---

Christian Zionism: Dispensationalism And The Roots Of Sectarian Theology
A History of Dispensational Approaches

By John Scott:

Dispensationalism is one of the most influential theological systems within the universal church today. Largely unrecognised and subliminal, it has increasingly shaped the presuppositions of fundamentalist, evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic thinking concerning Israel and Palestine over the past one hundred and fifty years.

John Nelson Darby is regarded as the father of dispensationalism and its prodigy, Christian Zionism. It was Cyrus. I. Scofield and D. L. Moody, however, who brought Darby’s sectarian theology into mainstream evangelical circles. R. C. Sproul concedes that dispensationalism is now ‘...a theological system that in all probability is the majority report among current American evangelicals.

Most of the early popular American radio preachers such as Donald Grey Barnhouse, Charles E. Fuller, and M. R. DeHaan were dispensationalists. Today, virtually all the 'televangelists' such as Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, Paul Crouch, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and Billy Graham are also dispensationalists....

...Dispensationalism is based on the hermeneutical principle that Scripture is always to be interpreted literally. Darby’s approach might be summarised in one sentence in which he admitted, ‘I prefer quoting many passages than enlarging upon them.’ Scofield, who popularised and synthesised Darby's theology explains further,

Not one instance exists of a 'spiritual' or figurative fulfilment of prophecy... Jerusalem is always Jerusalem, Israel is always Israel, Zion is always Zion... Prophecies may never be spiritualised, but are always literal....

...Based on this interpretative principle, dispensationalists hold that the promises made to Abraham and through him to the Jews, although postponed during this present Church age, are nevertheless eternal and unconditional and therefore await future realisation since they have never yet been literally fulfilled. So, for example, it is an article of normative dispensational belief that the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham and his descendants from the Nile to the Euphrates will be literally instituted and that Jesus Christ will return to a literal and theocratic Jewish kingdom centred on a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. In such a scheme the Church on earth is relegated to the status of a parenthesis...

... Clearly, the consequences of such views, whether promulgated by academics from respectable theological institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary and the Moody Bible Institute, or by Jewish fanatics such as Baruch Ben-Yosef and the Temple Mount Yeshiva, can only be devastating, especially since dispensationalists have considerable political influence through which they seek the fulfilment of their apocalyptic vision of the future. That dispensational vision is comparatively young in terms of church history. It began in 1828 when Darby wrote his first tract against the prevailing optimism of the established church....

...Whether intentionally or otherwise, dispensationalism is being used today to give theological justification to what the United Nations regards as racism and the denial of basic human rights; supporting the ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians from their historic lands; endorsing the building of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories; inciting religious fanaticism by supporting the rebuilding of a Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah; dismissing moderate Jewish opinion willing to negotiate land for peace; and advocating an apocalyptic eschatology likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is therefore not surprising that among the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land especially, dispensationalism is regarded as a dangerous heresy, an unwelcome and alien intrusion, advocating an exclusive Jewish political agenda and undermining the genuine ministry of justice, peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.