The Rise and (Fall) of Dispensationalism

 Putting "Fall" in quotation marks is an addition to the title of the book, by Daniel G. Hummel, which is the topic of this post. The subtitle of The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is "How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation." 

I'm not writing a review. For that, I point you to Pastor Gary Gilley's review of the book. It was his review that brought the book to my attention. Having read the book and then reread Gilley's review, I think he does a good job. Instead, what I am doing, here, is sharing some, somewhat random, thoughts about the book and what the book, intersecting with my background and current place in life, raises.

I grew up spiritually in an environment in which the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible, were second only to the Bible itself, in authority. I was surrounded by pastors who were graduates of Moody Bible Institute. Both D. L. Moody, and the Bible Institute he founded take up a lot of Space in The Rise and Fall . . . (R&F). I graduated from a Bible Institute that was, in many ways, a smaller clone of Moody. It's Founder and first president was a graduate of Moody. My Theology prof received his doctoral degree at Dallas. He had actually heard Lewis Sperry Chafer lecture. Dwight Pentecost's book, Things to Come, was assigned reading. I also spent two years at a Bible College that was thoroughly Dispensational. The President of that school, at the time I was there, is quoted in R&F.  My post-graduate studies were in a school that wasn't particularly known for being dispensational, but it clearly welcomed Dispensationalists on the faculty. Buildings are named after Tim Lahaye.

I still claim Dispensational Premillennialism as my Theological House, but as John MacArthur is widely quoted as saying, my Dispensationalism might be a bit "leaky." It's not that I have come up with a system of Ecclesiology and Eschatology (in my humble opinion, those are the two areas of Theology where Dispensationalism makes the most difference), rather in my book of Things to Emphasize Dispensationalism doesn't take up as many pages as it once did.

Some years ago another Pastor and I attended a conference on Dispensationalism. It was one of those conferences in which experts/serious scholars presented papers to their colleagues, who would then ask questions and give comments. We got to listen in. One of my teachers and a schoolmate were among the presenters. The experience could have served as an illustration for the latter portion of Hummel's book. This was a small gathering. While the presenters were brilliant men, with the possible exception of the President of Dallas Theological Seminary, none of them were at risk of being interviewed on national TV. The Theologians at the conference occupied a narrow strip of Biblical real estate between the up-and-coming more reformed scholars and institutions, on one side, and the "Left Behind"ers on the other. I detected the smell of holding-on-for-dear-life.

Reading the book reminded me of, and strengthened an observation that has informed my ministry for the last thirty or thirty-five years. I heard the point made by a college roommate of mine, who was, ironically enough, working for Moody Bible Institute at the time he made the comment, that no system of trying to systematize the whole flow of Scripture is sufficient to take it all in. Not long after I heard, essentially,  the same statement made by a nationally known pastor. At about the same time, I spent a considerable amount of time working through and preaching from the Sermon on the Mount. That series changed me. For reasons I won't go into here, I came to decisively reject the old, extreme, Dispensational "truth" that I had been taught, that the Sermon on the Mount was "Kingdom truth;" it didn't directly apply to the Church. With D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and others I concluded that Jesus most famous sermon was every bit about the here and now.

I sort of channeled a concept that I had heard powerfully expressed by an old-time preacher from West Virginia. B. R. Lakin began his career riding a mule to speaking engagements. He became a successful pastor and popular revivalist. The experience he spoke of was during what Hummel would call the "Rise" phase of Dispensationalism. I'm paraphrasing, but the old preacher, speaking from the platform of that thoroughly Dispensational Bible Institute said something like.

I attended a Bible Conference and saw a man with a bed sheet and fishing pole [Lakin was obviously referring to one of the Dispensational Charts that Dispensational prophecy preachers were famous for. The charts developed by Clarence Larkin are probably the best known]. He told me that this part of scripture applied this time and this other part of the Bible applied to another time [what old dispensationalists often referred to as "rightly dividing the Word"]. I went home and tried to do that for myself but finally gave up in frustration. I simply took of all of the Bible as God's word to me and sought to apply it to my life in my time and place. 

To any who may have been present at that Chapel service or who know Lakin better than I do, I emphasize again that I am working from memories of an incident more than fifty years ago. I also know that good preaching is often hyperbolic. I'm confident that Lakin's hermeneutics were more sophisticated than this anecdote implies, but the mule-riding preacher's words have haunted my mind and heart for most of my life.

I'll leave tracing the impact of Dispensationalism on a national/international scale to better minds, like Hummel's. I'll just say that too many pastors and Bible teachers approach Scripture and ask, "From a Dispensational point of view, what does this passage mean?" I know that there is no such thing as a "view from nowhere," but I do believe that trying to adopt a less prejudicial perspective is important. Approach the text with the necessary agnosticism. After you see what the text means, you may find that it aligns with your overall view of things, be that Dispensational, Covenental, or whatever. Fine. Just be sure you let the text speak. Don't put words in its mouth.

Apparently, I'm an outlier. The fact that I see nothing in the New Testament that indicates that I should bring a lamb to church tomorrow, indicates to me that there are at least two ways of doing things presented in Scripture. A straight-forward (literal, with a right understanding of the word) indicates that Israel is not the same as the church and the church is not the same as Israel. In fact, the tenses of the New Testament in reference to the formation of the church indicate that it didn't even exist in Old Testament times. I do live in a time in which the residents of the planet, except for those saved by grace, are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3), the world itself is in the power of the wicked one (1 John 5:19), and that this wicked one apparently has a lot of freedom to do his anti-God work (1 Peter 5:8). I could go on, but all that I am saying is that when I take God's word for what it appears to me to say, I see what has come to be called Dispensationalism. On the other hand, some of my go-to commentators would be insulted to have their name associated with Dispensationalism. I go to their books because they deal honestly with the text. I will enjoy telling them if I live until the Rapture, "See I was right." In the meantime, they are a help to me. If we both live to some one-size-fits-all general judgment day I'll say, "Well, what do you know?" 

I'd like to finish this before the Rapture, so I'll stop.