The Scofield Conspiracy: It's Wild, Bro. Enter at Your Own Risk.

The origins of the Scofield Study Bible and its financiers will lead to a new appreciation for conspiracy theories.

“Riady. That’s all I’m going to tell you. Look at Riady.” Click.

The night I got that phone call was my first night down a rabbit hole so deep that I almost never climbed out. That’s the sketchy thing about rabbit holes. You don’t know how far they go.

Admittedly, this is one of my longer articles (despite being only Part 1 of 2), but it’s an important one. If necessary, ready in chunks but try to finish the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

RABIT HOLES GO DEEP

The phone call was cryptic. The voice on the other end knew who I was, knew I was tracing political dark money in evangelicalism, and told me that “Riady” was the missing piece I was looking for, before cutting the call short.

I knew the name Riady, but had I not been such a political nerd in high school, I wouldn’t have. James Riady was Bill Clinton’s wealthy Indonesian financier, who had helped bundle campaign cash from South Korea. He was an associate of Web Hubbell of Little Rock, who himself had been sullied in Hillary Clinton’s White Water Scandal. But why - twenty years later - did I care about James Riady?

About twelve hours and at least as many Red Bulls later, I was writing an “I am not going to commit su!cide” email to my closest associates and closing my Macbook Pro after piecing together a scheme to subvert American Reformed evangelicalism. With bloodshot eyes and nerves twitching like a rabbit nose on a trail of carrots, I drew a brief sketch on my armory wall of the connections between very powerful globalists and left-leaning forces to some of the most well-respected Reformed institutions in America (like a mad man).

I sometimes chuckle at the thought of the new home owners finding that wall with conspiracy scribbles. I can only imagine.

Riady had been kicked out of the U.S. for successfully interfering in the U.S. election process with copious amounts of foreign cash. And now, he was funneling money back to Westminister Philadelphia, The Gospel Coalition, and Ligon Duncan (and that was the tip of the iceberg) in exchange for promoting the tenets of Social Justice.

For the record, I wasn’t afraid that Ligon Duncan was going to send a hitman after me. I was afraid that Hillary Clinton would. An explanation for that - and what I discovered was (then) her ongoing activities with Riady domestically - I’ll leave for another time. But it’s no wonder I was suffering sleep issues, for which I thought Xanax was the cure.

My point is, rabbit holes like this next one can make a sane man go insane, and I want to caution you to be very careful with it. If you’ve ever spent time in a crazy asylum doing ministry, as I have, you’ll understand that extended periods in such environments are not conducive to your own mental health. Crazy can be a social contagion.

Be careful when down in rabbit holes. They can get you, and you may not come back.

PRE-MILLENNIAL DISPENSATIONALISM

As a matter of public disclosure, I hold to Historic Pre-millennialism. So if you perceive bias, that’s accurate. Historic pre-millennialists believe that Christ’s return will happen pre his literal thousand year reign on Earth.

The reason this is called “Historic Premillennialism” is, unsurprisingly, because it’s historic. As best we can tell, this was the largely the consensus of the earliest church history we can find.

Amillennialism goes back to approximately the fifth century, and usually Augustine or Origen are credited with its development. Amillennialism has the prefix a - which means no in Latin - and holds that there is no literal millennium. When Jesus returns, he will find the world very much as it is now, with no great prophetic events having unfolded as a prerequisite to his return.

Post-Millennialism is the belief that the millennial reign (which they often refer to as the “Kingdom of God”) is happening right now (the thousand year part is symbolic metaphor), and Christ’s return will occur post his metaphoric millennial reign which will end with great success, affluence, peace, and prosperity in a thoroughly Christianized world. There’s really no indication that anyone substantially important held this view until the 17th Century, probably beginning (notably) with the Savoy Declaration in 1658.

The first world war largely dampened the optimistic post-millennial notion that the world is getting better, and post-millennialism began to wane as a result of the historic events that seemed quite pessimistic.

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By the time the first world war had snuffed the energy out of optimistic Post-Millennialism (and while Historic Pre-Millennialism and Amillennialism had both already waned in popularity), another new eschatology had already started to develop in its infancy.

COVENANT THEOLOGY

All three of the previous eschatological views worked within the framework of Covenant Theology. Let me explain that briefly:

Covenant Theology holds that God deals with man redemptively according to two over-arching covenants; the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Works promises life and blessing to flawlessly uphold God’s law (do good = be rewarded). Ultimately, the Covenant of Works brings only death, because no mere mortal can fulfill its requirements.

