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Cyrus Scofield, Dallas Theological Seminary, David L. Cooper, dispensationalism, Gog, Hal Lindsey, J.N. Darby, John Nelson Darby, John Walvoord, Late Great Planet Earth, Left Behind, Lewis Chafer, Rayford Steel, Tim LaHaye, Tribulation
In his 1970 work, The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey claims that the complex system of dispensationalism he professes simply ‘falls out’ of a plain reading of the Bible; it requires little theological education and no knowledge of the dispensational theories of others – though he is quick to assure readers that he does actually have formal theological training. They are the only ones who don’t have the NT wrong. On his biblical interpretation, he claims to be doing nothing more than “diligently [seeking] to follow” the plain sense of the biblical text. He quotes David L. Cooper’s 1940 work, When Gog’s Armies Meet the Almighty in the Land of Israel:
“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word as its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.”
Another well-known author of some of the most popular Christian fiction ever written, Tim LaHaye, adheres to the same idea, calling this sentiment of Cooper’s “the golden rule of biblical interpretation.”
However, it is possible to trace the development and transmission of these ideas right back to John Nelson Darby.
John Nelson Darby has been called the “father or dispensationalism.” While he was not the first to explicate the idea of dispensationalism, it was he who expanded on and developed the complicated theory of salvation history, which identifies a series of epochs following one another in a linear fashion. He was also the first to solidify the concept of the rapture of the church, based on 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Darby had significant influence on Cyrus Scofield’s beliefs during the Bible Prophecy Conference movement throughout North America at the end of the nineteenth century, and there is no doubt that Scofield borrowed copiously from Darby while writing his annotated Reference Bible.
Where does the trail lead from there? Scofield became a close friend and colleague of Lewis Chafer, who went on to found the Evangelical Theological College, which would eventually become the Dallas Theological Seminary. Chafer taught at Dwight L. Moody’s Northfield School in Massachusetts from 1902-1910. During this time, he came into contact with Scofield, who, fresh from the Bible Prophecy Conference movement of the late 1800s, encouraged Chafer’s development as a theologian and preacher. Chafer explicates in an article in Sunday School Times, published in March, 1923, that Scofield was profoundly instrumental in his adoption of his dispensationalism.
In 1924 Chafer, founded the Evangelical Theological College. In 1936 it underwent a name-change to become Dallas Theological Seminary and Graduate School of Theology, finally becoming simply the Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) in 1969. Its first students were a small group of only thirteen that were taught under the guidance of Chafer, who presided over the school from 1924 until 1952, at which point John Walvoord took over as president. Walvoord and Chafer were like-minded colleagues that shared many similar ideas. In 1926, Chafer wrote one of his most significant publications, Major Bible Themes, of which Walvoord revised and updated in 1974. During Walvoord’s presidency at DTS, who else but Hal Lindsey attended the institute, and it was here, under the direction of Walvoord and his staff that Lindsey solidified his pretribulational, premillennial dispensationalism.
The final link in this chain is Tim LaHaye. While LaHaye never credits Lindsey for any of his ideas, it is clear that he has relied on large parts of The Late Great Planet Earth for his writing of Left Behind. While reading The Late Great Planet Earth, there are clear similarities between the two authors’ work: from Lindsey’s account of modern warfare during the Tribulations and LaHaye’s description of World War Three, to the words of LaHaye’s main protagonist, Rayford Steel, on his learning of his wife’s disappearance in the rapture – “Rayford had to direct people to the Bible… he had begun taking [his wife’s] Bible everywhere he went, reading it wherever possible;” compared with Lindsey’s, “I’m going to find myself a Bible and read those very verses my wife underlined. I wouldn’t listen to her when she was here…” Compare Lindsey’s account of a football game, “It was the last quarter of the championship game…only one minute to go and they fumbled – our quarterback recovered…when – zap – no more quarterback – completely gone, just like that!” with LaHaye’s soccer game, “most of the spectators and all but one of the players disappeared in the middle of play, leaving their shoes and uniforms on the ground.” Though these similarities may seem coincidental, when reading the two books simultaneously, the parallels between the books are striking, especially in the depictions of the events that occur during the Tribulations.
