JD: Earlier we were looking to the past and discussing the Christian heritage of our country with Paul Blair. So I’d like for you to consider the present and the future especially with regard to dispensationalism.
DJ: And I think that’s important discussion to have. I would say that we are not necessarily a Christian country but there are certainly Christian underpinnings. But what is interesting is that the early founder were talking about, not the Founding Fathers but going back to the Puritan’s and Pilgrims, they were looking to actually establish a new Jerusalem. So they were not dispensational in their theology even though they had a Christian foundation for the way that they lived and even the way that the country ended up being founded in terms of what we more recently called a Judeo Christian ethnic.
But dispensationalism really didn’t become systemized until
John Darby came along the Plymouth brethren in the 1830s it began to be I would
say recovered because dispensationalism is as old as the New Testament and in
fact as old as the Bible but it was lost over the course over the millennia.
John Darby and others who joined with him began to recover it in about the
1830s.
And actually I would say that Christianity in the United
States beginning in the late 1800s and on through much of the 20th
century was largely dispensational and dispensationalism actually laid the
foundation for the breakaway from what happened to schools like Harvard,
Princeton, the IV league schools. What happened to them is they departed from
the word of God. Men wanted to have a Biblical foundation for church planting,
missions, Christian education. And so it was actually it was largely led by dispensationalist
who first started the Bible institute movement then they established
conservative independent seminaries that were independent for mainline
denominations and out of that came the independent Bible church movement and then
worldwide missions that were largely fueled by dispensationalism. So, it’s really
interesting how this all developed and it’s interesting that we’re talking
about this in light of your discussions with Paul Blair.
JD: David James explaining the statement that America is not a
Christian nation and how we should approach our study of the Bible.
We report this information because it is setting the stage
for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.
Many people say America is a Christian nation. I agree with
David James, it is not a Christian nation. However, it was established based
upon Christian principles. These were Biblical principles from a dispensational
approach of interpreting the word of God. That method of interpretation of the
prophetic passages helps us to understand God’s plan for the future. That plan
at a time that seems to be very quickly approaching.
