I won’t elaborate on this: Dispensationalism: What and Why Not. It might be a little long, but you can also grab a PDF version of the same paper to read later. It will show you that we are closer to the Lutheran position on such things. That doesn’t mean Lutherans would accept us with open arms, but they certainly handle this one issue pretty well.
(Hat tip and thanks to Bruce.)
The wedge issue has always been Dispensational eschatology.
I came to full religious awareness while living in Anchorage, Alaska. It was about the time I turned twelve years old. My family was attending a particular Baptist church where the pastor wasn’t pushy about anything at all. Internal church politics kept him in place because he was just a figurehead; he didn’t interfere with those who had influence and an agenda. It was a relatively large church, so it was ripe for strong figures who wanted to spread their propaganda. They didn’t just show up randomly; I know for certain some of those big shots had influenced other movers and shakers to move their membership there.
One of those strong figures was a doctrinaire Scandinavian import who more than once got the church to allow him to set up displays in the fellowship hall. It was on particular evenings when the membership gathered for a fellowship meal or other festive occasion. One of those evenings he placed a large collection of posters, banners and printed pamphlets about Dispensationalism. That term wasn’t what stuck in my mind at the time; it was the phrase “End Times.”
This was the late 1960s when stuff like that was news to a lot of Baptists. I distinctly recall the initial mixed reception among the adults with whom I had any social contact. Among those with a positive reaction, it was very positive, urging me to take a copy of the most graphically illustrated pamphlet and study it. The whole thing became an on-going discussion among church members kicked off by that display.
I wasn’t aware of national politics, much less international relations, until later in high school when I was at risk for the Vietnam War draft. I don’t recall at all any kind of connection between that talk of End Times at church and the issue of Israel, but somehow I got the message. I was a full blown supporter of Zionism, insofar as I knew anything at all about it. Yet it remained in my mind two separate things for the longest time. Thus, I slowly moved away from Dispensationalism long before I realized it meant I had no reason to favor Israel politically.
Eventually, having moved a safe distance away from all of that, I was exposed to a critical review of the religious literature that promoted this stuff. I recall devouring Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth along with a couple of later books in that series. I recall how it all seemed so real. I knew nothing of the author and his shenanigans until much later. Virtually nothing in his books ever came true, and it was part of a longstanding genre of similar literature that rested entirely on trying to fit current events into some wild speculative doctrines. It wasn’t a question of whether Lindsey believed any of that stuff; I was disturbed by the underlying cynicism of hooking my generation so he could become a millionaire. Maybe it was just instinct for him, but it remains one of the best examples of marketing manipulation in American history.
Having studied the roots of this whole Dispensational nonsense, I am struck by one consistent factor across the entire range of major figures promoting it: Every one of them had an ulterior motive. There was not a single “true believer” willing to sacrifice for the sake of conviction, except at the lower levels. The leadership of this thing have always had their eye on something else, and this was their big tool.
Worse, there has always been a background of secret dealings behind Dispensational theology. During those years when I was seriously trying to break into the pastoral ministry, particularly among Baptists, there remained a strong conspiratorial element of things I was warned not to discuss with average members of the flock. This particular ethic was consistently stronger around the issue of Dispensationalism. We cultivated influential volunteers to spout the orthodox line, tossing out brief lectures at every Bible study or class meeting, but it was never more critical than with the orthodoxy of Dispensational belief. That’s because it was so fragile and so easily countered. It had to be maintained at all cost, and that cost was quite high.
Dispenational theology is not a reflection of genuine faith conviction. It doesn’t feed you in quiet moments and keep you strong. It presumes an adversarial stance because the resistance is so natural. Not natural from our fallen nature, but a natural resistance because it’s so freaking insane in the first place. There’s no room for “live and let live” on this issue; it doesn’t sell itself. But it can provoke a ravenous hunger once it is pushed just a little ways among less mature souls. Dispensationalist doctrine remains one of the single biggest draws in youth ministry. Teenagers, or those who tend to operate on a juvenile level of enthusiasm, eat this up. It’s been that way since I can recall. It’s cool secret stuff that beckons with a promise of answering everything logically. It does not lend itself to calm reflection; it’s always attached to energetic urges to “do something.”
This is what keeps so many churches from contemplative religious experience.
