Rapture Fever

Introduction 5
placed by the newsletter, the audio cassette tape, and the desktop-published
magazine. Short little messages written on tiny
tracts no longer suffice; it takes a great deal of copy to fill up a
newsletter, let alone a magazine. You cannot fill a monthly
magazine with 24 pages of brief “how to get saved messages.
The same is true of 24-hour a day cable or satellite television
networks. Technology has forced a change on American fundamentalism.
Technological change has produced a quiet but significant
shift in fundamentalist tactics, and therefore fundamentalist
theology. This theological shift lags behind the technological
changes, but it is now becoming obvious to those who pay attention
to what is being written and spoken in public, and also
what is no longer written or spoken in public.
The Disappearance of Academic Leadership
In 1980, there were three major seminaries that taught
dispensationalism: Talbot (La Mirada, California), Grace (Winona
Lake, Indiana), and Dallas. By 1988, Talbot had quietly
abandoned the older dispensationalism. In December, 1992, the
president of Grace announced a restructuring of the seminary.
Not one of the existing seven full-time faculty members will
have their contracts renewed. The Th.D. and Th.M. programs
will end. There will be a new mission for what little remains of
the old seminary. The president wrote to Grace supporters:
Its mission is to: “d+svelop Christim mintitq leaders who can inj%.wnce
culture with an integrated biblical world and life view. ”
Among the Big Three, only Dallas Seminary now remains in
the fold. But it remains remarkably silent. Its faculty members
no longer write detailed academic books that defend dispensationalism.
Today, scholarly publications written by Dallas Seminary
faculty members have almost no impact in the broad dispensational
community. Charles Ryrie departed from the faculty
in the early 1980’s under a cloud. A few retired members of