Rapture Fever

134 RAPTURE FEVER
Vmgeance (198’7), yet in chapter after chapter devoted to their
attempted refutation of Chilton, this absolutely central fact is
never even mentioned. They know that seven of the ten volumes
in the Biblical Blueprint Series5 adopt Sutton’s five-point
covenant model as their structure. Not a word of this is mentioned,
either. You need not bother straining your eyes in
search of any reference to Sutton’s newsletter, Covenant Renewal.
There are dozens of references to newsletters that I even forgot
that I wrote, but nary a mention of the one newsletter that is
the foundation of what we in the “Tyler camp” are doing. This
silence is deafening. It is clearly deliberate.
There is another topic which they self-consciously refise to
discuss: the work of the Holy Spirit in New Testament tinws as the
empowering factor in Christians’ being able to extend dominwn through
Christ, who is seated majestically in the heavens at the right
hand of God. They admit that we teach this (p. 50), but then
they fail to respond. Over a hundred pages later, they devote
one sentence to the topic, saying that the Holy Spirit empowered
the apostles to preach against sin (p. 152) Social sin? Another
unmentionable! In their view, there are no sociul sins except
murder that can be confidently challenged in the name of God’s pemnunent
law.
Tommy Ice admits in the book’s opening paragraph that he
was David Schnittger’s pastor when the latter wrote his booklet,
Christiun Reconstmctionfiom a Pretribwkztwnal Perspective: a document
referred to continually in the Reconstructionist book that
refutes Dave Hunt, The Reduction of Christianity, by Gary DeMar
and Peter Leithart. 7
Schnittge#s booklet is a devastating criititim of
traditwruzl di.sjwnsatwnaksmh systemattially world-retreating outlook.
He freely admitted that we Reconstructionists have been correct
5. Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1986-87.
6. Oklahoma City Southwest Radio Church, 1986.
7. Ft. Worth: Dominion Press, 1988. Distributed by Dominion Press, F!O. Box
7999, Tyler, Texas.