Rapture Fever

192 IL4PTURE FEVER
prophecy is ticking again!” shouted all those best-selling authors
who never bothered to tell their hapless followers that according
to original dispensational theology, the clock of prophecy
will not start ticking until after the Rapture. It’s “any-moment
Rapture” vs. “ticking clock today.”
Even John Walvoord couldn’t resist those fabulous book
royalties (1.6 million copies, as of August). He had to get back
into the pop-dispensationalist parade. He announced that the
clock of prophecy was again ticking (W-M Toduy, Jan. 19, 1991).
He abandoned the doctrine of the any-moment Rapture, which
he had long taught. He thereby baptized Hal Lindsey’s “just
around the corner” eschatology. And then . . . thud. Goodbye
reputation.
Smashed. Smashed. Smashed by Norman Schwarzkopf in
January and by Boris Yeltsin in August. Flattened. Dead. “Rapture
postponed indefinitely.” What now?
Changes at Dallas Seminary
In 1991, Dallas Theological Seminary introduced a revised
curriculum. Perfect timing, guys! I congratulate you. The new
curriculum abandoned the original one that had emphasized
dispensational eschatology, Greek, and Hebrew. It intensified
the post-1978 curriculum shift, which had substituted an emphasis
on psychology for eschatology. Now the seminary has
introduced a so-called “tracking” system. Students can specialize
from the beginning of their academic careers in this or that
area of practical theology. They can pursue Christian social
relevance, but apart from biblical law.
Dallas theologians need to explain exactly how Scofieldism
can be the foundation of all this. They need to introduce each
class with a week or two of verse-by-verse lectures on “Dispensationalism
and this application.” If they refuse to do this, ClaSS
by class – and my “prophecy” is clear: they will refuse - then
they have traded dispensational theology for practical theology.
Dispensational theology was never practical; it rejects culture