But on the other hand, the Covenant of Grace promises eternal life based upon the one person who upheld all of God’s righteous standards on our behalf, who is Christ. Entering the Covenant of Grace, and leaving the Covenant of Works, is done through faith in Jesus.

This framework holds that no one has ever been saved under the Covenant of Works, and that the Old Testament believers - despite living before Christ - were saved by believing in the promises of the coming Messiah that was prophesied to them.

Presbyterian Covenant Theologians believe that Old Testament Israel was the church, and the church is New Testament Israel. Baptist Covenant Theologians (holding to what is called 1689 Federalism) believe differently only slightly, denying that Old Testament Israel was the church, but agreeing that the church is New Testament Israel.

Whether you like that or not, that was the only view the church held from the First Century through the 19th Century.

What then did Christians, holding to Covenant Theology for 1800 years, do with prophecies concerning Israel? That’s a mixed bag, and there was lots of variance. Post-millennialists believe very few, if any End Times prophecies refer to the genetic lineage directly traceable to Abraham (except for those that apply Jews who have become Christians). Historic Premillennialists believe certain End Times prophecies do refer to Abraham’s genetic descendants, but those of a redemptive nature refer mostly to believers in Jesus.

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This may seem bewildering to those raised in modern churches. But the rewrite of Pierre Kartner’s secular song and its popular use in children’s churches refers to the Covenantal View of redemption:

“Father Abraham, had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you, so let’s just praise the Lord.”

Covenant Theologians would hold that Romans 9, which explains that some who are physically descended from Abraham don’t belong to him (like Ishmael and Esau), but others who did not physically descend from him are actually his spiritual children, portray this perspective.

…For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (Romans 9:6-8)

Or, for example, Peter’s reference to Christians with all of the titles God had previously given Jews in the Old Testament.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

There are many other examples. Paul refers to believing Gentiles as “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). He refers to the Galatian Gentiles as the “sons of promise” (Galatians 4:28), which is clearly a reference to Isaac. Gentile believers have become the “sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7).

Believing Gentiles are “grafted in” to the tree of Israel (Romans 11:11). Curiously, Paul says in this same verse that unbelieving Jews are branches that have “broken off.”

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree… (Romans 11:11).

That verse follows up with an exhortation for Gentile believers to not mistreat unbelieving Jews (vs 12) and that our hope is that one day they might be grafted back into the tree of Israel (vs 20).

Imagine that! Believing Gentiles are partakers with Israel, and unbelieving Jews are not. Should they convert, they can be grafted back into us, and that should be our hope.

THE HISTORIC CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE JEWS

Paul’s warning in Romans 11:12, that Christians should not mistreat unbelieving Jews, went largely unheeded by many. There is no shortage of examples that can be given of Christian leaders who did, in fact, have a special antipathy for non-believing Jews.

Augustine, like most of the patristic fathers, likened the Jews to Cain who - although cursed - were under divine protection. But make no mistake, they likened the Jews to Cain and not to Seth, the son of promise. Augustine explained, “[The Scripture says] ‘but whosoever shall kill Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.’ That is, It is not as you say, not by bodily death shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish.”

This was the position of Christians throughout most of history. The Jews were now under a curse (as Paul says in Galatians 3:10-14), but like Cain, they are under divine protection. Or at the very least, a Christian needs to think twice about mistreating them.

The view of Jews as both cursed and protected, did not imply that Christians believed Jews couldn’t be impugned for any number of sins, or be instituted justice for crimes. They simply believed that to mistreat a Jew unfairly was to tempt God to punish back.

As Jews and Christians grew further and further apart thanks to the Jewish diaspora in the First Century (their scattering from Palestine) and Christianization of Gentiles around the world, Christians less and less believed that Jews had divine protection.

By the time of Luther’s day in the Reformation, the relationship between the two groups was practically hostile. Largely, this was due to so much time passing, and Jews, over the years, being at the center of so many different controversies that painted them in the light of low moral character. As Talmudic (or Rabbinic) Judaism grew into something that would have been unrecognizable to the Jews of the Old Testament, they adopted certain moral or ethical standards that angered Christians who - by comparison - ethical standards far more similar to the ancient Israelites.

From Egypt to Spain to France to England, to even being banned from migrating south during the Civil War by Ulysses S. Grant, the same historic problems seemed to have repeated over and again. Usually, the complaint toward Jews was related to financial predation and commandeering political power that was disproportionate to their population. They did not, by the nineteenth century, have a good reputation anywhere in the world and almost always for the same, consistent reasons.