Although neither Lindsey nor LaHaye ever explicitly deny that their ideas stem from this tradition, they are both self-deceived in their belief that the ideas they profess are merely interpretations of “the plain sense” of the biblical text.
The Bad Boys of Prophecy
The Dunedin School 
Elizabeth, thanks for your interesting post. I did want to offer two caveats to your presentation. I studied at Dallas Seminary before moving on to do my doctoral work at Catholic University. I have rejected dispensationalism altogether but there are two things you should know: (1) the type of pop-dispensationalism you describe is no longer a major player among the ideas espoused at DTS. It is a dinosaur (so to speak) on the verge of extinction. During my time there (97 – 01) only one department in the seminary held strongly to the type of dispensationalism you describe. In fact, the Old and New Testament departments (which are stacked with a number of quality professors) seem to have moved on to some of the “bigger issues” and have left all the wrangling about classical and/or revised dispensationalism behind. (2) Of the “scholars” listed in your tree above, the only true scholar in the bunch is Walvoord. I do think he was wrong and, at times, overly dogmatic about dispensationalism, but he was a very bright man. He had at least one earned doctorate (none of the others in your tree do) and was well-versed in the biblical languages. In fact, he taught himself Aramaic just so that he could write a commentary on Daniel. Again, I am no adherent to dispensationalism but I thought your presentation could be nuanced by these two qualifications.
Best,
Chris
Interesting post. I will begin PhD work at DTS soon and there is still the cloud of dispensationalism that hangs over the school, if only in the perception of those on the outside. As Chris mentioned, dispensationalism is and has been on the wane there for some time now (thankfully!). Nevertheless, your post was informative–thanks!
Thanks for your comments, just three points that I felt I should clarify though:
Firstly, I don’t actually call any of these men scholars.
Secondly, as for dispensationalism, you both may well be right; however, as far as the Dallas Theological College’s Doctrinal Statement – which is published on their website – is concerned, Article V deals directly with “The Dispensations.” According to the site, “faculty and board annually affirm their agreement with the full doctrinal statement.”
See http://www.dts.edu/about/doctrinalstatement/
Finally, according to David Garrison’s chapter on Tim and Beverly LaHaye in, Twentieth Century Shapers of American Popular Religion, edited by Charles Lippy (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987), LaHaye received an “earned” doctorate of ministry from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in 1977, as well as his honorary one from Bob Jones University in 1962.
Thanks again,
Elizabeth
Liz,
Welcome aboard. It’s good to hear from you at last, and you seem to be drawing a very different audience than the rest of us do.
Perhaps I am thinking this because I am sitting in Denver International Airport, back in the mainland US for the first time in more than a year, and am thus rather out of my regular element. Perhaps it is that I’ve been awake for a very long time, or the fact that, according to the calendar, I am both sitting here and sitting in the Auckland airport departures lounge, but, and as always, I am shocked by three things: firstly, that American religion really can be as in your face and over the top as the rest of the world fears that it is (I’ve seen at least three hard-core evangelical sorts of t-shirts in the few minutes I’ve been sitting here, one of which was worn by a nubile young woman showing a lot of skin both above and below the cross-themed shirt, which seemed, at the very least, incongruous); secondly, there are soldiers scattered about the airport in uniform and everyone else seems to be armed, even the security people who make you take off your shoes (on top of which I’ve already seen two t-shirts advertising guns or shops that sell guns); and, finally, to be horridly unfair, I am struck by just how fucking fat people are in this part of the world.
Keep up the good work.
Eric
Hey Liz,
With no knowledge whatsoever about anything written in the above posts… the only thing I feel able to comment on, is that Eric has his finger on the pulse. I particularly agree with his two accurate statements:
a) the amount of security in the states – particularly in airports
b) how fucking fat americans are.
