The Scofield Conspiracy Part II: A Merging of Peculiar Interests

Two powerful forces emerged; Jews who wanted a state in Palestine, and Europeans who were tired of Jews in Europe. But how could they convince the Americans to go along?

If I’ve learned anything in polemics work it’s this; if you trace the source of a novel doctrine, you’ll find the reason for its invention.

…henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Ephesians 4:14)

Starting around 2010, it became very clear to Christian discernment workers that the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) had quickly become a force to be reckoned with. Sneaking up on most evangelicals, but only because they often pay little attention outside their bubbles, NAR Apostles had grown a following of millions of people, the vast majority of whom were outside the United States.

TRACING THE ORIGINS OF DOCTRINES

While we were laughing at their antics that occasionally were publicized on TBN, ranging from Todd Bentley drop-kicking old ladies to Benny Hinn knocking over whole crowds of people with his supernatural coat-swinging, they were building massive followings. And because most Reformed theologians can’t be bothered with anything but endlessly extrapolating the Doctrines of Grace, few were tracing the NAR’s origins.

Che Ahn, Mike Bickel, Cindy Jacobs, Bill Johnson, Rick Joyner, Lou Engle and others - and all of them with Dr. Michael Brown as their face to the respectable evangelical world - had entranced multitudes of followers with two simple claims; the first, is the the Apostolic Sign Gifts have continued to the present day, and the second was that Christians are given a mandate to take-over and control “seven mountains” of society.

On the former, the continuance of the Apostolic Sign Gifts, it was not entirely novel. Since the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 (and the Montanist heretics before them, circa 177AD), charismatics have claimed that the signs demonstrating true apostleship (miracles, wonders, and mighty deeds; 2 Corinthians 12:12) continue. But the NAR went one step further. Not only did the miraculous “sign gifts” of apostleship continue, actual apostleship continues. Not even the charismatics of Azusa were so bold as to claim that their prophets were on par with the authority and power of the Apostles hand-selected by Christ within the pages of the New Testament.

But on the latter, the NAR claimed that their Apostles were tasked by God to equip Christians to take power over the seven realms of society; family, religion, education, media, entertainment, and government. Sounding like the Reconstructionist “Dominion Mandate” theology, it goes a few steps further, and places the new “Apostles” themselves in charge of a One World Government led by the NAR.

C. Peter Wagner, the founder of the Church Growth Movement, was already promoting the concept that the Apostolate continues, but his scheming lacked umph, it lacked a purpose, or a plan that charismatics could get behind. So what? What is the New Apostolate accomplishing?

The Christian Reconstructionists, the branch belonging to the schism headed up by theonomist and economist, Gary North in Texas, provided the much-needed intellectual power to Wagner’s charismaticism that frankly, charismatics almost always lack. In a 1987 meeting with Pentecostal and charismatic leaders, Gary North provided them their answer to create what would become the New Apostolic Reformation.

Building upon what he called The Three Legs of the Christian Reconstruction Stool, he argued that “The holy rollers are rolling less and broadcasting more than anyone could have guessed a decade ago. A technological miracle is with us, and the Pentecostals are alone making good use of it.”

And North aimed to build an alliance with the charismatics to broadcast the tenets of Reconstructionism. North did so very intentionally, publishing them open letters, asking why they don’t adopt the Reconstructionist tenets of conquering culture in the name of Jesus (as you can see below, or find here).

In that 1987 meeting with charismatic leaders, Gary North walked in with a plan to bestow upon the most wild, rabid variety of Word-Faith leaders a doctrine that was new to them, Reconstructionism. When he walked out, North announced the meeting a great success, and what came out of it was the NAR that you know today.

North bragged that what had begun was a partnership using “the Presbyterian oriented educators, the Baptist school headmasters and pastors, and the charismatic telecommunications system.”

Theonomist, Joseph Morecraft, bragged, “God is blending Presbyterian theology with charismatic zeal into a force that cannot be stopped!” Those words should haunt us now.

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And Morecraft was correct. It could not be stopped, and you know it as the Seven Mountain Mandate of the New Apostolic Reformation that is wreaking untold spiritual damage across the world.

I introduce The Scofield Conspiracy Part II with this seemingly unrelated diatribe, to demonstrate that many bad theologies are invented with good intentions. But those bad theologies are nonetheless invented intentionally.

It’s hard to fathom that post-millennial Cessationists of theologically-serious pedigrees like those Presbyterian theonomists affiliate with Gary North could have created the demonic beast of the New Apostolic Reformation, but they did. North thought the Theonomic Reconstructionists could tame the charismatics, and then use their satellites and capitalize on their exponential growth. But what he created…was a monster of unintended consequences.

Likewise, as we look at Dispensationalism, keep in mind that the old adage is trustworthy, “True things are seldom new, and new things are seldom true.”