It is possible that in each and every place Jews were historically exiled, it was simply a Satanic plot to persecute people upon whom God looks favorably. But that’s not a conspiracy theory that had any supporters among Christians much before the 20th Century.

ZIONISM

When you hear the term “Zionism,” it might conjure notions of antisemitic conspiracy theories and White Supremacists shouting the term into the dark ethos. But that term, and that idea, is actually a historically valid and not-at-all antisemitic term invented for use by Jews who wanted a majority-Jewish state somewhere in the world, and preferably Palestine.

And that’s what the word means; those who want a majority-Jewish state somewhere in the world. Obviously today, it refers to the Nation of Israel, established in 1948.

In the chaos that ensued in World War I, Jews were desperate to find a nation where they had not already outworn their welcome. The nations soon to be a part of the Allied Powers certainly did not condone Jewish migration to their countries (especially Great Britain), and many found a home in the most Jewish-friendly nation on Earth, Germany. A Jewish hub soon grew around Berlin, where they climbed into positions of political power, as they had done historically in other nations.

Theodore Herzl is considered the father of Zionism, and he is called by Israelis, “Chozeh HaMedinah,” or “Visionary of the State.” His argument, which he published first in an address to Baron Edmond de Rothschild and later called, Der Judenstaat or “The Jewish State,” claimed that the best solution for Jews who wanted a homeland in a world that had grown sick of Jews, was to establish a state in either Palestine or Argentina. Rothschild (a Jew), at first, rejected the plea on the grounds that Jews had already become quite wealthy and powerful in the various nations where they sojourned.

Herzl kept pitching the idea, however, and in 1897 he was elected to lead the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and pushed the concept as far as he could. It would require, however, the world’s religions to sign on to the scheme. This was largely because various Christian groups held financial and territorial stakes in the Promised Land, in order to protect and preserve the Holy Land sites. Not to mention, it would take a great deal of money.

Herzl’s appeals to the papacy through Pope Pious X did not go well, with Pious presuming that it was yet another scheme to defraud Catholic believers and hand over sacred sites to “those who might sell them, and then lend us usury” with the proceeds. His appeal to Pious lasted about twenty-five minutes, and as Herzl tells it, ended when he refused to kiss the Pope’s hand and Pious frowned and shoved a pinch of chewing tobacco in his lip.

The Pope’s response to Herzl was illustrative of the response the entire Christian world would have given to Zionism during this era. It wasn’t until Churchill saw the appeal of colonialism in the venture, and its propagandic uses to entice Americans to enter the Second World War, that established political or religious figures would get behind the plan to send Jews back to the Promised Land.

But that hasn’t stopped some from rewriting history. I ran across this from the Jerusalem Post today:

This, of course, is utter poppycock. No Christian denominations, anywhere on Earth during any century, felt it was the Christian obligation to help the Jews “prosper” and send them back to Canaan. It is a wild, almost punch-drunk revision to claim that Christian denominations “looked upon the Jews as the Chosen People.” From a historical perspective, this is total and complete balderdash.

As I explained above, the Covenantal view of redemption held by virtually all Christians up until the 19th Century, would have rejected the outright characterization of Jews as the current chosen people. They might have agreed that Jews were the chosen people, but they would have vehemently denied the claim in the present tense. And virtually no Christian had posited the suggestion it was a Christian duty to help Jews reclaim the Promised Land.

BUT THEN, ALONG CAME SCOFIELD

I’m fast-forwarding for the sake of this article’s conclusion (which will come tomorrow in Part II). We’ll also have to deal with John Darby, and the Jewish elite who funded the development of the Scofield Bible.

If Christians could only change their perspective on “the chosen people” and unwrap eighteen-hundred-and-fifty years of doctrinal understanding on the current place of the Jews in God’s salvific economy, then the Christian world could unite with the European Zionist movement and carve out a place for Jewish habitation in Palestine.

But how could that happen? How could Christians around the world get on board with such a proposal that was foreign to the their understanding of Jewish-Christian relations? How could a global religion in so many places throughout the world that had negative, real-life interactions with Jewish influence begin to perceive them as being in God’s perpetual good graces?

How could Christians be convinced that the Jewish cause was their cause?

A doctrine had to be invented. Covenant theology had to be discarded. A new framework for understanding how God deals with Jews and Gentiles needed to be born.

And for that, they needed a few good men.

PART 2 COMING TOMORROW