but to take God at his word
all these triumphant I am I am the
warrior God who has conquered all things
and they all belong to me not not in the
future but now I'm getting all excited
here man there you all right welcome
back to eschatology matters I'm Josh
Howard and today I'm joined uh by Dr
Daniel Hummel from uh UW Madison So
Daniel thank you so much for joining us
and welcome to eschatology matters
pleasure to be here
um so Daniel you've got a book coming
out and I want to get right down to it
um without a whole lot of chit chat or
introductory matter because it's I'm
really interested in this and and the
title of the book Alone
um I I I'll let you say whether you came
up with this or this is a joint effort
but the title is just so interesting to
me title of the book coming out in May
is the rise and fall of
dispensationalism and then subtitle how
the Evangelical battle over the end
times shaped a nation which that title I
just just wonderful because it's so
interesting to me but but tell me a
little bit about how did this how did
this topic come up and and what was it
about this topic that engaged you how
did this come about how did this project
start
um for you and and where are you writing
from there um in Madison
yeah um well good to be with you Josh uh
to answer the last one first I am
working at a Christian study center at
the UWE Madison it's called Upper House
um you can go on our website and see
sort of our uh what we're all about uh
we're also part of a a larger Consortium
of Christian study centers there's about
40 of us and we're all across the
country at different usually large
public or you know ivy league type
universities just trying to be
um salt and light on on those campuses
um so that's where uh that's where I'm
writing from right now and most of the
book I wrote when I was working here
um I can't take full credit for the
title I had parts of the title uh the
rise and fall part I knew that from the
beginning the subtitle was me working
with erdman's my publisher
um there's a lot of the the sort of how
the blank made something happen in large
scale in the U.S is a very popular
subtitle right now so I we sort of
worked with that template
um as we talk I quibble a little with
parts of the subtitle because I'm a
pretty precise person and so I I don't
want to overstate anything in the book
but
um but yeah the book is uh
um a history of dispensationalism which
I think most your viewers listeners uh
will get a general sense of what that is
but I'm a historian by training I got my
PhD in religious and intellectual
history and so I'm coming at
dispensationalism
less from a theological
um or theologian's perspective less
trying to evaluate whether it's true or
not
um though uh I can talk about that if
you want and we're trying to understand
how it emerged as an ism as a system of
beliefs and teachings that ended up
shaping a huge swath of American
Christianity for a very long time for
almost a century I'd say and uh and then
also how that system of beliefs has
fallen on hard times when I talked about
the fall of dispensationalism I don't
mean it's disappeared at all there's
many dispensationalists
um still active and many uh sort of
popular versions that are very active as
well but I do see a decline in its
academic credibility within the
Evangelical fundamentalist world and uh
and the sort of story of major questions
and critiques Landing particularly in
the second half of the 20th century that
allow me to talk about a fall of this
sensationalism from a more sort of
scholarly approach to one that's really
dominated Now by popular culture and um
and things like the Left Behind series
okay no that's that's super helpful and
I'm glad you phrased it that way and so
carefully right so like um because rise
and fall that was one of the things that
just first caught my attention I think
it's going to catch a lot of people's
attention is what does he mean by Rise
but but more importantly probably what
does he mean by Fall is he saying this
thing's gone away so we can get into
that a little bit um now I see that you
you've previously written kind of in
this in this General realm I think you
had a book called Covenant Brothers is
that correct that's right yeah that was
on Evangelical uh Jewish relations or
something of that nature yeah that was a
history of Christian Zionism sort of a
similar topic that um intersects with
this sensation but it's different also
and that was uh that was actually my
dissertation here at UW-Madison and I
was in a very archival heavy uh study I
went to Israel I learned Hebrew enough
to be able to read Israeli documents in
the in their sort of government archives
to try to understand the origins of how
American and actually anglo-american
evangelicals got really interested in
supporting Israel and then actually
linking up with the government there to
create what we call today the Christian
Zionist movement so dispensationalism is
is in the mix there
um though it's a much bigger phenomenon
than just dispensationalists doing that
type of Christian Zionist uh activism
um so this is a project that actually
came out of some of the thinking I was
doing during my dissertation on that
