Rapture Fever

Preface xxix
J. Rushdoony intervened to persuade Presbyterian & Reformed,
a small Calvinist publishing firm, to publish the book
after fundamentalist Moody Press had turned down the manuscript
because of its complete opposition to theistic evolution
and age-day creationism.s
For a fundamentalist in 1993, there is still nothing, except in
creationism, where Henry Morris and other dispensationalists
have broken with C. I. Scofield’s “gap” theory. (See Chapter 9.)
The fundamentalist student is still dependent on others for his
academic defenses.
Dispensationalism vs. Scholarship
What I argue in this book is that inherent in dispensationalism’s
view of law is a worldview that denies the possibility of
Christian scholarship in “secular” fields. To challenge humanism
in any field, you must possess a uniquely biblical view of
God, man, law, and time. 4
The dispensationalist’s denial that
Old Testament law is valid in New Testament times strips him
of any uniquely biblical view of law. He is then forced to adopt
one or another of the humanist views of law. But this is only
the beginning of his intellectual dilemma. The dispensational
view of the future of the Church in this dispensation completes
the burial of Christian scholarship. The dispensationalist insists
that there is not enough time for Christians to work out alternatives
to humanism, let alone actually substitute them for
humanist culture. This has paralyzed dispensationalists who
have the intelligence and the technical academic skills to produce
biblical alternatives. Their refusal to take up the academic
plow has in turn left fundamentalist college students intellectu-
3. Henry M. Morris, Htitou of Modwn Cwationisns (San Diego Master Book Pubs.,
1984), p. 154.
4. Gary North, Unconditional Surrender: God’s Program for Victo~ (3rd cd.; Tyler,
Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1988), Part I.