BRIEFLY, BACK TO ZIONISM

As was explained in Part 1, Zionism is not an antisemitic term as many now suppose, but a term invented by Jews who advocated for a Jewish state somewhere in the world. Initially, the Zionists didn’t demand that it be in the Promised Land, but anywhere Jews could find a permanent homeland. Among the earliest suggestions for the Zionist state was Argentina. But their preference, of course, was Palestine.

Theodore Herzyl, who is credited with the development of Zionism and was the president of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, made a trek to see Pope Pious X, to ask for his support in the creation of the Zionist state. As explained in Part 1, it did not go swimmingly. His first appeal was made to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a powerful Jewish financier, who also rejected the scheme on the grounds that Jews had successfully grown wealthy and powerful in different nations throughout Europe, and that a Jewish state was unnecessary.

And that’s where we pick up from Part I.

ZIONISM MARCHING ONWARD

Shortly after Pope Pious rejected his claim in 1904, Herzl died. Not only had an appeal for an entire Jewish nation failed, but attempts that were less ambitious also failed previously, long before Herzl.

Various attempts were made historically to create Jewish conclaves, or “free zones,” within other nations. These include an attempt in Prague in 1835 and even near Buffalo, New York in 1825 and in the Upper Mississippi region in 1819. These failed, because of conflicts between Jews and their neighbors, usually centering on business practices and what their non-Jewish neighbors characterized as “greed and dishonesty.” And so, their desire to carve out an entire region of the world explicitly for Jews seemed next to impossible.

But time was pressing upon the Zionist cause. In Western Europe, Jewish emancipation (giving them citizenship rights) began in 1870. But by 1900 - just three decades later - most European nations had grown tired of their Jewish neighbors. In Eastern Europe, which granted emancipation a few years after they did in Western Europe, they even more quickly regretted their decision.

Herzl’s appeal was lost on the Pope, but his original treatise written to Rothschild, Judenstaat (which I explained in Part I), claimed that Zionism could “not succeed without a Great Power.” But the Pope was not the only great power that could be appealed to. In fact, Judenstaat made an interesting claim.

Herzl argued that a Zionist state in Israel could provide political benefits, and “form part of a defensive wall for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.” And after the first world war, it had become clear to Winston Churchill and other European leaders that a colonial outpost in the region could be of significant importance.

But the impediment to Jewish settlement in Palestine was one of territory and property owned by the Arabs. What would be done with the Arabs? They owned the property, and had called it home as long - or longer - than the Jews, except they occupied the Holy Land continuously and suffered no diaspora. How could Arabs be removed from their homes? The amount of money necessary to purchase the region would cost the Jewish settlers greatly, and further, it was sure to turn bloody.

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Americans, who did not see the need for a military presence in the region, happily receding from the Great War with no desire to return across the Atlantic, would not sign on to the cost in treasure and blood necessary to given European Jews their new home, just because they had worn out their welcome in most of Europe.

Not even the Jews in America found interest in the Zionism scheme. Jews who had migrated to the United States from 1880 to 1930 - who were mostly Reform Jews - were actively hostile to a plan to erect a Jewish state in Palestine. Jews who were Poles, Italians, Ukrainians, and Hungarian - places where they were at conflict with their European neighbors - were quite content in America, where Jews weren’t in high enough populations to cause much of a ruckus, and so their relations in America were less contentious.

Herzl’s plan for a Zionist state seemed hopeless by the end of the World War I.

But, war often changes things and by 1918, Churchill and the British - as well as other European powers - seemed to think that finally getting rid of Jews while also colonizing Palestine, Zionism could kill two birds with one stone; (1) the Jews would be out of their hair and (2) European powers could have permanent influence in the Middle East. But how could they get Americans get on board?

JOHN DARBY

If one referred to John Darby as the “Father of Dispensationalism,” it is sure to get the Dispensationalists in an uproar. Chiefly, this is because every advocate for any doctrinal position would like to over-state the historicity of it. Romanists claim Peter was a Pope and Landmark Baptists promote the “Trail of Blood “ (a book alleging that Baptists can be traced back to Galilee, but is full of notoriously bad historical claims). The second reason is that, just as with all other doctrines, finding a singular originator is difficult. Ideas don’t come about in vacuums, and rarely do they develop in only one mind at a time, but spring forth from conversations between individuals.

To be as accurate as possible, I’ll happily confess the existence of proto-Dispensationalists, the greatest of which is Isaac Watts (1674-1748). But it is fair to say that Darby systemized Dispensationalism into a formulaic framework.

John Darby (1800-1882) was the founder of the Exclusive Brethren, a splinter off of the Plymouth Brethren. The latter group is traced to Ireland, who were non-conformists and dissenters to Anglicanism. Darby was one of four original founders of the Plymouth Brethren, who are usually typified by having no clergy-laity division or formal leadership, focusing heavily on an extreme version of the Priesthood of the Believer (other prominent Brethren include H.A. Ironside and George Mueller).