project but this one is a little broader
and and definitely a bigger sweep of
time starting all the way back with you
know John Nelson Darby in the 1830s and
then going all the way up to the present
right so now you mentioned the first
study coming from
um coming you know kind of from your
doctoral research and this is you know
something that that kind of came from
that is this current work um the rise
and fall of dispensationalism what's the
what's the general audience for this is
this more of like a academic historical
work is this you know lay level like
who's what what could the reader expect
from the store a sort of study
yeah I definitely wrote it with a
broader audience in mind than just
Scholars of dispensationalism or
eschatology or anything like that
um the chat I mean there's really sort
of simple ways that I did that which are
shorter chapters pictures other things
to make it just a more interesting book
but I was also really trying to think
about terminology about making sure I
mean as as you know when you talk about
eschatology even that word is often uh
something you have to unpack for Lay
readers but there's so many other long
words you know dispensational
pre-millennialism is a seven-syllable
just mouthful
um so uh so I did try to write I don't
have any illusions that this is going to
be um you know something you could just
pick up without any background knowledge
on any of this stuff I don't even think
the title would really lend itself to
someone who had no idea um what
dispensationalism was but
um but it is intended to have a broader
readership I really tried to elevate
some of the characters people from Darby
up to people like Schofield in the early
20th century and then maybe some people
that are less well known own outside of
more academic circles people like Lewis
Ferry chafer who founded Dallas Seminary
and others and then I also really tried
to connect the academic scholarly story
which is very interesting and is
actually the part that probably is the
least covered by other Scholars that I
write about and connect that to the more
popular culture manifestations of of
dispensationalism everything from you
know best sellers in the late 19th
century like Jesus is coming which was
one of the first popularizations by a
guy named William Blackstone to how
Lindsay's likely planet Earth in the
1970s to you know the the sort of
schlock uh apocalyptic movies in the
1970s To the Left Behind novels and
stuff like that okay and that and that
kind of gets to one of the things that I
was going to ask you and I'm glad you
went that way with it because so you're
talking about a a rather large swath of
what you're including within
dispensationalism I was going to ask you
as a follow-up and I still will is is
just what your definition kind of your
working parameters for dispensationalism
is because I know typically within
within any Circle some people will you
know they will they will ascribe that
label to themselves and then yet they'll
hear others describing that label to
themselves and they say whoa I'm not
with that guy that's not part of our
group and that sort of thing so like
what were your kind of parameters for
including dispensational thought because
you know as you mentioned you have
especially in decades past you had a lot
of guys that were doing a lot of writing
a lot of Articles even that were coming
out from dispensational circles but then
you also had a lot of Bargain Bin you
know Christian basement type type
material so speak a little bit about
that for us
yeah and this is a uh I'm gonna be
annoying and be a historian in part of
this which is to say that um part of
this changes over time and I know that
can be very frustrating to people who
really see these you know terms like
dispensationalism or covenantalist or or
other related terms as sort of trans
historical sort of fixed in a universal
categories but as a historian I I mean
one important thing to note is the term
dispensationalism
uh doesn't actually come about until
1927. so it's a very late uh term like
if you did the Oxford dictionary
etymology of the term and it actually
comes about by a Critic uh who is trying
to identify a modern heresy that critic
is Philip Morrow a reformed Theologian
of the early 20th century and so he is
the originator of the term um and so
that to me already as a historian I
think all right so this term is
um sort of thrust Upon A group of people
and they do end up taking ownership of
it uh famously or probably not famously
outside of certain circles uh Lewisberry
chafer the founder of Dallas Seminary
writes a very long essay in 1936 in his
own uh Journal bibiotheca Sacra
um and he says fine I'm going to be
called a dispensationalist and so that's
1936 so when we talk about John Nelson
Darby or Scofield who dies in 1921 these
people would never have responded to the
term dispensationalism and so that is
part of my definition is trying to
understand what is at stake when people
call themselves dismissals or not now
beyond that there are sort of uh tried
and true doctrines that I see as sort of
inherently dispensationalist the most
important goes all the way back to Darby