Im sorry I could not provide anything more insightful.
The public sector misses your wit
Jason: I am a graduate of DTS and know many grads and a number of professors who are still strong dispensationalists.
Peje: Even though I do not agree with much of Progressive Dispensationalism, there are still some key elements that still reflect a dispensational theology and a contextual (literal, grammatical, historical) hermeneutic. Classic and Revised Dispensationalism is still strong at the school and from what I know it is receiving renewed attention in more that just the Bible Exposition department (which is the one to which I assume you refer).
Elizabeth: I have been following a number of the non-dispensational discussions / blogs / forums (which are quickly morphing into anti-dispensational in the Neo-Covenantal camp) and many of them tend to follow the approach you have taken here – to attempt to discredit dispensationalism on the basis of its “genealogy” – and with a few notable exceptions fails to deal with the biblical issues to any degree and often, not at all – as is true here. This is usually either a more nuanced tack like yours – or a more blatant attack using nothing more than straw-man and ad hominem arguments. I don’t doubt that you and the others could present some biblical exegesis in support of your position, but I find it interesting that the dispensational “family tree” is seen as the most convincing argument against it.
Back up 400 years and exactly the same things could be used to argue against Reformed theology – and its usually-linked Covenant theology (which essentially embraces Catholic theology, including its eschatology). However, neither the lineage nor its relative “youth” have anything to do with the discussion. Reformed theology had the same problem of being young at one time – but I have never seen this mentioned by anyone trying to discredit dispensationalism with this charge. I am sure that the defense of Reformed theology would be that it simply recovered what had been previously taught and believed – and was biblical – but had been lost through centuries of institutionalized religion and its inherent tendency toward corruption. And this is exactly what would be argued by dispensatonalists. Yet, neither of these arguments does anything to support the theology if it doesn’t first and foremost have biblical support. Historical theology does nothing to support or lend validity to a particular system of theology. If it did, then 400 years from now, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormonism and Christian Science would all be able to defend their biblical theology on the basis of historical theology.
Dave James
The Alliance for Biblical Integrity
http://www.biblicalintegrity.org
Dave,
I don’t think you have quite appreciated Liz’s argument. She has not taken issue with the truth claims of dispensationalism per se (i.e. whether the dispensational scheme corresponds with the Bible, or reality, or both), but with an implied or explicit methodological claim by dispensationalists that they have derived the scheme merely from the Bible without any benefit from a prior stream of interpretational tradition. This being the case, the quite proper evidence is not from the Bible, but from historical genealogy, as she has provided.
Tyrone,
I think I understood correctly – and in fact her point seemed to be that she was saying, as others often do, that *rather* than dealing with the Bible text alone, dispensationalists *do* depend on historical genealogy of interpretation – which is its weakness, not strength.
My contention is that a “prior stream of interpretational tradition” only has value as a starting point, but has no value in determining the ultimate validity of any doctrine – *only* the Bible text alone has that value.
But, perhaps I misunderstood your point.
Yes, I think you misunderstand Liz’s point. She is not directly addressing the question of whether dispensationalists rely on the Bible or the ‘historical genealogy of interpretation.’ Instead, she is addressing the question of whether dispensationalists rely on the ‘historical genealogy of interpretation’, while – and this is the important part while denying that they do so, that is, while claiming that they only rely on the Bible.
So, in your first paragraph you still misunderstand her main point. And ironically, in the second paragraph you make much the same claim: dispensational tradition doesn’t have significant influence (on you?) “in determining the ultimate validity of any doctine” – only the Bible does – despite the fact that you were taught this method of interpreting the Bible at Dallas Theological Seminary. Now, it remains to be discussed whether this is in fact the case (i.e., whether your form of dispensationalism does just ‘fall out of the Bible’ alone). Perhaps dispensationalism really does have an objective quality not yet seen in any other discourse? This is remotely possible, I guess. But that is essentially a separate question from the one Liz discussed above, which instead concerns the tension between the methodological claims and practice of the dispensationalists who were discussed.
