Right-wing evangelical pundit Charlie Kirk recent joined pro-Trump, anti-mask pastor Jack Hibbs at Calvary Chapel-Chino Hills to talk about something they call “The Global Reset.” As I note below, this conversation is not only filled with half-truths and fearmongering, but...
dispensationalism
What is going on at Cairn University?
This one hits close to home. As I recently discussed in a few episodes of the A History of Evangelicals and Politics podcast, I am a Cairn University graduate. Here is Claudia Lauer of the Associated Press: A small Christian...
The last fundamentalist empire died yesterday in Lynchburg, Virginia
Male authoritarian figures presiding over regional empires were an important part of 20th-century Protestant fundamentalism. I began to think historically about these empires during divinity school when I first read William Trollinger’s book God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern...
Trump says he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem to please evangelicals
Here is The Times of Israel: US President Donald Trump said Monday that his 2017 decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as the capital of Israel was done for evangelical Christians. “And we moved the...
Three Sundays in April (Part 3)
If you had thirty minutes to say something to the most powerful man in the world, what would you say? This is how I started our short series titled “Three Sundays in April.” On April 12, 2020, Donald Trump watched...
Former Fundamentalists Await the Apocalypse
Today a piece by Sarah Jones at New York Magazine caught my attention. Here is a taste of “Apocalypse Now?”: If you think it feels like the end of the world, you’re not alone. There is a pandemic. Donald Trump is...
What Does the Bible Say About the Antichrist?
I spent most of my late teens and early twenties getting schooled in dispensational theology. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out when the rapture would come, the nature of the Great Tribulation, and the signs Antichrist’s...
Jack Van Impe, RIP
When I was in divinity school I used to watch Jack Van Impe’s television show. Van Impe’s wife Rexella (we often referred to her as Jack’s “lovely wife Rexella”) would read a story in the news and then turn to...
The Links Between Mike Pompeo’s Foreign Policy and Christian Zionism
Mike Pompeo has not specifically connected the assassination of Qasem Soleimani with his pro-Israel Christian world view, but, as Nancy LeTourenau notes at The Washington Monthly, there is certainly enough evidence to consider such a connection. Here is a taste of her...
Martin Spence is Associate Professor of History at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is writing for us this weekend at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City. Enjoy his latest post. –JF...
The Evangelical Free Church Drops Premillennialism
When I was a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) between 1989 and 1992, the official position of the sponsoring denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America, was premillennialism. In other words, in order to teach at TEDS or...
The Politics of the “Chosen One”
My daughter was quick to tell me that “Antichrist” was trending on Twitter today. Then I got a call from Emily McFarland Miller, a reporter for Religion News Service, to talk about the meaning of words like “Antichrist” and “Chosen...
Is Donald Trump the Antichrist?
Check out Sarah Jones’s playful piece at New York Magazine in the wake of Trump’s recent “chosen one” comments. So could Trump be the Antichrist? Look, anything is possible. I will tell you what my father once told me. Satan walks about...
The Meaning of Trump’s Israel Comments
The president has been talking about Israel a lot lately. First, there was Trump pressuring Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent two members of Congress from visiting Israel. Then he suggested that Jews who vote for Democratic candidates lack knowledge and are...
Thoughts on Mike Pompeo and Queen Esther
Here is Mike Pompeo talking with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN): [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lZiNeP-6uQ&w=560&h=315] Sarah Pulliam Bailey gets us up to speed at The Washington Post. Read here piece here. Here are some really random thoughts about Pompeo’s remarks: The fact that...
Should a Premillennial Dispensational View of the Bible Disqualify a Person from a Teaching Job at a University?
I was sad to hear of the death of Leo Ribuffo. In 1991 or 1992 I wrote him a letter to ask him he was taking graduate students at George Washington University. He never wrote me back, but I was...
The Author’s Corner with Donald Akenson
Donald Akenson is Douglas Professor of Canadian and Colonial History at Queen’s University. This interview is based on his new book Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby and the Victorian Conquest of North-American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2018). JF: What led you to...
Is Robert Jeffress a “Bigot” for Claiming that Jesus is the Only Way to Heaven?
I wrote this early last week and never got the chance to place it somewhere. Regular readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home will recognize it as a compilation of a couple of blog posts I wrote in...
“The Strategic Implications of American Millennialism”
After reading this post at The Way of Improvement Leads Home, a friend sent me Major Brian L. Stuckert‘s 2008 study of the impact of dispensationalism on American foreign policy. The paper was written as part of Stuckert’s education at...
Why Some Evangelicals Love Israel
I turned my weekend tweetstorm into a piece for Religion News Service. Here is a taste: Because of Trump’s actions, dispensationalists believe the blessing of God will come upon America. The Jerusalem decision reinforces the idea that America is a...