Sifting through my personal memories of various religious controversies, I see some distinct mile markers, break points where things changed forever after in my soul. I’m trying to match them with wider events recorded in American Church History.
One of the things that still bothers me to this day in my time at Oklahoma Baptist University was the complete failure of the professors to grasp the allure of fundamentalism. They came across as arrogant because they engaged in the smart-aleck rhetoric of attacking instead of offering any measure of sympathy for how that intellectual certitude felt so safe against the storm of uncertainty. Those professors lost the debate because they took the debate seriously, instead of shepherding and mentoring the students who felt pulled in both directions.
The fundamentalist influence in my time there at OBU was a groundswell among students drawing on outside influences. It offered a strong personal interaction, a sense of camaraderie that won over many of us. The whole scene was strange enough with a serious and sometimes secretive difference between the folks inside the college and all those people out there in Oklahoma supporting “their Baptist university.” Students who bought into the liberalism of the faculty were warned to be very careful what they said out among the churches. Those of us who tried to expose what we saw as a betrayal, of taking big money under false pretenses, were often silenced by very real threats against our academic standing. We students experienced it as a very elitist snobbery.
So the whole thing remained a matter of politics, and no one seemed to understand the real personal dynamic behind it all. There was nothing redemptive in the whole mess, with but a few exceptions. In later years, it was those few exceptions that made all the difference in the world to me.
One was the oddest thing of all: A proto-fundamentalist who was anti-Zionist, an elderly lady who had been there and established well before anyone else in the Religion-Philosophy Department of the school (Dr. Rowena Strickland). They couldn’t get rid of her, but did keep her at the bottom of the totem pole. Gaining her degree during the 1930s, she had watched the Zionist takeover of American evangelicals unfold, and recounted enough of it for me to remember later. The other was a genuinely pastoral man who was caught in a bind, forced to associate with the neo-orthodox without actually being one of them, but also clearly not a fundamentalist (Dr. Robert Clarke). He was awfully busy, but a heart-led man and it unlocked a door in my soul I would later walk through.
In retrospect, it’s a wonder the system didn’t crush the both of them. Meanwhile, the neo-orthodox theology of that day faded away, dying from a thousand cuts. The real debate is the one that slipped in the back door when fundamentalists arose early in the previous century. Almost the whole thing rested on the Scofield Bible, the primary means of transmitting Zionism to American Christians. Scofield was financially sponsored by an early Zionist agent, Untermeyer, whose influence and money bought the soul of America. Thus, there is a sense in which fundamentalist Protestant Christianity was pretty much created as the front for insinuating Zionism into American politics. By the time I attended OBU, the die had been cast and everything was tainted by this ugly conspiracy. The debate itself between neo-orthodoxy versus fundamentalism was conjured as a means to manipulate and grab everyone’s attention away from what really mattered.
Neo-orthodoxy is a term that describes a relatively liberal position. It’s as liberal as one can get and still be allowed to stay in an essentially fundamentalist denomination. It’s an attempt to create a “new orthodoxy” (neo-orthodox), alleged to come from more accurate research into the Bible and how it was formed. When you trace it out, the position is simply agnosticism with a pretense of not wanting to throw out the baby with the bathwater of primitive religion. It’s plain old communist social theory with a less threatening aura, the modern day Sadducees.
Fundamentalism is just another branch of Pharisaism.
While the underlying dispute is still there, recent generations of American Christians hardly pay much attention to the debates the ruled my world. The manifestations of the old battle have different faces and different topics, but they are still the same false debate designed to keep folks focused on the wrong questions.
We who share in the Radix Fidem covenant say that churches have gotten lost.
Instead of trying to fix this world, we believe the most important thing we do is help people to get out of it. The proper way to do this is to live as if we belong to another realm of existence. It restores the world in some measure to its original design prior to the Fall, a sort of return to Eden. The entrance to Eden is guarded by a Flaming Sword of self-death, a judgment against our fallen nature that we must embrace voluntarily. The focal point of that sword, the method if you will, is building a feudal-family relationship with our Creator. A critical element in building that relationship is acting in ways to elevate His reputation, not just as men tend to see such things, but building His reputation in the way He wants it done.
