Rapture Fever

38 RAPTURE FEVER
of tribulation? Is it because we deny that the Great Tribulation
is in the future? I think so. Yet Lindsey calls us anti-Semitic!28
A defective view of evangeltim tes.tzfies to a okfective theology. This
is why dispensationalism is in a state of near-paralysis. It cannot
make sense of the Bible. It cannot make sense of what Christians’
responsibilities are in history, even the responsibility of a
narrowly defined form of evangelism. Rapture fever is morally
paralyzing. It is therefore culturally paralyzing.
Conclusion
There is a heavy price to be paid for all of this, and the
fading reputation of the American evangelical Church is part of
that price. Dispensational iimdamentalists are increasingly
regarded by the humanist media as “prophecy junkies” - not
much different psychologically from those supermarl@ tabloid
newspaper readers who try to make sense of the garbled writings
of Nostradamus, whose name is also selling lots of books
these days. When secular newspaper reporters start calling
Christian leaders to expound on Bible prophecy and its relationship
to the headlines, and then call occultists and astrologers
for confirmation, the Church of Jesus Christ is in bad
shape. Read Armageddon Now! to find out just what bad shape
this is, and has been for over seven decades.
John Walvoord’s “ticking clock” book and others just like it
in 1991 were the equivalent of General Norman Schwarzkopf’s
saturation bombing strategy they flattened orthodox dispensationalism.
Almost immediately after theses books’ publication,
General Schwarzkopf’s strategy in Iraq buried the very shortlived
“Babylon Literally Rebuilt” dispensationalism. Then, six
months later, the failed Soviet coup buried “Magog fi-om the
North” dispensationalism. What is left? Not much. Dispensationalists
must now begin to rebuild the ruins. It will do no
good to deny the existence of these ruins. They are much too
28. Hal Lindsey The Road to HoZacaust (New York: Bantam, 1989).