Rapture Fever
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Rapture Fever

by Gary North by Gary North

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A Commitment to Cultural Irrelevance 103 speaking, meaning as a coherent system, dispensational theology is dead. Its brain wave signal has gone flat. It has now assumed room temperature. RIl? It was not killed by its theological opponents. Its defenders killed it by a thousand qualifications. They revised it into oblivion. 14 Like a man peeling an ‘nion) dispensational theologians kept slicing away the system’s embarrassing visible layers until there was nothing left. The last remaining layer was removed by H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice in their 1988 book, Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse? As an intellectual system, dispensationalism never had much of a life. From the beginning, its theological critics had the better arguments, from George Bush in the 1840’s to Oswald T. Allis’ classic study, l+oflhecy and the Church, published in 1945. But the critics never had many followers. Furthermore, the critics were trained theologians, and dispensationalists have never paid much attention to trained theologians. Besides, there were not very many critics. Because dispensationalists had no self-consciously scholarly theology to defend and no institutions of somewhat higher learning until well into the twentieth century, their critics thought that they could safely ignore the dispensational movement. They always aimed their published analyses at the academic Christian community. They thought they could call a halt to the rapid spread of dispensationalism through an appeal to the Scriptures and an appeal to the scholarly Christian community. They were wrong. Theirs was a strategic error; popular mass movements are not directly affected by such narrow intellectual challenges. Indirectly over time, yes, but not directly. Few people adopt or abandon their theological views by reading heavily footnoted and carefully argued scholarly books. Thus, the appeal of dispensational theology was not undermined by its theological opponents; instead, it collapsed of its own weight. Like a former athlete who dies of a heart attack at age 52 from obesity and lack of exercise, so did 14. See Chapter 8.

104 RAPTURE FEVER dispensational theology depart horn this earthly vale of tears. Dispensational theologians got out of shape, and were totally unprepared for the killer marathon of 1988: the 40th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, and the year of Edgar Whisenant. The Heart, Mind, and Soul of Dispensationalism The strength of dispensationalism was never its formal theological argumentation, but rather its ethical and motivational conclusions, namely, that Christians have almost no influence in this world, will never have much influence, and most important, are not morally responsible before God for exercising lawful authority in this so-called “Church Age.” The dispensational system was adopted by people who wanted to escape fi-om the burdens of cultural responsibility. This retreatist mentality has been freely admitted by Thomas Ice’s former associate, David Schnittger. (1 quoted this in the previous chapter, but it bears repeating.) North and other postmillennial Christian Reconstructionists label those who hold the pretribulationa.1 rapture position pietists and cultural retreatists. One reason these criticisms are so ptil is because I find them to be substantially true. Many in our camp have an all-pervasive negativism regarding the course of society and the impotence of God’s people to do anything about it. They will heartily affirm that Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, and that this must indeed be The Terminal Generation; therefore, any attempt to influence society is ultimately hopeless. They adopt the pietistic platitude: “MU don’t polish brass on a sinking ship. ” Many pessimistic pretribbers cling to the humanists’ version of religious freedom; namely Christian social and political impotence, self-imposed, as drowning men cling to a life preserver.” 15. David Schnittge~ Christian Reconstruztims fnnn a Pretnbukztianal Perspective (Oklahoma City Southwest Radio Church, 1986), p. 7.

104 RAPTURE FEVER<br />

dispensational theology depart horn this earthly vale of tears.<br />

Dispensational theologians got out of shape, and were totally<br />

unprepared for the killer marathon of 1988: the 40th anniversary<br />

of the creation of the State of Israel, and the year of Edgar<br />

Whisenant.<br />

The Heart, Mind, and Soul of Dispensationalism<br />

The strength of dispensationalism was never its formal theological<br />

argumentation, but rather its ethical and motivational<br />

conclusions, namely, that Christians have almost no influence in<br />

this world, will never have much influence, and most important,<br />

are not morally responsible before God for exercising<br />

lawful authority in this so-called “Church Age.” The dispensational<br />

system was adopted by people who wanted to escape<br />

fi-om the burdens of cultural responsibility. This retreatist mentality<br />

has been freely admitted by Thomas Ice’s former associate,<br />

David Schnittger. (1 quoted this in the previous chapter,<br />

but it bears repeating.)<br />

North and other postmillennial Christian Reconstructionists<br />

label those who hold the pretribulationa.1 rapture position pietists<br />

and cultural retreatists. One reason these criticisms are so ptil<br />

is because I find them to be substantially true. Many in our camp<br />

have an all-pervasive negativism regarding the course of society<br />

and the impotence of God’s people to do anything about it. They<br />

will heartily affirm that Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth,<br />

and that this must indeed be The Terminal Generation; therefore,<br />

any attempt to influence society is ultimately hopeless. They<br />

adopt the pietistic platitude: “MU don’t polish brass on a sinking<br />

ship. ” Many pessimistic pretribbers cling to the humanists’ version<br />

of religious freedom; namely Christian social and political<br />

impotence, self-imposed, as drowning men cling to a life preserver.”<br />

15. David Schnittge~ Christian Reconstruztims fnnn a Pretnbukztianal Perspective<br />

(Oklahoma City Southwest Radio Church, 1986), p. 7.

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