A primary element in shining His glory into this fallen world is to live in such a way as to harvest His blessings, His shalom. If we were to boil down following Christ to its essence, it would be lovingly seeking the Father’s favor by consciously participating in His design. That’s often translated into English is “obeying His Laws.” That’s a very unfortunate translation that carries many false connotations. Our Covenant in Christ is one of adoption as family in His household. We willingly engage His agenda for demonstrating how He meant for us to live in the first place. That’s the life of moral consciousness through the convictions of the heart ruling over the brain.
Sometime shortly after the passing of John, the last living of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus, the church leadership began to drift away from the ancient Hebrew mystical vision I painted above, and relied more and more on intellect and logic. At some point, the leadership was right for plunder. That is, Constantine was able to seduce the Christian leaders into willing bondage under government. Not just due respect for human authority as ordained and steered by God, but these leaders allowed themselves to be suckered into bringing the whole of religion under government management. These leaders believed they were being permitted to have a say in government, to steer government policy to favor Christian living, but it was a lie of the Devil.
Yet here we are today hearing the gospel highly diluted with the alleged dire necessity of helping shape government policy so that sinners are restrained. That was never the mission of Christians. By embracing the Flaming Sword, we have to come to realization that such a mission is utterly impossible in the first place. This world is fallen; it cannot be made unfallen. It is slated for destruction, not redemption. The only thing that can be redeemed is the individual soul. And the only way redemption can be amplified in fellowship and communion with others is to bring to life something this world cannot ever accept: subjection to God as feudal Lord and Father. The fallen world of man cannot even desire such a thing. The can be no such thing as a Christian human government.
So the primary flaw in current mainstream Christian religion, particularly in the US, is having traded the true mission of faith for a distraction that disembowels faith. Yes, we do understand the Law Covenants as manifestations of Biblical Law, but the latter is merely a name we apply to walking in Christ’s footsteps. Jesus is the living Biblical Law, the personification of the Father’s will. Sure, we could help advise human governments on ways to draw closer to the applicable Law Covenant, but we already know from prophetic warnings that they do not and cannot want such a thing. That was a part of what John tried to tell us in his Apocalypse: This world is inherently hostile to the Flaming Sword.
God guides His children as a doting but firm-handed Father. He herds the rest of fallen humanity like cattle, employing Satan as His cattle driver. We are strictly warned not to interfere in human government. In those rare moments, officials may listen to our prophetic word about Biblical Law, but don’t get suckered into thinking the Devil is simply going to let them go. He isn’t God’s enemy, but he’s our Adversary. He wants us in his herd so he can milk us for all we’re worth. Any hint of social and/or political agenda in the church is the work of Satan. Prophetic commentary is one thing; getting involved as if it could make a difference is another thing and wholly wrong. It is idolatry of human intellect, because God has said repeatedly that He’s not going to tell us all that He’s got up His sleeve for human government.
We should expect the broad system of American evangelical Christian religion to collapse because everything that system depends on is going to fall apart. The painted whore has ridden the Beast too long, and it will turn and devour her. A significant part of my calling from God is to watch and chronicle this sad story. It is a prophetic mission that will drive me until I’m in the grave; it’s the job I have to complete before I get to go Home — or at least try.
This is the foundation of this blog; it’s the primary source the drove me to start writing here. Everything else is a by-product of that mission. I still marvel at how many of you have come alongside to join in this work. We have no quarrel with anyone’s Christian religion, but we refuse to give our blessing to something that falls short of what religion is supposed to do: serve as a manifestation of conviction and faith. We belong to a higher realm, the Kingdom of Heaven. We are living invitations for anyone who can be touched by our demonstration of faith and our shalom to join us in seeking membership in the divine family.
This is Radix Fidem, the “root of faith.”
It makes a world of difference when you give to family versus giving to just about anyone else.
I actually like the article on tithing at Wikipedia. It corrects a lot of lies told by greedy clergymen. Nowhere is tithing taught in the New Testament; free will offering was the whole teaching. All this blather about discipline and economics is just cultural Christian Talmudism.
This is entirely a product of the West. In Western mythology, the individual is property of the government. Since we live in the age of the secular state, that’s the government that owns you. Everything else is fiction, a false cover to excuse the most abominable dehumanizing abuse. There is no such thing as a “family household” except as a term of economics and social control. In reality, each discrete human life form is individually property of the state. Keeping a family together is merely a matter of bureaucratic convenience.
