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Dispensationalist Thomas Ice On The New Culture In the American Church
Posted : 3 Oct, 2013 03:49 AM
Dispensationalist Thomas Ice On The New Culture In the American Church
An Evaluation of Theonomic Neopostmillennialism, Bibliotheca Sacra, 145 no 579 Jl-S 1988, p 281-300, 1988, Thomas D.Ice, Pastor Oak Hill Bible Church , Austin, Texas.
In 1988 Ice says: "Today Christians are witnessing "the most rapid cultural realignment in history." (1) One Christian writer describes the last 25 years as "The Great Rebellion, " which has resulted in a whole new culture replacing the more traditional Christian-influenced American culture.(2) Is the light flickering and about to go out ? Is this a part of the further development of the apostasy that many premillennialists say is taught in the Bible ? Or is this "post-Christian " culture one of the periodic visitations of a judgment/salvation (4) which is furthering the coming of a postmillennial kingdom? "
1. Marilyn Ferguson , The Aquarian Conspiracy (Los Angeles, J Ρ Tarcher, 1980) , ρ 23
2. Bernard Pyron, The Great Rebellion (Waco,TX Rebound Publications, 1985). "Pyron notes that he has found 50 traits to describe the New Culture , all under the umbrella of the unifying emphasis on the narcissistic self."
3. "Schlossberg notes the changes in today's culture by collecting a long list of "post"descriptives , concluding that society is "post-Puritan, post-Protestant and post-Christian." (Herbert Schlossberg , Idols for Destruction [Nashville Thomas Nelson Publishers , 1983] , ρ 1 )
4. Chilton says, "The eschatology of dominion is [not ] a doctrine of protection against national judgment and desolation. To the contrary, the eschatology of dominion is a guarantee of judgment. It teaches that world history is judgment, a series of judgments leading up to the Final Judgment " (David Chilton , Paradise Restored: An Eschatology of Dominion, [Tyler, TX, Reconstruction Press , 1985] , ρ 220 ) "North distinguishes between 'judgment unto restoration and judgment unto destruction" (Gary North , Unholy Spirits, Occultism and New Age Humanism [Fort Worth Dominion Press , 1986] , ρ 373 ). "For a more complete discussion of this view see Herbert Bowsher, "Will Christ Return 'At Any Moment'? " Journal of Christian Reconstruction 7 (Winter 1981 ) 48-60.".
A new culture did arise in the United States and in the Western world during the period of the counterculture. The counterculture started in about 1962 with the drug movement under Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ken Kesey, with the hippie movement being recognized by the media in about 1966, and on to the women's liberation, homosexuality, lesbian, new age occult, self psychology and other allied transformational movements in the era of 1962 to 1975 or so. This new culture was not limited to young somewhat more educated middle class people but soon spread to the larger population. Remember a whole generation was called the "Me Generation."
The II Timothy 3: 4-8 church, which is said to love pleasure more than God, to deny the power of godliness, that is, to have lost its spiritual power, to not be able to come to the knowledge of the truth and to resist the truth, in part came out of this new culture. Remember that II Timothy 3: 1-2 says that in the last days when perilous times shall come people will be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful and unholy. As dispensationalist Ice says, this new culture operates under "...the umbrella of the unifying emphasis on the narcissistic self."
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." I John 2: 15-16.
The II Timothy 3 church Christians did not immediately go running around having serial sexual relationships as did the people of the counterculture. Nor did they immediately start to smoke pot. But the II Timothy church people did absorb many of the cultural traits of the Me Generation.
And - a fundamental shift in the way of thinking happened along with all these transformational movements within the counterculture. This was a shift from the way of thinking of the didactic to the dialectic, that is, from a firm belief that there are absolute truths in scripture and absolute morals to a belief in compromise, to arriving at "truth" and morality by group consensus. The dialectic mind set does not accept absolute truth as in scripture or absolute morality. For example, it took a period of time for the homosexual and lesbian movements beginning in about 1970 to being in state laws legalizing same sex marriage, something whose foundation was laid by this shift in thinking from the absolute to the relative.
This shift from the absolute to the relative, or to the dialectic mind, diminishes faith, which is seen in the II Timothy 3 church today. They profess to have faith but do not love the truth of the Bible and do not regard "it is written" as absolute truth, as facts.
Who is Thomas D. Ice? He wrote "Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture Did Not Begin with Margaret Macdonald."
Ice says: "Did the key elements of the doctrine of the pretribulational rapture originate with a young Scottish girl named Margaret Macdonald, as advocated by another �Mac��Dave MacPherson? This is the thesis put forth in a number of publications for over 15 years by MacPherson, a newsman turned rapture researcher. MacPherson�s major book The Great Rapture Hoax1 is one in a series of revisions of his original discourse The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin.2"
Going on, dispensationalist Ice says "Dave MacPherson is convinced �that the popular Pre-Trib Rapture teaching of today was really instigated by a teenager in Scotland who lived in the early 1800�s.�3 �If Christians had known [this] all along,� bemoans MacPherson concerning the historical beginnings of the pretribulational rapture, �the state of Christianity could have been vastly different today.�4 He thinks this ignorance has been due not merely to a historical oversight, but rather to a well-orchestrated �cover-up"......"
So, Ice is trying to overthrow Fearless Dave MacPhearson's work on the dispensationalist rapture theory having an origin with Margaret Macdonald, to protect dispensationmalism. MacPhearson points out that Ice ignores the fact that no eminent church historian of the 1800's said that John Darby was the first to propose a pre-tribulation rapture theory of the dispensationalist church. Instead, the earlier historiains all give credit to Edward Irving as having been the first to talk about the pre-trib rapture and they acknowledge Margaret Macdonald's contribiution to the theory.
Ice also wrote "What is Dispensationalism?" and "History of the Rapture, Update."
On History of the Rapture, Update Ice says "Recently even more possible pre-Darby (J. N. Darby 1800�1882), pre-trib rapture statements are being brought forward by friend and foe alike. It appears that non-pretribulationist Francis X. Gumerlock will be presenting a possible pre-trib rapture find from the Apocalypse of Elijah in the October 2013 issue of Bibliotheca Sacra,[2] which is a scholarly journal from Dallas Theological Seminary. As new finds are discovered, evangelicals are gradually becoming aware that pretribulationism has a much broader history than its articulations over the last two hundred years, notes Gumerlock. This article presents another example of teaching similar to pretribulationism in a document from the early church called the Apocalypse of Elijah."
Dispensationalists have made several claims that Christian authorities earlier than John Darby taught that there will be a pre-tribulation rapture, claims that turn out to be false or ambiguous when the sources they cite are studied.
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