and it is a uh what I've called a sort
of dualism at the heart of how he reads
the Bible and understands the world and
that dualism is between uh Heaven and
Earth and then sort of the two peoples
of God that uh represent those two which
would be for the Earth the Jewish people
or Israel and for heaven uh the church
and that uh it can get confusing because
Darby is not a literalist in way later
dismissalists are so he does not derive
that reading from a
quote literal hermeneutic of the Bible
he has so that's like an a priori view
he's bringing to the text but uh later
dispensations pick it up and and read a
literalist hermeneutic around it I would
say for dispensationalists after the
1920s that literalist hermeneutic is
very very important to what it means to
be a dispensationalist
um and and certainly that's that's one
of the areas of terrain that that a lot
of discussion is over there's also a few
other doctrines that are um
dispensational or at least are are sort
of uh uh consequences of a
dispensational theology but may not be
about the end times in particular so one
of them is around we could call
soteriology
um around what does it mean to be saved
and this comes out later in the 20th
century around sort of the lordship of
Salvation controversy and
dispensationalists tend to have a very
uh sort of low view of the barrier to be
saved it's often called the free Grace
tradition
and this isn't explicitly taught by
Darby or Schofield but it actually
Scofield gets there pretty closely but
it's a consequence of the way they see
the Contra the contrast between law and
Grace and and how they sort of see that
salvation needs to be a purely sort of
uh Grace oriented act and so even a
mental Ascent that's another thing that
view is called as a mental Ascent
salvation even a mental Ascent to uh the
Lord or to Jesus as your savior can save
you this becomes very controversial in
the 80s around John McArthur who sort of
is bridging some of these camps but it's
a distinctly dispensationalist view on
salvation uh at least in the in the
American church and then one other area
that um is is important for
dispensationalism is ecclesiology or
what it means to be uh what who is the
church and what what are its boundaries
and what is its Mission and
um this is where Darby would be
different from later dispensationalists
so Darby was the founder of the Plymouth
Brethren a group that basically said you
need to dissociate from every existing
denomination and uh and there's should
not be a professional clergy class
that's a distinctive of the Brethren and
and he was very frustrated he was
spreading his teachings in the US in the
1870s and 80s he was frustrated that the
Americans who picked up his eschatology
did not pick up his ecclesiology and so
the most famous popularizer of Darby was
a presbyterian Minister named James
Brooks in St Louis Brooks was a lifelong
Presbyterian and never even contemplated
leaving and this was a huge problem for
someone like Darby and if you look on
later dispensationalist uh people who
actually call themselves
dispensationalists and constructed the
theology their ecclesiology is a lot
different than Darby's they tend to be
you know more fundamentalist and and
there are definitely like separation
measures of Separation but there's
plenty of dispensations who are southern
Baptists who are
um certain strands of Presbyterian and
others at least historically the
reformed Episcopal church had a lot of
dispensational sense so
um so that's another distinctive and so
with each of these as you can tell I'm
not coming down on like a precise
definition because it is of debate in
the in the historical record of what
actually a true dispensationalist view
on some of these things is I would say
you know some of the end time stuff
everyone agrees on but on a lot of the
the Border stuff that's actually the fun
of the story is understanding how do
certain things become dispensationalists
and others not no that's fascinating
that that no that's really helpful so so
let me let me ask another clarifying
question and and essentially what I
wanted to ask is and and I'll Define
what I mean but but who are your
conversation partners then when you were
working through this material and and
what I mean by that just just so our
viewers understand is um so you're
talking about again you're looking at
this historically right so yours is not
primarily and correct me if I'm wrong
here but a theological argument on is
this true biblically but more so you
know what does this look like in the
historical record how does this rise and
fall um to take off the title there but
um but then how do you choose
conversation partners and then what
conversation Partners did you find in
this material in other words like are
you looking at primary sources from
these figures you've just mentioned and
are you looking to lay level material or
popular level rather material like what
does that look like
yeah that's a great question and as a
historian my main conversation partners
are other historians so there's been a
lot written on the history of
dispensationalism
um and some of the main you know people
that your uh your audience might know