The American evangelical church has openly adopted this model, but with an even thicker paint job to make it all sound nice. It splashes a false vision on the wall like the image from a projector. Behind the scenes, the religious leadership looks for ways to enforce the tithe via manipulation. It is no different from political campaign fund-raising. It’s uses are seldom any more moral or sensible than politics.
The whole thing is aimed at creating an institution consistent with the existence of the secular state. Once it gets past some invisible balance point, the mere fact that this thing stands there constitutes a demand to feed it and grow it. The thing continues regardless of who occupies the various offices. It’s about as depersonalized as it can be, and our society calls it “church.”
What would happen to Radix Fidem if Bro. Ed were to die? No, not the name and the blog — what would happen to the thing signified by that name? I think most of you might miss me, however much of me you have in your life. But the thing we are doing together that justifies this effort to organize, however little we have done it, will keep right on going. Some of you will lose it because you never really had it. That’s what happens in real life. Still, those of you who were seized by this move of God’s Spirit will go right on doing the same stuff, growing and discerning new ways to make it live.
I’m betting the forum would continue. It already stands independently of my efforts. There are a handful of folks who are quite capable of leading it and keeping it alive. That was the whole point: to move from this single point of failure called “Ed Hurst” and shift it over to a wider number of people.
But there’s no significant investment in infrastructure or institutional awareness. Instead, it’s more like family, which is what the word “church” is supposed to mean. Our covenant will stand because it never rested on organizational principles artificially instituted to become a non-living entity. If Radix Fidem isn’t first and foremost a covenant family, organic to our sense of human existence, then it was dead from the start.
Our teaching does not state clearly, but obviously presumes you know you belong to God as a feudal household member. That means all your stuff, too. By reflex we should have long gotten used to investing in tools for service, in the same sense that all of Creation is just a tool for our Lord’s glory. It’s a parable: I’m a tool, you’re a tool, everything we can touch is a tool. Granted, people are more complicated than most other kinds of tools, but in the sense of how we direct our resources, it’s all one thing. The resources together are another tool for His glory.
My wife and I recognize Easter as a secular holiday with pagan roots; we still keep Resurrection Sunday separate in our minds. We still do all the silly stuff with eggs, bunnies, pastel colors, etc. In our apartment building is a single mom with four delightful little girls. They don’t suffer from a sense of entitlement, so giving to them is a joy. We have prepared Easter baskets for them just because it’s a great tool for demonstrating the love of God. And we’ve done things to help the mom, to include working on her car and stuff like that. They don’t owe us anything and we aren’t keeping tabs on the cost. It’s just a matter of what we can spare at the time. According to God’s Word, all of that counts as an offering to Him.
The cars, computers, cameras, and all the other stuff your donations help to buy? Those are just tools in Kingdom service. That’s the reason we dare to ask for donations from time to time. You know where the money goes; that’s my minimum duty to you as family members helping each other. I treat the neighbors as family; whether they get any shalom from it is for them to work out with God. I’m in no position to push my teachings on them, but they’ll learn when they ask. I suspect they pick up far more than I could say. You get to be a part of that. Don’t make the mistake of thinking God doesn’t miraculously add that to your shalom, but I’m not a huckster trying to plunder you. I don’t have satellites to launch and real estate to buy, and there’s no political agenda here. I have another kind of legacy I’m trying to build.
All we have is our high positive regard for each other as family, and it’s working exceptionally well already. Keep your money until God tells your heart what to do with it.
Jesus continues the theme of otherworldliness. Here He injects a few notes from the Talmud, where it is predicted that the generation of the Messiah’s coming would see social chaos, a breakdown in the traditional shalom. But it’s more than a quote from the Talmud; it also echoes Micah 7, the likely source of the Talmudic predictions. Thus, Jesus asserts rather forcefully that He is the Messiah, and His coming is meant to uncover the hidden sins of His nation.