Can anything good come out of Dallas? Can anything good come out of America?
A bit like “Q”, it misses the point, it’s flawed, it takes itself too literally, it thinks it’s bigger than it is, and it’s created it’s own little world….
Steph,
There are a few good things that have come out of America.
Me, for instance.
You?!! Ha – I’ll forgive you. OK maybe one or two things. Sanders, Dale Allison (sometimes) and occasionally Californian wine – but Dallas? :-)
Ah, yes, but you came out of America, Eric – that’s the point.
And Sanders had the good sense to come out of America too – and marry an Englishwoman – which is when he did his best work. And the wine too has come “out” of America …
Eric’s come out?
“Dad, Eric won’t come out of the closet!”
Dave: I am sure there are still plenty of dispys at DTS. I only meant that what I’ve read and heard from alums and others is that it is not quite as prominent as in years/decades past. Isn’t progressive dispensationalism more popular there now?
Stephanie: Wow–disdain for Americans! A bit of overgeneralizing, don ‘t you think? If your comments are meant as humorous, just ignore mine! ;-)
The apocalyptic movement has a much longer family tree than these (mostly dead) white guys. It can be traced pretty directly through post-exilic Judaism to Zoroastrianism where a dualism first seems to have captured the Judeo(and later Christian) imagination. One thing few Evangelicals like to admit is that the basic concept came from a completely different religious tradition where the children of light battled against the children of darkness. History is the enemy sometimes.
For a pre-Halloween shock or two, Google “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty.” Definitely not recommended by Darby, Scofield, Ice, or Hal (Serial Polygamist) Lindsey. Sally (The colorful version of the above article is on the “Powered by Christ Ministries” site.)
What,exactly,is “progressive dispensationalism”??
Liz,
what could you mean when you say you “don’t actually call any of these men scholars. ” ?
Thanks.
Mark
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Catholicism Invented the Rapture? C’mon!
Many web sites claim that a 16th century Jesuit Catholic priest named Francisco Ribera taught an early form of the famous evangelical “rapture” that reportedly precedes and is disconnected from the final Second Coming.
To see the actual thrust of this claim, Google “Francisco Ribera taught a rapture 45 days before the end of Antichrist’s future reign.”
But no one ever quotes even one sentence from Ribera’s monumental commentary on the Book of Revelation which is said to be the source of the 45-day rapture claim.
Claimants are challenged to produce Ribera’s own words on this matter. If they cannot, their names should be blazoned on the web as hysterical historians! (BTW, no other Catholic leader, including Jesuit priest Manuel Lacunza, has ever taught a prior rapture.)
Curious about the real beginnings of the same mystical “fly-away” belief (a.k.a. the “pre-tribulation rapture”) that has captivated many evangelical leaders including Darby, Scofield, Lindsey, Falwell, LaHaye, and Hagee? Google “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty.”
I appreciated this post. I’ve been looking into this topic. I recently came out of a pre-trib dispensational CULTure at a Calvary Chapel. I’m no longer there but at the church I attend now, which is most likely an IFB–not that I consider myself IFB, I see that many “Baptists” also hold this same dispensational belief. You hit the nail on the head I believe with identifying DR. David Cooper. Cooper is who I was researching. He did a lot of work trying to interpret the scriptures the way ‘he’ wanted them to go, which was in line with Darby. LaHaye is a Baptist–came out of their schools and the Baptists embrace him as their own, however, he’s also a huge headpiece in the CC circles. All the speakers, teachers, and Pastors are involved with his Pre-Trib Research Center. It’s really strange how the bedfellows work, but essentially I’ve found them to have that “6 degrees of separation” factor going for them. Even their “Discernment Ministries” and experts cross paths. One commenter stated that your issue was with “who” started this mode of thought and that the Dispensationalists are just scholars who study the word and see it literally. However, if you read the scriptures as they were written, you don’t get a pre-trib rapture. I have yet to find it in the scripture. If their whole theology (which is really theoryology) is hung up by the 1 Thess. 4:17 verse, then it falls apart based on that literally. The word in the Latin was Rapiemur. From what I researched, that word means to: drag off, snatch, destroy, seize and pillage. That sound more like persecution and being dragged off before the governors and the synagogues rather than being “caught up.” Why would Christ use a term for killing or abducting to mean “saving us from wrath” that makes no sense. I think the rabbit hole goes deeper than Dr. Cooper too. Maybe this teaching/interpretation was more complex than we are understanding. Any way, that was way to long but the short of the long was thanks for the post.