are people like George Marsden or Mark
Knoll these are very sort of prominent
historians in the field of American
religious history and um and there's a
lot of other historians in there too
um and and there's a certain
interpretation of what dispensationalism
is how it came about and then sort of
how influential it's been that exists in
that literature and I agree with some of
it disagree with other of it and so I've
if you look at my footnotes and I have a
really long bibliography at the end
um a sort of essay I want to I want to
sort of narrate what I was reading
um you'll see that most of its
historians uh in that in that vein and
so there's I I interact with historians
who are
um dispensationalists so there is a
small body of literature written by
dispensationalists about their own
history
um and then uh many historians who
aren't but who are trying to understand
it on its terms
um I do have my own views so I uh I grew
up in this world in a dispensational
household many of my parents many of my
family including my parents would I I
don't ask them this regularly but I
think they still Define themselves as
dispensationalists my dad went to Dallas
Seminary I was a missionary kid
um so I I know the world and I really
respect a lot of people in that world
and so I this isn't trying to sort of be
a hit piece or anything and I don't
actually ascribe to it myself anymore I
would probably land as a historic
premillennialist at this point
um and even that distinction you
probably you know your audience knows
this that's actually a really important
distinction to most people at a place
like UW or even in other parts of church
it's all sounds like it's very similar
uh together and so understanding those
divisions is actually part of what I was
hoping to do in the book is really show
like what's at stake when people Define
themselves in a certain eschatological
category not I do end with um a short my
epilogue talks about a few people that
um I don't know if I'd go all the way
with them but I talk about NT Wright and
um and Richard Middleton who's another
Theologian sort of doing more what they
call biblical eschatology but something
where if if we're talking about sort of
one of the major defining features of
dispensationalism is it's understanding
that the kingdom is entirely in the
future right and that so many things
flow from that reality
um I land on something where it's an
already not yet the kingdom is here
we're working you know for you know
Kingdom work and I find those
particularly right and Middleton as
helpful
um sort of theologians or I guess writes
a historian
um who are sort of giving
saying things I would say too in that
space okay I got you no that's that's
super helpful and and if I'm hearing you
correctly then because I know you said
you you'd framed this from a historian's
perspective right like you're not
writing a theological piece and I really
appreciate you saying it's not a
theological hit piece
um because because most of us if we are
not dispensational have friends or
family who are who we wouldn't
necessarily want to place outside
Christian Orthodoxy right so that's
right that's really helpful to note but
if I'm hearing you correctly then this
is something that even somebody without
theological lenses on like maybe even
somebody without you know from without
Christianity from outside of
Christianity rather would still find
valuable is that is that a fair
interpretation then that's the Hope um I
did go with erdman's so erdman's is a
Christian press and um people probably
know when they pick up an Urban's book
that's going to be written by a
Christian
um but I I would think but um yeah I
wrote it um sort of in dialogue with
those other historians many of whom are
Christians but are writing for
um a broader audience and wanting to I
mean that's sort of where that sub title
comes from two is wanting to sort of
show how this theology that scene that
for many people might seem entirely uh
sort of exotic or unfamiliar has had
really important uh effects on American
society and that's a story that
Christians need to hear but that many
other people need to hear as well so
yeah so what you were just saying right
there so I I pulled this from the book
description on Amazon so forgive me um
but it says it says that
dispensationalism is described as quote
and again these may not be your words
but you know what I pulled off Amazon
that it evaluates evangelicalism's most
resilient and contentious popular
theology unquote
um and I was just again the the easy
answer is going to be for you to tell me
to to grab the book when it comes out
and explore what that means and stuff
but could you give just like a little
insight into that because I think for a
lot of Christians coming into hearing
something about dispensationalism and I
suspect for a lot of people that will
grab this book and want to want to read
this historical
um account they're already familiar with
dispensational because for many
evangelicals especially that's kind of
the water in which you swim right you're
the fish in the water it's all around
and for many evangelicals it was
discovering it even had a name before
even grappling with the theology behind