So His coming will not bring shalom until He first judges sin by pouring out the Father’s wrath. Don’t look for peace; look for a sword of judgment. Any hostility the disciples face from their own Jewish brethren on their mission would be quite normal, all things considered. The call of repentance back to the Covenant naturally brings turmoil where centuries of corruption have reigned. So even immediate family members will be divided over their varied responses to a restoration of ultimate loyalty to Jehovah. People who take the path of radical penitence will risk being kicked out of their own home.
But the Messiah demands that we put Him first. He is our true Head of Household; He will offer a new covenant of adoption, the fellowship of the Cross. Everyone in His domain will have their own cross of self-sacrifice. In no uncertain terms, it will cost you this life, and likely in the most unpleasant death imaginable. But if you aren’t ready for that sacrifice, you aren’t ready for the Messiah’s reign.
So as they go, the disciples need to remember that they represent His Kingdom. They are His emissaries, and protocol demands they be treated as if He Himself were in their entourage somewhere secretly watching the whole thing. And He in turn represents the Father, Jehovah God. How they treat the preaching teams indicates their loyalty to the Covenant.
There were established practices regarding the reception of a prophet or an innocent passerby. There was a long established practice of offering what is appropriate hospitality to just about everyone you might encounter in life. Even if it’s just a cup of cool water to the most ragged traveler of no reputation at all, there was something required of the host who had a knock on the door. If all he did was observe the ritual demands of the Law, he was safe from wrath. He might not win any awards, but he’s not a hindrance to the gospel of the Messiah.
The disciples were being drawn up into the moral frame of reference. Don’t get hung up on the details as they were taught by the Pharisees and Talmudic scholars, but to see beyond mere legalities. This was a matter of seeking a sense of conviction, and sharing that with others. It was seeing from the heart the essence of God’s Presence in His Creation.
Yesterday was overcast and not quite 70°F (21C), and already the ticks are biting. This is going to be a rough summer for ticks. But it stands to reason I would see them first in a nature preserve like this, where deer are abundant and know they are safe. You can look on any mapping service at OKC; slide west to Lake Overholser and this swampy stand is just north of that lake.
You can reach the main entrance off NW 50th, and the only way in is off Council Road. Right away you see from the parking area this lovely pond (above) and off to your right (north) is this highly improved dirt road. It’s normally closed to motor traffic, but there has been some major flood control work done on it. The surface was recently packed while still somewhat damp, so it was a smooth ride that felt like a couple of miles.
Somewhere short of the first mile the road meets the river. Keep in mind: This is the North Canadian prior to urban contact. It runs across open countryside and through a few small towns, but this is above Overholser and any exposure to urban pollution. It does pass through a couple of reservoirs, but those are out in the plains. The North Canadian River is sourced way up in Des Moines in northeastern New Mexico and runs down through the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Another half-mile along is this spot where the river tried to take a bite out of the road. This first shot is looking downstream. The river smells a whole lot better above OKC. 
Here’s another shot from the same spot looking upstream. I had the place to myself and it was awfully quiet. I could hear just about all the various bird calls you could possibly hear this early in the spring.
It wasn’t nearly as dreary as the images suggest. The road stops suddenly against the woods and some old concrete culvert sections pulled from somewhere. I pushed through the underbrush and thorn vines to where a trail near the highway runs across a ford. Here the water was quite noisy. I wonder if they’ll ever connect this with a bridge of some sort, because there’s another decent road running on the other side of the reservation down toward old US Highway 66.
This is an open field alongside the nature preserve. I heard the golden stalks of grass calling my name, suggesting it would make a nice picture. This grass greens up later in the season. It was a nice visit, but a short ride that wasn’t really worth much. The place just didn’t speak to me very much.
This is the last post in the series. Yesterday’s adventure began not with a parking garage but the tall tower attached to our Children’s Hospital. I tried to capture a panorama, but I found the reflective coating on the windows interfered with that. What I ended up with was this shot of the state capitol area. You can see the scaffolding as the domed building is under renovation. There’s a long story about flawed construction and design not worth repeating here.
This is the atrium of the Children’s Hospital. This is their new building. In times past, this area was a complex of several major hospitals all in one quarter of a square mile, perched atop a hill. It’s now dozens of institutions and lots of new buildings. It includes Oklahoma University’s School of Medicine, something like 40 miles remote from their main campus down in Norman. OU Med owns about half of this hospital cluster, shared with the likes of the VA, McGee Eye Institute, Children’s, and some other stuff.
