In defense of dispensationalism
I have a class in DC this week, so I haven't been able to blog like I wish. But I would like to briefly deal with a couple of responses to my pre-millennialism notes.
First, I'm not sure Mad Raunter and 'Doctor of Philosophy' (if they are different people) realized that the notes I had were on something that I do not believe in. It was, as part 1 stated, merely part 2 of a 2 part series describing different eschatological viewpoints in America for people in my church. So I'm afraid the hyper-ventilating comments such as "Why should anyone give a shit about all this crazy Second Coming crap?" and "the above Second Coming screed is so whacko as to be impervious to rational dialog" are wasted on me. Sorry, folks.
Second, while I do not hold to dispensationalism, I do think the charges of anti-Semitism and attempts to link dispensationalism to the Holocaust are remarkably unfair to dispensationalists. Dispensationalists hold as primary tenets of their belief system that the Jewish nation will be reconstituted in the land of Israel and that it will then rule over the rest of the world for a thousand years. Consequently, dispensationalism has been possibly the largest single theological reason for why many American Christians support the nation of Israel today. How someone can accuse a system like that of being anti-semitic surprises me, to say the least.
Thirdly, to go around accusing every Christian who happens to believe his or her Bible is true, or even someone who thinks Josephus' brief account of Jesus' death (Antiquities 18.64, I believe) is largely accurate, seems to be potentially crying wolf. This runs the risk of eventually making the charge of anti-Semitism so meaningless that when the genuine article rears its ugly head no one notices.
September 1, 2004 08:06 AMYou said in your post on dispensationism:
"Israel, however, rejected Christ and condemned him to die upon the cross."
Do you or do you not believe that to be true? I happen to agree with both The Mad Raunter and Doctor of Philosophy that it is not. You are entitled to believe that it is true yourself, of course. I agree with you that the Doctor of Philosophy used strong language, but is it so hard for you to see how the above statement might be deeply offensive to some people? Sometimes it's hard for folks to keep a civil tongue when they are offended. Speaking as a Christian, I apologize on your behalf for speaking such an obviously offensive statement in a public arena.
Josephus was a traitor... what he wrote is completely devoid of any historical accuracy.
Also, it is simply a fact that there are non-canonical Gospels, and that the Romans chose certain Gospels out of the many extant Gospels. There has been much important recent Biblical scholarship into the non-canonical Gospels. Elaine Pagels, who is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, and winner of the National Book Award as well as the National Book Critics Award, built her academic career on research into the non-canonical Gospels. She was also awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981.
Biblical Scholar/Doctor of Philosophy/Mad Raunter --
I'm familiar with Elaine Pagels' work on the so-called gnostic gospels and, so far, haven't found it convincing. But I don't have time to get into the formation of the Bible and I'd like to do some more reading on/by Pagels anyway, so I'm going to have to leave the pro-gnosticism, anti-Josephusism, and anti-Romanism of above untouched for now.
As for my "obviously offensive statement in a public arena," my original purpose was not to make offensive (or even inoffensive) statements, but to describe the system of doctrine known as dispensationalism as accurately and fairly as possible. The statement in question is, I think, a fair description of what dispensationalists themselves actually say and how they say it. As I stated above, I do not believe the system of dispensationalism is inherently anti-Semitic - if one spends time looking at the entire system of what it teaches.
I am fully aware of how one can take offense at that statement and of the role of the charge of deicide in historical anti-Semitism. And, just in case anyone is not clear on this matter, I think that to do so is wrong. But, again, I think a fair reading of dispensationalism will alleviate those concerns.
As for what I personally believe - I do believe the 1st century Jewish nation, particularly the Jewish rulers, had a role in the death of Jesus, along with the Romans. I think it's hard to make sense of what happened otherwise (why, for example, would only the Romans have cared?).
More than that, I think the Bible portrays the death of Jesus as something that God planned all along (Acts 2.23) and as something that Jesus believed he must do (Matthew 16.21). To use the New Testament as an excuse for anti-Semitism is to completely misunderstand what it says about Jesus and the Jews (cf. Romans 9.6). And while some have done so, others, such as Corrie Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have sacrificed greatly to help Jews based upon their own beliefs about Jesus.
