Rapture Fever

8 RAPTURE FEVER
then redefined by the leaders as peripheral. The reason why
this strategy usually ftils is that the paradigm is inevitably surrendered
by a thousand qualifications and revisions. (See Chapter
7.)
The sign that the strategy of piecemeal surrender has been
adopted by the leaders is the absence of any overall presentation
of a “revised and updated” paradigm which incorporates
all of the suggested new revisions while maintaining the coherence
of the original system. The older textbooks are rarely cited
in contemporary writings. They are allowed to go out of print,
but nothing is offered to replace them. The original system has
in fact been abandoned in everything except name. I contend
in this book that this is where dispensationalism is in the early
1990’s.
Pressures for a Paradigm Shift
A paradigm is a way of thinking, an approach to finding
solutions to problems. For about a century 1875-1975, the
fundamentalist world’s solution to problems was to withdraw
fi-om most problems outside of the narrow confines of the local
church, the family, and personal ethics. Politics, education,
literature, the arts, and culture in general were all dismissed as
at best irrelevant to the Christian way of life and at worst a
threat to spiritual growth. “Politics is inherently dirty” was the
rallying cry, especially after 1925, and everything else was
viewed as at least in need of a good scrubbing - in a ghetto
community that was short of soap. Fundamentalists deliberately
narrowed the definition of evangelism’s Great Commission in
order to reduce their perceived zones of personal and institutional
responsibility.
This attitude of necessity required a broad transfer of authority
to non-Christians, a step that made life easier for non-
Christians. No longer would they face challenges from fundamentalists
and pietists. They would be given increasingly free
rein (or reign) to do what they wanted, and, best of all, do it
L.