This is an exterior view of Children’s Hospital showing the tower; it was 14 stories of stairs. A great workout, but I was highly irritated by the complete lack of bicycle parking. I had to find a spot in their visitor parking where I could lock the bike to the railing out the way. There are doctors and other medical personal who ride bikes all over this place, but darned little bicycle parking. Even the VA has this figured out with ample locking space in a special courtyard.
Right on the edge of this hospital district is an old house my family occupied back when I was six years old. We rented the top floor; the topmost window on the left — now boarded over — was my room. Much of the neighborhood is gone, with houses removed to make way for newer structures, and of course, Interstate 235 cuts right through it now.
About a mile west of that hospital cluster is another, based on Saint Anthony’s hospital. Fewer major facilities, but still a lot of expensive medical real estate. I couldn’t access the parking garage mentioned previously in this series; it was for staff only. However, Saint’s has a huge visitor and lesser staff garage just across from their front entrance. I got this shot facing north toward a couple of other medical facilities and some new yuppie housing.
At various times in my youth, we have lived in places all around this part of OKC. Most of those houses are long gone. Right now I can count four different buildings of which only the one above still stands, and that one was old when we lived there 55 years ago. Things change. After the Murrah Building bombing, the Feds built themselves a new and horribly ugly building. I shot this from across a very strange oval that drops down toward the stairs to my right on the other side of a wall. This oval features gravel paths running straight downhill to nothing in particular. On the higher ground surrounding this oval is a bunch of cutesy short benches shaped like stars with seats on both sides. There is a plaza between this odd park-like thing and then the majestic hideous monstrosity for the offices itself. You can see this nasty thing on any of the mapping services online; it’s just north of the Downtown central district.
The bright spot of the day was visiting Brown’s Bakery. It’s high grade stuff. They don’t have their own website, but this Yelp page will do. They occupy what was once a grocery store; I can recall my Mom taking me there with her. Next to it was an attached TG&Y store (general merchandise department store), where I drooled over what was then a still newish trendy toy: Wham-O’s Frisbee. Ah, the memories of long lost childhood.
I wanted to celebrate. Now that Veloyce has a better car for driving back and forth to work, I get to keep the battered old Volvo for myself. I drove out to Draper Lake for a short hike.
Point 8 is one of two portions of the lake area that is under preservation. They saw significant damage back in the days of open off-road vehicle use, so these two areas have a no-wheels policy. To see the shoreline requires hiking or horse-riding. Hiking means walking the horse trails. Whoever is doing the maintenance doesn’t like to cut up huge trees that fall across the old shore trail, but they don’t mind a little light cutting to route around the deadfall.
I started out near the point and walked the horse trail clockwise. The equestrians have kept open a loop that isn’t a long hike, but it felt worth doing. This blossoming tree is not a dogwood, but one that bears a heavenly scent. It’s part of the early spring foliage out here.
While most of the trail was deeply wooded, with lots of scratchy dried underbrush to shred my legs, the eastern side is more open. The soil is sandy with more grasses.
As you can see, it’s still not all that warm. This day was not quite 70°F (21C) and had a pretty cool start, so the bugs weren’t too bad. By the time these grasses turn green, it will be populated with biting flies, chiggers and ticks. Stomping around in the underbrush becomes frankly a health threat in summer.
The point itself isn’t that inspiring. I chatted with a fisherman. The water is still too cold for shallow fishing right now, so he confessed it was more a matter of testing his new rod and reel and practicing his cast. It was short hike and could easily be my last for this season. I’ll wait to see if any more cool days grace this area; the biting insects stay in bed when it’s below 60°F (16C). That would allow me to take a longer hike around Point 12, the other recovery area with a no-wheels policy. It promises are more picturesque ramble.
Rejoice with us! This is Veloyce’s new ride. (That puddle under it was pre-existing.)
This one was the best deal — the most for the money and within our means. We got it from Boomer Kia. The salesman was honest enough and the management didn’t try to play silly games. I don’t mind giving them a plug for doing the right thing.
Now pray with us because it left us with very little reserves to make it through the coming month. This was the only way we could get anything at all worth having. We have faith and will just eat canned food or whatever, but feel free to donate after the fact.