it so could you walk into that just a
little bit how how did this thing come
to be again I know that's probably a
significant portion of your book but
just how this thing came to be the water
in which evangelicals swim
yeah yeah and that is um a big you know
big story
um it grows in popularity uh largely in
the 1870s and 80s and there's a lot of
reasons for that that I won't get into
now but uh the the sort of particularly
the eschatology this the idea that
um there's an there's an imminent
Rapture that will soon happen by soon
it's any moment any moment it could
happen that there was then a seven year
tribulation that has a certain
um sort of unfolding and then there is
the the second coming that will lead
into the millennial Kingdom that type of
teaching uh really grabs hold in about
150 years ago 120 years ago people like
Dwight Moody who was sort of the Billy
Graham of his era
um adopted this though he probably
didn't uh he was sort of a
um he was a not a theologian we should
say so he wouldn't have defined it in
the exactly the same way but he taught
the Rapture in his sermons and and other
things and really the that's up to the
1910s 1920s Moody dies in 1899. there's
a whole network of round Moody that
really sees
um they wouldn't call themselves
dispensationalists they see this as part
of what Evangelical theology is at the
time what conservative
bible-believing Evangelical theology is
and um that that becomes even more so in
the 1920s when we have the
fundamentalist modernist split and so
you have all of the sort of
conservatives or fundamentalists
breaking off from their denominations
um and many of those are
dispensationalists but many of them are
not and so people uh when you get all
the conservatives together and they
start sort of hashing out what does it
mean to be a fundamentalist this becomes
a huge point of debate and you can even
see people like Jay aggression Nation
the famous Presbyterian fundamentalist
he is concerned about what he calls
chiliism or premillennialism he wasn't
defining it um as precisely as we would
now
um and he said you know we will work
with those people even if we have sort
of fundamental disagreements with their
eschatology their sound on these other
things so we're good with them and that
works for a little while but by the
1930s 1940s there is this deep riff
that's emerging in the fundamentalist
World between dispensationalists and
covenantalists
um and this is something I think a lot
of people take those terms for granted
now and they've been around for a few
Generations but that division would have
made no sense to the original
fundamentalists
um they did not divide themselves along
those particular lines and those lines
come out in the 1930s 1940s each side
builds their own seminaries their own
journals their own publishing houses
that in part are intended to create the
dispensationalists sort of camp and the
reformed or covenantalist Camp within
the broader Evangelical world and these
camps I mean they have bigger fish to
fry than each other but as you know the
saying that sometimes the bloodiest Wars
or Civil Wars
um there's also a lot of animosity and a
lot of sort of question of where's the
fate of evangelicalism going to go and
so I read a lot of then some possibly
familiar history of the later 20th
century through that the rise of the Neo
evangelicals who have a particular
non-dismensationalist eschatology if you
look at Carl Henry's famous book The
uneasy conscience of modern
fundamentalism there's a lot of
eschatology in that book that people
sort of gloss over and then you can read
the rise of the Christian right and and
the rise of dominion Theology and other
things through this lens of sort of
debating about what dispensationalism is
at the same time during this whole
period dispensations was very healthy
has its own seminaries many churches are
run by pastors who are
dispensationalists and so there's a
whole subculture I grew up in it that
assumed this was just the way that you
know the proper reading of the Bible
happened it was quite
um you know interesting to learn as I
was growing up that there were other
people who were also called themselves
bible-believing Christians who did not
think the same things about a lot of
this stuff and that's
um uh that can be you know you can you
can respond to that in different ways I
responded to it by trying to understand
you know why other people would also say
that without sort of taking a definitive
side at that at that point
um but I think you know as you get into
the 80s 90s 2000s I think it's harder
and harder if you think about sort of
just some of the pop theological
movements
um the growth of the sort of
neo-reformed movement the growth of the
emerging Church
um or that sort of came and went I guess
um these things are very important to
Evangelical Christianity but aren't
dispensationalists in any way so there's
a lot of Christians out there who would
be conservative and sort of if you're
just going to lump people into big
categories like that are going to be
conservative on a lot of theology but
would differ from dispensationalism and
that to me is some of the most
