—and yet in their newsletters they were asking for prayers for healing of some of their missionaries (!). It’s as if they hadn’t read their own doctrinal statement before they printed the newsletter.
You may mean NTM. If so,what is denied is the specific gift of healing as a sign gift authenticating a particular person. A christian praying for healing does not come within this category (though there are always a few in any group of who think doctrinal statements say, or should say, things they do not).
I am not with NTM but I know some who are and personal knowledge is a wonderful corrosive of straw men and stereotypes. The social concern that many such missionaries show is a direct outcome of their eschatological beliefs and is so extensive that it regularly leads to hazard of wealth, health and life. It is an imitation of The Lord they follow in fact.
In other words, there used to be dispensationalists whose theology drove them not only to evangelism, but also to a deep desire for social involvement and a desire to touch mankind. Thus, please be careful not to blame dispensationalism for certain very wrong attitudes. That would be very unfair to dispensationalist theology.
What I think happened is that Dispensationalism became a rigid system, and The System became what was important (like Chinese Legalism or the various sects of Communism). As far as I can tell, it originally began as a way to reconcile all the apparent discrepancies in the Bible while taking everything very literally, and required a bit of mental gymnastics to fit everything together. (Paraphrase Chesterton on the myths and stories come from the 99% of the village who are sane; the every-word-parsed-and-analyzed System from the 1% of the village who is insane.)
The name comes from the attempt to reconcile differences between Bible verses by grouping like differences together into internally-consistent “dispensations” and postulating that God works in different ways in different “dispensations”. The danger (like all theology — cure recent Internet Monk flamewars) is The System ending up “having God all figured out”, The System becoming so important that it even constrains God. (Thus ending up in “Socratic Atheism”; if God is constrained by The System — whether Dispensations or Predestination — then God is not God, The System is.)