“J.N. Darbys End-Times Family Tree: Is Dispensationalism from the Bible or Evangelical
Tradition? The Dunedin School” really causes myself think
a small bit more. I really cherished every single part of this post.
Many thanks ,Bernard
Margaret Macdonald’s Rapture Chart !
“church” RAPTURE “church”
(present age) (tribulation)
In early 1830 Margaret was the very first one to see a pre-Antichrist (pretrib) rapture in the Bible – and John Walvoord and Hal Lindsey lend support for this claim!
Walvoord’s “Rapture Question” (1979) says her view resembles the “partial-rapture view” and Lindsey’s “The Rapture” (1983) admits that “she definitely teaches a partial rapture.”
But there’s more. Lindsey (p. 26) says that partial rapturists see only “spiritual” Christians in the rapture and “unspiritual” ones left behind to endure Antichrist’s trial. And Walvoord (p. 97) calls partial rapturists “pretribulationists”!
Margaret’s pretrib view was a partial rapture form of it since only those “filled with the Spirit” would be raptured before the revealing of the Antichrist. A few critics, who’ve been repeating more than researching, have noted “Church” in the tribulation section of her account. Since they haven’t known that all partial rapturists see “Church” on earth after their pretrib rapture (see above chart), they’ve wrongly assumed that Margaret was a posttrib!
In Sep. 1830 Edward Irving’s journal “The Morning Watch” (hereafter: TMW) was the first to publicly reflect her novel view when it saw spiritual “Philadelphia” raptured before “the great tribulation” and unspiritual “Laodicea” left on earth.
In Dec. 1830 John Darby (the so-called “father of dispensationalism” even though he wasn’t first on any crucial aspect of it!) was still defending the historic posttrib rapture view in the “Christian Herald.”
Pretrib didn’t spring from a “church/Israel” dichotomy, as many have assumed, but sprang from a “church/church” one, as we’ve seen, and was based only on symbols!
But innate anti-Jewishness soon appeared. (As noted, TMW in Sep. 1830 saw only less worthy church members left behind.) In Sep. 1832 TMW said that less worthy church members and “Jews” would be left behind. But by Mar. 1833 TMW was sure that only “Jews” would face the Antichrist!
As late as 1837 the non-dichotomous Darby saw the church “going in with Him to the marriage, to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews.” And he didn’t clearly teach pretrib until 1839. His basis then was the Rev. 12:5 “man child…caught up” symbol he’d “borrowed” (without giving credit) from Irving who had been the first to use it for the same purpose in 1831!
For related articles Google “X-Raying Margaret,” “Edward Irving is Unnerving,” “Pretrib Rapture’s Missing Lines,” “The Unoriginal John Darby,” “Deceiving and Being Deceived” by D.M., “Pretrib Rapture Pride,” “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” and “Scholars Weigh My Research.” The most documented and accurate book on pretrib rapture history is “The Rapture Plot” (see Armageddon Books online) – a 300-pager that has hundreds of disarming facts (like the ones above) not found in any other source.
[I ran into the above on my computer screen. Would love reactions to it.]
Hal Lindsey, contrary to your statement does have formal theological training.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Lindsey