interesting stuff to explore is how does
that happen and um and ultimately sort
of what are the consequences of that uh
for how we understand the church today
so I I wonder and and that was again
very helpful I I wonder just hearing
your walk through and and you know kind
of scanning over the decades and even
centuries here and looking at that
um I wonder how much pushback you've
heard from dispensational circles or
maybe even that you got to interact with
in the book and in the research that
would debate especially like a start
that that locates it within John Nelson
Darby and then the reason I'm asking is
because I would come more from a
theological Camp than a history you know
I'm not a trained historian right so so
I have heard defenses of um you know
maybe even tracing roots of
dispensationalism to the Reformation or
maybe even trying to to trace them back
to the apostolic times in some form or
fashion but I would say typically what
I've encountered in this this is just
subjective but I think typically what
I've encountered have come from within
theological circles and from people I
respect but disagree with have you
encountered a lot of that pushback
specifically within your approach as a
historian to the material
yeah definitely definitely get the push
back get the sort of quizzical looks and
questions about
um uh about that and part of that is
um uh me sort of going coming critically
to some of the some of the dispensations
own histories of itself and seeing them
sort of as not I frankly just uh not
convincing about
um sort of creating these these sort of
histories of who is a dispensationalist
some of them you know quote a very
specious uh quote by Augustine to sort
of enlist him as a dispensationalist
um he was a he was a he was sort of a
pre-millennialist in his early career he
he was not
um after that but
um uh yes I run into that a lot I mean
part of this is trying to understand a
particular
um social or intellectual movement and
seeing how so much of it flows through
the Brethren and the influence it's not
so one thing I would say to to sort of
throw a bone to the uh dispensations I
don't try to explain everything John
Nelson Darby he uh he is definitely an
important person because he led a
movement but there are many people
around RB that become sort of household
names in American circles that are
probably as important uh as as Darby two
of them would be William Kelly who was
Darby's uh sort of uh editor
um and a very strong Theologian in his
own right he's another Brethren and then
a guy named CH McIntosh who uh was a
more of a a popular writer Darby is not
a fun person to read I don't know if
anyone in your audience has read Darby
he is he is very difficult he never
redrafted anything so um you get you get
the first version of everything
um he also has you know 19 million words
in print which is just unbelievable to
think about how many words that is and
um so he was very prodigious but he was
not clear and he admitted this um uh
often and he said I rely on people
around me to sort of simplify what I'm
writing but Macintosh was more of a
devotional writer he he wrote
commentaries
um but also sort of popular stuff he was
probably much more important to
spreading some of the core ideas of what
became dispensationalism then was Darby
but I think it's very hard to
um sort of tell the story of of sort of
intellectual influence or institutional
uh continuity
um much earlier than the 1830s I don't
know who I mean you can look to other
pre-millennialist movements
um but they're not going to be teaching
anything close to what becomes
dispensationalism at least how I read it
so I I also don't I mean this is where I
try to be humble on my own commitments I
also don't think
um I don't think many Protestants I mean
this is a Protestant issue in a lot of
ways like all of us have to sort of find
a a sort of provenance for what we're
for what we believe is is sort of the
Orthodox historic Christian faith and I
don't know if anyone has a corner on
that I think there's debates that you
can have about a lot of different views
and scripture sort of theological views
and exactly when did they come about I
think I would go with um to sort of not
to sort of not judge anyone I go with
actually with something
dispensationalists often have said which
is just because something comes about
later does not make it false necessarily
and um I don't I did not try to go in
that's been one version of sort of hit
pieces on dispensationalism is to try to
say oh this is so recent how could it be
true
um how could you know how could
something that is less than 200 years
old
um be sort of the true way I'm agnostic
on that point I do think there are
issues and I bring them up
um through the sources there's pretty
strong critiques of some of the Theology
of dispensationalism and sort of does
that actually reflect the biblical text
or does it really hold together
um but ultimately on the historical
question
um I do you know I do ultimately rooted
in in the 1830s 1820s
um but I don't see that as necessarily A
disqualifier for its validity either no
that's super helpful yeah no that's
super helpful and I think that is a
