Rapture Fever

The Strange Disappearance of D&pensational Institutwns 199
I predict that Jesus will not return by the year 2000, but it is
highly likely that by that year Dallas Seminary will also have
experienced a Talbot-like, Grace-like restructuring. Then where
will all those faithful dispensational laymen recruit their pastors?
If the pastors don’t share the theology of the people in
the pews, it’s only a matter of time before the children of the
people in the pews abandon Scofield and his revisors.
O Debt, Here Is Thy Sting!
Meanwhile, according to an Associated Press story (December
14), Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University is $73 million in debt.
I know from having spoken to one faculty member (who will
leave soon) that the enrollment figures are no longer issued
even to faculty members. They all can see what is coming: pink
slips. Rev. Falwell has already told those faithful Christian people
who bought Liberty University’s bonds: no mow interest
payments. He has promised that someday the principal will be
repaid. He has not said when.
The campus of Liberty University was valued at $55 million
in 1990. That was when Rev. Falwell tried to sell governmentsubsidized
development bonds to refinance the existing debt.
The courts said no deal: separation of church and state. Today,
Liberty University is valued at $5.2 million, the Associated Press
report said. Why the decline? Because the estimated value of a
school is based on the estimated value of its net income. The
bricks and mortar of a college are white elephants: almost
worthless except as a college. If a college declines in enrollment,
the expected net income disappears. Hence, the 9070
drop in the estimated value of the Liberty University campus in
just two years.
Let’s see: a $73 million debt with assets of $5.2 million. You
know what that says to me? Payday isn’t coming. Judgment day
is. No, not the Rapture: the rupture. As in bankrupt.
Meanwhile, his Old Time Gospel Hour is $16 million in
debt. From 19’79 to 1989, said the AP story, the Moral Majority