Darby devised a system of interpreting the bible that showed the actions of God to be understandable through current events. It was a scheme in which he explained God’s hidden plans for the world. He also offered specific guidance as to how those plans would be fulfilled in the future.
He focussed particularly on the Second Coming and offered guidance to Christians to discern the signs of the times. Before the Kingdom of God can be realised Darby taught that the following must occur:
1. The nation of Israel must be re-established.
2. The Jews must return to the holy land and become the occupiers of the land.
3.The Jewish temple on mount Zion must be rebuilt and temple sacrifices re-established.
Once these had happened Darby then predicted that Jesus would return and hover over the earth. Born again Christians would fly up and meet him in the air. (He called this the rapture).
The doctrine of a secret rapture was first conceived by Darby in 1827. Darby invented the doctrine claiming there were not one, but two "second comings." This teaching was immediately challenged as unbiblical by other members of the Plymouth Brethren. Samuel P. Tregelles, a noted biblical scholar, rejected Darby's new interpretation as the "height of speculative nonsense". So tenuous was Darby's rapture theory that he had lingering doubts about it as late as 1843. However, this theory has survived and flourished.
As a result of the rapture all nonbelievers, liberal Christians and Catholics will be left behind. 144,000 Jews converted to Christianity will oppose the evil hosts of the anti-Christ. The 144,000 will also evangelise those left behind. There will be a climactic battle of Armageddon and at the end of the seven years of the tribulation Jesus will return and establish his kingdom in the millennium! (His 2nd Second Coming!)
There is more — but this summary gives a flavour of Darby’s dispensationalist fantasy. I spent three years studying theology at postgraduate University level and never heard of these crackpot ideas. The worrying thing is that Darby’s ideas are taken seriously as the rationale behind Christian Zionism.
Darby’s predictions of the end times excited dispensationalists in 1948 when the state of Israel was founded! One writer, Hal Lindsey, predicted the Second Coming would be within 40 years but revised his theory after 1998!
These beliefs cannot just be rejected out of hand because they form a very popular and influential stream of thought in American Evangelical Christianity. The influence comes through Darby’s own “Schofield Reference Bible” and the “Left Behind” series of books of popular Christian fiction. The “Schofield” bible aims to explain the bible to the lay reader in simple terms but the underlying philosophy is dispensationalism. The “Left Behind” books have sold more than 60 million copies in the US and more than 700 million world-wide. This fiction brainwashes readers in the theology of Darby’s dispensationalism by the Christian Right. In an entertaining manner readers are led to believe that what they are reading is in line with the bible and particularly the Book of Revelation.
President Reagan’s secretary of the interior James Watt was a dispensationist. He allowed drilling for oil in national parks and overturned environmental protection policies because he believed the days of the earth were numbered. Reagan took the advice from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson seriously and built up the US military for the coming battle of Armageddon.
George W. Bush has these same men as his spiritual advisors and his reference to an “Axis of Evil” makes one wonder if he too is thinking of a coming Armageddon.
The “Left Behind” books portray the United Nations as an instrument of the antichrist who is trying to frustrate the will of God. If the war in Iraq was seen as the beginning of the struggle leading up to the rapture and Armageddon then it is easy to see why the concerns of the UN were so lightly brushed off.
The US policy towards Israel and Palestine has been moulded dangerously by dispensationalists. Christian Zionists in Washington have pressurised politicians to minimise the rights of Palestinians and accept Sharon’s expansionist policies. They believe the Jews alone should possess the land. The end times cannot happen until this takes place. Jews are rightly suspicious of Christian Zionists as they only see the state of Israel as a means to creating the rapture. In aiming for the target of 144,000 converted Jews they have made Jews targets for proselytising. Jews who do not convert will be destroyed in the Second Coming.
The theology of the followers of John Darby will set Jews against Arabs, generate a war with Islam (which is now what they predict Armageddon will be about) and lead to the destruction of Israel. Dispensationalists believe in a bloody world in which few are saved. Mainstream evangelicals on this side of the Atlantic believe in a God who loves Palestinians as much as Jews and who wants Justice for all. Christian Zionist followers of Darby are a dangerous obstacle in the road map to peace that most people of good will want for the Middle East. It seems to me that we must be aware of the influences of dispensationalism and other heresies permeating our churches from American evangelical sources and be ready to challenge them.
(this article was originally published in the December 2005 edition of the Fellowship of the Kingdom Bulletin)
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