pushback that most of us have heard
um with dispensationalism is is the
primary critique oftentimes times being
leveled at its kind of historical
newness let me ask you one question
because I do want to be respectful of
your time but one question and and you
addressed it at the beginning so I think
it'd be good to address this toward the
end as well is uh when you speak about
the rise and the fall and I know you
kind of nuanced that phrase fall but
what is your take just kind of in a
nutshell on the current state and
trajectory of dispensationalism
specifically within within the United
States where we are yeah yeah and that's
where I think fall is is a good metaphor
for me
um so I would say
um there was sort of a high point of
dispensationalism and its influence in
we can call it just American
evangelicalism right around 1960 to 1970
like that decade was pretty good you had
a very preeminent crop of Scholars John
wildler Charles ryrie Dwight Pentecost
others at Dallas others Alva McLean at
graves Seminary writing very important
big books and and really training a ton
of of pastors and others to carry on the
tradition I think since then it's been a
pretty steady story of academic decline
there's very few seminaries that teach
classic dispensationalism in their
curriculum there are some they are they
tend to be less well resourced and not
you know what's considered like the
mainstream of Evangelical uh seminaries
even Dallas Seminary I mean they they do
have some classic dispensations they're
also the the sort of origin point of
progressive dispensationalism which is a
later development in the 80s and 90s
that
um is still dispensations in some ways
in other ways it is quite different from
what came before and you see this
because those people I mentioned like
Riri and walvard were very concerned
when Progressive dispensationalism
emerged and they actually said you
shouldn't call this dispensationalism
it's it's too different and it's
different on on certain technical things
it's also different on sort of blurring
the dualism that I said was sort of at
the heart of a lot of this
um and so you know part of the Fall is
that I don't know I mean they're out
there but I don't know many sort of um
distinguished Scholars under the age of
50 who are dispensationalists and that's
a very worrying sign if you're just
looking at like a social movement you
really need to be producing you know
young scholars who are looking to
advance that school of thought
um there just aren't that many if you
just you know surveyed
um all of the Southern Baptist
seminaries and all of the sort of
non-denomination Evangelical seminaries
you find very few Die Hard
dispensationalists
um where you would find them is in the
popular culture Arena which I know for
many sort of um Bible reading
dissensationalists are people who
shouldn't even be associated with them
but they are sort of uh in some ways
representing the name in in more ways
than
um and then those than any Scholars
would be and there there's still a very
vibrant dispensationalist sort of Pop
Culture industry
um there are books that come out uh
every year every month probably there
are moves I think there's another left
behind by the way uh coming out soon to
a theater near you probably
um and I mean that'll be like the you
know the third movie version of that um
of that IP
um and so there is some popularity there
and there are definitely uh sort of lay
level
devotionals and commentaries and other
things
um but uh many of them are are for older
people frankly and many of them are
written by people who aren't
credentialed in the way that you'd hope
a lot of the theology is written by
people who are really deep into the
literature and other things so the fall
there I I look at the fall in part just
in in that way and another way is that I
think for a lot of the for sort of the
fathers of dispensationalism going all
the way back to Darby and Scofield and
others I think they'd be quite
disappointed with the fate of
dispensationalism as this sort of
popular theology
um and one that is really reduced in a
lot of ways to its end time scenario and
is not sort of a full-blown system of
theology which is at its best uh
dispensationalism had something to say
about almost every part of theology but
but over and I tell the story in this in
the sort of the last third of the book
over the last 50 years or so it's really
been thinned out by its popularizers and
it's it's it's sort of scholarly
apparatus has really declined as well
okay now that's super helpful well thank
you again for uh jumping on here um
again the books title and I'm going to
read it to make sure I get it correct
the rise and fall of dispensationalism
how the Evangelical battle over the end
times shaped a nation May of 23 if I'm
reading it correctly Star Wars Day May
4th Star Wars day man I hope you
selected that date on purpose I did I
did not but I'm I'm thinking about the
Death Star and apocalypse and seeing if
something can can come from that so
that's fast that's fantastic Dr Daniel
Hummel thank you so much for joining us
I appreciate your time sir it's been a
pleasure all right
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