See: “Why I Am No Longer a Christian Fundamentalist: Part 1”
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It would be hard to overstate the influence of premillennial dispensationalism in modern America — not only in our churches, but in our nation’s politics and culture.

More than 42 million copies of the Left Behind Christian fiction series by LaHaye/Jenkins have been purchased in the last ten years. More than 28 million copies of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth have been sold since its first run in 1970. Many of the millions of readers of those books are probably unfamiliar with the term “premillennial dispensationalism.” However, those books map out in graphic detail a system of prophetic interpretation that has become a central tenet of Christian fundamentalism.

It is estimated that there are approximately 25 million premillennialists in the United States. Those are not just Christians or evangelicals, but believers who specifically profess a premillennial view of eschatology (study of the end times). A majority of the “evangelical right” are premillennialists, who wield enough influence in U.S. politics that they are credited by some for deciding the outcome of the last presidential election.

MODERN IMPLICATIONS OF PREMILLENNIALISM
Premillennialism has its implications in numerous current political issues:

• Because premillennialists believe the restoration of Israel in 1948 is one of the most important events on the prophetic timeline, premillennial Christians tend to be pro-Zionist and pro-Israel. Leaders in Israel make no effort to conceal their courtship of the evangelical right.

• The premillennial belief that Israel must reclaim its biblical territory and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem significantly impacts the attitude of premillennialists toward the Palestinians.

• Because premillennialists believe the end times will be dominated by “wars and rumors of wars,” a time when peace will be unattainable, they conclude that the pursuit of peace through such efforts as peace talks and disarmament treaties is a waste of time.

• Because premillennialists believe an evil one-world government will arise in the final days, the United Nations and any other attempts at international cooperation look suspect.

• Because the Revelation describes a role for Babylon in the end times, and because ancient Babylon was located in the same region occupied by Iraq today, prophecy figures into premillennialists’ interpretation of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

• Many premillennialists believe the rise of Islam is also prophesied, prompting Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to be vocal in their denunciation of Islam as an evil force in the modern world.

• Environmentalists fear that because premillennialists believe that the end of the world is near, they do not take environmental concerns seriously.

Considering the huge impact premillennial dispensationalism has on the religion and politics of modern America, it is perhaps surprising to learn that the scheme of dispensational interpretation was completely unknown to the Church before the 1800s. Likewise, many if not all details of premillennial eschatology were first conceived in the 1800s. Although neither dispensationalism nor premillennialism are true fundamentals of the Christian faith, it was the Fundamentalist Movement a century ago that propelled premillennialism to its current prominence in the American scene.

NON-FUNDAMENTAL FUNDAMENTALISM
The Fundamentalist Movement arose in the United States in the early 1900s to combat liberalism. In response to evolution, higher criticism and the social gospel – all of which ran counter to a literal interpretation of the Bible – fundamentalists declared that they did take the Bible as literally true. They identified as fundamental doctrines belief in Jesus’ virgin birth, His substitutionary death, His bodily resurrection, and a belief in the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Millions of Christians, including myself, continue to believe in those fundamentals today.

However, fundamentalism soon strayed from its noble beginnings by tacking on many non-fundamentals as every bit as important as the true essentials of the faith. By the 1920s, it was common for fundamentalists to espouse a host of “non-fundamentals” as just as important or even more important than the short list of doctrines which they had originally identified as fundamentals of the faith. That tendency, which I will call “Non-Fundamental Fundamentalism,” continues to this day.

Many secondary doctrines and matters of opinion found their way to the essentials list of the Non-Fundamental Fundamentalists. I will discuss teetotalism, preservation of the white race, and separatism in subsequent articles of this series. In this article, I will discuss two primary non-essentials which early on became intertwined with the very definition of Christian fundamentalism: dispensationalism and premillennialism.

• Dispensationalism is the belief that God has dealt with humanity differently during different ages (e.g., before Christ and after Christ) and with different groups of people (e.g., Jews and Christians). The majority of the original fundamentalists were dispensationalists. C.I. Scofield popularized dispensationalism with the publication of his Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. Clarence Larkin’s immodestly titled book, The Greatest Book on Dispensational Truth in the World, much beloved by dispensationalists to this day and featuring Larkin’s hand-drawn dispensational charts, was published in 1918.

Many Protestants today are dispensationalists by default, unaware that there are other ways to interpret God’s word. The primary alternative to dispensationalism in Protestant churches is covenant theology. However, the choice between dispensationalism and covenant theology is certainly not a fundamental of the faith. There are genuine Christians among the adherents of both schools of interpretation. Dispensationalism is not a fundamental.

• Premillennial eschatology: Closely connected to dispensationalism is premillenialism, the belief that Bible prophecy provides a detailed literal description of end-time events, including a rapture of the saints, a horrific period of tribulation, the Second Coming of Christ, and a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth.

Many excellent Bible scholars are dispensationalists and/or premillennialists, while many equally excellent Bible scholars hold to other systems of interpretation. However, the vast majority of original fundamentalists were premillennial dispensationalists. As a result, both premillennialism and dispensationalism became distinguishing characteristics of the Fundamentalist Movement.

WHAT I BELIEVE
Personally, I am not a dispensationalist. I was taught dispensationalism as a young Christian, but it was my study of Romans that convinced me otherwise. When I read Paul’s argument on behalf of salvation by faith rather than works by explaining that Abraham was saved the same way we are, by his faith, it opened my eyes to a non-dispensational view.

As for eschatology, I lean in favor of premillennialism. I favor the most literal interpretation of a Scriptural text that is reasonable considering the context. That approach points me to premillennialism. However, especially regarding Bible prophecy, there is little room for dogmatism. Anybody with any sense should admit that Bible prophecy is a complicated study that should be approached with humility. In modern times, Christians have put a premillennial spin on everything from the United Nations (established 1945), to the election of the first Catholic president (John F. Kennedy, 1960), to the cold-war Soviet Union (until its dissolution in 1991) to the villain Saddam Hussein (until his capture and arrest in 2003). None of those entities, to cite just a few examples, have turned out to be what prophecy students thought they would be.

As Jesus instructed, we should be alert to the signs of the times. At the same time, however, we should accept that Christ may very well delay his return for another one thousand years or more. In the meantime, it has never been more important that we maintain our Christian witness of love and peace in a sinful, violent world, and that we be the best stewards that we can of all that God has entrusted to us. What is the value of being a Christian nation, if we allow our eschatology to excuse us from conducting ourselves as Christians in our interactions with the rest of the world?

Despite the predominance of dispensationalism and premillenialism among evangelicals for the last century, those doctrines certainly are not “fundamentals of the faith.” The problem with Non-Fundamental Fundamentalism is that it distorts what true fundamentalism was all about: identifying and upholding the core beliefs that form the very foundation of our faith. Yes, there are some foundational truths about which we dare not compromise. To elevate non-essentials to that place of central importance compromises the value of the true fundamentals.

No better statement of the spirit of true fundamentalism has been offered than that of Augustine, who lived many centuries before the Fundamentalist Movement. He wrote, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, but in all things love.” Those are especially wise words for our times.

Because I am not a dispensationalist, because I am not a dogmatic premillennialist, because I do not believe those views are essentials of Christianity, and because I believe we should be especially cautious about allowing premillennialism to dictate our public policy, I am no longer a Christian fundamentalist. I will explain other reasons for my rejection of the “fundamentalist” label in Part 3 of this series.

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See: “Why I Am No Longer a Christian Fundamentalist: Part 1”

See: Part 3: “Prohibition: Precepts of Men Are Not Fundamentals”