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Dispensationalism As A Doctrinal Cult
Posted : 13 Jan, 2011 01:17 PM
Dispensationalism As A Doctrinal Cult
http://bible.org/article/character-cults
"Finally, we can attribute the growth of the cults to the failure of the church. As my mentor repeatedly stated, �The cults are the unpaid bills of the church.� The cults thrive because Christians are lacking in biblical and theological understanding. Dr. Martin stated, �The rise of the cults is directly proportional to the fluctuating emphasis which the church has placed on the teachings of biblical doctrine to Christian laymen. To be sure, few pastors, teachers, and evangelists defend adequately their beliefs, but most of them -- and most of the average Christian laymen - are hard put to confront and refute a well-trained cultist of almost any variety.�3 If the church engaged in solid and in-depth Bible teaching, the cults would not flourish as they do today. "
http://www.internetarchaeology.org/www.geocities.com/stat23mj/cultsreligions/intro.html
"Walter Martin in The Kingdom of the Cults, defines a cult as "any religious group which differs significantly in some one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our total culture. "
Norman L. Geisler and Ron Rhodes in When Cultists Ask says, "There are three different dimensions of a cult - doctrinal, sociological, and moral... Keep in mind, though, that not every cult manifests every single trait we discuss" (10). Let us look at the three dimensions and the traits within them. These are how you can identify a cult.
DOCTRINAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A CULT
"There are four characteristics in the doctrinal dimension of a cult. They are: New Revelation, Denial of the Sole Authority of the Bible
New Revelation - Cult's teachings often change and new revelations are needed to justify the changes.
Denial of the Sole Authority of the Bible - In order of the cults to push their idea of new revelation, they need to reject the sole authority of the Bible and put it on the same or in fact lower level as the new revelation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_countercult_movement
In The Rise of the Cults[35] Martin gave the following definition of a cult:
" By cultism we mean the adherence to doctrines which are pointedly contradictory to orthodox Christianity and which yet claim the distinction of either tracing their origin to orthodox sources or of being in essential harmony with those sources. Cultism, in short, is any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith."
http://www.greatcom.org/resources/handbook_of_todaysreligions/01chap02/default.htm
"New Truth
Many cults promote the false idea that God has revealed something special to them. This is usually truth that has never before been reveal�ed and supersedes and contradicts all previous revelations."
Some cults make no claim to new truth or extra‑biblical revelation, but believe they alone have the key to interpreting the mysteries in the Bible. The Scriptures are their only acknowledged source of authority, but they are interpreted unreasonably and in a way different from that of orthodox Christianity."
We can say that dispensationalism is a doctrinal cult because it teaches a Gospel that is different in some ways from the true Gospel of Christ.
I have used other terms - Rapture Cult, Separation Theology, Christian Zionism - to describe dispensationalism because many are not familiar with the word "diospensationalism," and do not know what the theology of "dispensationalism" teaches.
How do we know that dispensationalism is a cult because it teaches a Gospel whicvh is different in some ways from that Gospel taught in Scripture? First, we have to know what the Scriptures teach on the issues for which dispensationalism teaches something different, i.e., on when Christ will appear the second time, who is israel, who is now the chosen people of God and some other issues not often brought up as being a major part of this theology, such as once saved always saved.
Second, we need to know what the people who originally formulated dispensationalism taught, and what so many Church Christians now believe as a result.
Dispensationalism did not begin in the 1830's as a mainstream Christian teaching. It did begin as a "new truth." Why and how it took over mainstream evangelical Christianity is another topic.
Dave MacPhearson in his research on the origins of the rapture theory says the pre-trib rapture began with the visions of Margaret McDonald, a new revelation.
In addition,
Edward Irving, an associate of John Darby, who is given credit as being the father of dispensationalism, read and was influenced by the book, The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty (1790), by Jesuit Manuel or Emmanuel Lacunza, 1731-1801. Lacunza wrote that Jesus will return twice, and on his first return return He "raptures" the Church so they can escape the reign of the "future antichrist." This interpretation of a future Anti-Christ as one man was apparently meant to steer the Protestants away from saying the Pope was the present Anti-Christ." So historically we have the vision revelations of Margaret MacDonald and the book by a jesuit priest as being the sources for the "new truth" of dispensationalism.
The new doctrines of dispensationalism said that Christ will come to rapture the Church off the earth before the tribulation begins, something not taught in mainstream early church history or by the Protestant churches after the Reformation. Dispensationalism also taught, contrary to what was accepted by mainstream early church fathers and Protestants before about 1870, that Jews are now, saved or unsaved, still God's chosen people, and that God has two distinct peoples with whom he deals in different ways, the Jews and the Church. The "Church" would, according to dispensationalism, stand alongside the Jews as "Israel mine inheritance" to God (Isaiah 19:25), although the Jews remain as God's chosen people.
For example, the Reformed traditional teaching was that Christians are Israel, and many Calvinists still teach that, though Calvinism has its own problems in other areas of doctrine. On the site http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/articles/jewsfirst.html
Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr., Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary says ""In the first place, separation theology views Israel and the New
Testament church as two relatively separate peoples of God. This viewpoint has become popular in recent decades through Scofieldian
Dispensationalism, and continues to varying degrees in many contemporary expressions of Dispensationalism. In general, separation
theology radically distinguishes the divine program for ethnic Israel from that of the New Testament church."
Pratt goes on to say that ""It is more accurate to describe the Reformed view on the people of
God as "unity theology." In this outlook, the New Testament church is
one with Israel of the Old Testament. The promises to Israel are not
abrogated, but extended and fulfilled through the salvation of both
Jews and Gentiles in the New Testament community."
"Calvin's interpretation of Paul's statement in Romans 11: 26 that
"all Israel will be saved" points to this strong sense of unity. In
Calvin's view, "all Israel" refers neither to believing Jews alone,
nor to believers within the New Testament church alone. Instead, "all
Israel" denotes the combined number of believing Jews and Gentiles
from both the Old and New Testaments periods.."
Although Calvinism differs from the teachings of very early church fathers in its amillennialism and
its insistence that man cannot reject his predestination by rejecting the offer of grace, what Calvinism
taught about Christians being Israel and that Christ will appear once at the end of the tribulation
were mainstream Christian doctrines until dispensationalism grew to become mainstream. Dispensationalism as a cult introduced teachings into the Gospel of Christ which weree not mainstresm before this theology gained popularity.
Once dispensationalism had become mainstream, it could no longer be viewed as a cult, at least not by most
Church Christians, because they were part of that cult..As a cult dispensationalism introduced new truths, different from Scripture and the mainstream understanding of Christians. The theology tended to pretend that these new truths were in agreement with scripture. Leaders of dispensationalism did not overtly deny the authority of scripture. But their doctrines did contradict verses in scripture which, in effect denied the sole authority of the Bible.
Dispensationalism is subtle in its changes of the Gospel of Christ. But slight changes are more deadly than huge changes in the Gospel, because many Christians who have a little knowledge of Scripture can spot large differences between a man made theology and what the Bible says.
In fact, followers of dispensationalism often refuse to examine their beliefs which differ from scripture by lining these beliefs up against what scripture teaches.
Changing the focus of discussion on a forum from how scripture differs from the pre-trib rapture of the Church to a focus on how wrong it is to call dispensationalism the "Rapture Cult" is such an attempt to steer the focus away from the disagreement between their theology and scripture on this issue.
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