Theological WI: No Dispensationalism

I just finished reading Will Catholics be Left Behind?, which is a Roman Catholic critique of dispensationalism and pre-millenialism (the Rapture, the Antichrist, etc). It has furnished a lot of interesting information on the origins of these movements.

WI Darby never founded the Plymouth Brethren and/or never published the Scofield Reference Bible? Or that both of these remained obscure? How might this socio-cultural WI affect the world?
 
This is HUGE... and I'm surprised this thread has been ignored for so long. Whether Christian or not, Catholic, liberal Protestant, or Evangelical, you have to admit the influence of John Darby and dispensationalism on the political and religious worlds has been sensational. In the early 20th century, it contributed passively by driving fundamentalist Christians OUT of politics. Up until the mid-1920's Protestants were very active in American politics, working to abolish slavery and bring in Prohibition. They were still running on the gas of postmillenial postivism and/or the social gospel. In the fallout of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, conservatives left the mainline denominations and retreated to the ghetto of independent seperatism. Dispensationalism had been gaining in popularity due to the Scofield Bible. First it gained popularity in the Episcopal church, then spread to Presbyterianism, and finally it made a permanent home in the Baptist Churches. The negativity of dispensational eschatology (things are just going to keep getting worse until Jesus returns) and the teaching of the imminence of Christ's return gave conservative Christians (who in the past would try to reform society) an excuse to sit back and watch the world go to hell. In the late 20th century, dispensationalism began to work actively by encouraging Christians to engage in political behaviors that might speed up the end times. Falwell, Robertson, and even Reagan began to support Israel with a religious zeal. Environmental issues didn't matter, because this world would be transformed soon anyway. Instead of working constructively to find common ground with Catholics, secular agnostics, labor unions, etc. (as Protestants might have done 100 years previous), Evangelicals got trapped in an "us vs. them" culture war.
It's interesting, John Darby, the father of dispensationalism, gave up a career as a lawyer because he felt the practice of law to be inconsistant with his beliefs. If he had somehow reconciled his beliefs with the legal profession, what a difference that would have made!
I would love to see someone start a timeline of a world sans dispensationalism.
 
Thanks for raising this one from the dead.

About Protestants, I was under the impression they were divided on the slavery issue and were all Protestants in line with Prohibition? I know that evangelicals like Billy Sunday were and there undercurrents of anti-Catholicism (rants about drunken Irish and the like).
 
Hm... my family background is heavily evangelical, so this would be interesting. I wouldn't exist, most def, but that's the least of the changes... this would be really different, but I'm not sure how. A TL would be amazing if researched well.
 
I think that early Fundamentalism's tendency to go out of politics could have been as well combined with either Amillenialism and Historic-Premillennialism.
 
I think that early Fundamentalism's tendency to go out of politics could have been as well combined with either Amillenialism and Historic-Premillennialism.

Yes, but would those necessarily cause this to happen in the same way?

The fatalistic belief things are going to get worse anyway is a much bigger driver towards political apathy than either "Jesus could return at any time with no warning and immediate judge everyone" (amillenialism) or "Jesus could return at any time with no warning and set up a kingdom on Earth" (historical premill).
 
Yes, but would those necessarily cause this to happen in the same way?
Of course not.

OK, lets assume that no Dispensationalism leads to early Fundamentalism that's more willing to fight. Will that mean that instead of founding new Universities, Seminaries and etc. Fundamentalists (and Evangelicals) will try (And succeed?) to stay in old institutions?
 
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