POLI 347 Chapter Notes - Chapter MILLER: John Nelson Darby, Scofield Reference Bible, Dispensationalist Theology
19 Dec 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Evangelicals, Israel and US Foreign Policy By Paul D. Miller
• John Kerry worked for months, successfully, to restart peace talks between Israel
and the Palestinian Authority.
• Officials from both parties treat Israel as a major concern in US foreign policy, and
candidates from both sides, but especially the Republican Party, have been voicing
their support for the country as a matter of course for decades.
• This baffles international observers: Israel, it seems, should hardly be among the
most pressing concerns to Americans struggling with a weak economy and deeply
divided over immigration, gun control and gay marriage. Even among foreign-
policy concerns, it can be hard to understand why Israel merits more attention than
the Arab Spring, the rise of China or the stability of Pakistan.
o American Jews do not appear to be Israel’s strongest supporters
• the American constituency most supportive of Israel is not Jews but fundamentalist
and evangelical Christians.
• The religious beliefs of evangelicals and fundamentalists are a driving force in the
Republican Party’s stance on US foreign policy towards Israel.
• religious belief tends to be inflexible
The Origins of Dispensationalism
• For most of their history, Christians have believed that God’s promises to Israel in
the Old Testament should be understood figuratively.
• Dispensationalism, a school of theology that gradually arose by the early nineteenth
century, eventually introduced the idea of Israel’s unique significance into Christian
circles, especially American evangelicalism and fundamentalism.
• Dispensationalism had roots in the Reformation but only came into focus in the
teaching of an Irish preacher named John Nelson Darby (1800–82).
o Darby and his dispensationalist descendants argued that, throughout history,
God had related to humanity through several distinct ‘dispensations’ of grace.
• In the book, God promises, at various points, to bless Abraham, give him offspring,
make him the father of many nations, bless all peoples through him and, quite
explicitly, give him a specific piece of land.
• After Israel was established in 1948, dispensationalists understood the event to be a
fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and the new state to bear God’s special favour.
The Rise of Dispensationalism in America
• Dispensationalism only became a mainstream phenomenon, with tens of millions of
followers, in the twentieth century through two authors and one event.
o The first author was Cyrus Scofield, an American Presbyterian theologian,
whose Scofield Reference Bible was first published in 1909.
• taught generations of laymen and preachers to read their Bibles through a
dispensationalist framework
o The second author is Hal Lindsey, a Christian writer and conservative
commentator.