The Exclusive Brethren were also founded by Darby, who split off the original group in 1948 stemming from a disagreement with George Mueller on how interconnected Brethren churches should be (the argument is largely inconsequential to this discussion).

But key in both the Plymouth Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren was adoption of Darby’s then-novel formulation of Dispensationalism.

DISPENSATIONALISM

Dispensationalism is not a singular doctrine so much as a theological framework. It’s in stark juxtaposition to Covenant Theology, which was explained in Part I. If you recall from yesterday, I explained that Covenant Theology was the exclusive view of the Christian church from the first to the nineteenth centuries. Although there are several different varieties (such as the Presbyterian view and the Baptist view), it can be summarized as purporting that God works redemptively through one of two covenants; the Covenant of Works promises life for those who perfectly obey God and death to those who do not (which no one is able to keep), and the Covenant of Grace promises life through faith, by which one receives the imputed righteousness that Christ earned by his flawless obedience.

To summarize, this Covenantal View of redemption holds that no one has ever been saved by the Covenant of Works (because no mere mortal has perfectly obeyed God’s laws), and so the Old Testament believers were justified by their faith in the Messiah that was promised to them (and not by the Law). Likewise, the Covenant View holds that both believing Jews and believing Gentiles are both saved under the same covenant.

Darby’s new Dispensationalism, however, rejected the Covenantal View of the historic church. Rather, it held that God does not operate within the framework of covenants at all, but that God redemptively works through “dispensations” - or periods of time, or sometimes “an administration” - in which how he saves from one period of time to another differs.

Dispensationalism was originally posited in seven different periods of time; Innocence (Genesis 1:1—3:7), Conscience (Genesis 3:8—8:22), Human Government (Genesis 9:1—11:32), Promise (Genesis 12:1—Exodus 19:25), Law (Exodus 20:1—Acts 2:4), Grace (Acts 2:4—Revelation 20:3), and the Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4–6).

Darby argued that this provided the most literal reading of the Scripture that doesn’t make metaphoric any language regarding the church or Israel. As explained previously, Covenant Theologians believe that the church is New Testament Israel (and I encourage you to look at Part I for the Scriptural references for that claim).

Arguably, Dispensationalism is quite a complicated system, and difficult to understand, which doesn’t seem like it should be the result of a “more literal” reading of Scripture. Later, some Dispensationalists would ditch the seven dispensations dogmatism and try to blend it back with a hybrid for of Covenantal soteriological propositions. John MacArthur calls this “Leaky Dispensationalism.”

If your brain can only hold so much info, ignore all that. The point is, Dispensationalism rejects the notion that God’s only Covenant is with believers in Jesus, and maintains that God is continuing to honor his covenant with Abraham. They would reject altogether the notion of a “Covenant of Works” or “Covenant of Grace” paradigm. In other words, the genetic offspring of Abraham - with or without Christ - still hold a significant place in the world now, and in the world to come. Dispensationalists would go on to allege that Covenant Theology is “Replacement Theology” because it holds that Christians have replaced unbelieving Jews in God’s Covenant.

Of course, the Scripture explicitly teaches this in Romans 11; the Jewish unbelievers are branches that have been “broken off” and Gentile believers have been “grafted in” (verse 11).

A CONTEMPORANEOUS, NON-RELIGIOUS ZIONISM IN BRITAIN

What I’ve explained thus far has been Jewish Zionism and Christian Dispensationalism. But during the same century that Herzl was soliciting support for a Jewish state in Palestine, and Dispensationalism was growing under Darby’s influence in Europe, leaders in Great Britain were speculating that a Zionist state in Palestine could be of strategic military importance.

In 1799, all of Europe had turned its attention to the Middle East. As Napoleon set about his conquest, Britain and Prussia sided with Turkey against him. In order to thwart French control of the region, Britain had established a military presence in Palestine, at great cost.

Palestine was not only useful for militaristic purposes to spurn the French, but it could also help maintain a trade route with India, with whom the British had colonial intentions (and would colonize it in 1858). If the British were going to open up that new market for British goods, Palestine would be of central importance.

Influenced in part by Darby, influential Brits including Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Palmertson, David Lloyd George, and Lord Balfour made the claim that not only was occupying Palestine with European Jews important for military and trade purposes and essential to British foreign policy, but it was their Christian duty to see to it that Biblical prophecies be fulfilled, and Jews return to the Promised Land.

I cannot prove that these men genuinely believed Darby’s prophetic interpretations fostered by his Dispensationalism, but I find their adoption of his doctrines to be highly convenient. They were, after all, first and foremost, empire-builders.

In 1839, Lord Shaftesbury penned a treatise, stating:

“The Jews must be encouraged to return in yet greater numbers and become once more the husbandman of Judea and Galilee … although they are admittedly a stiff-necked, dark hearted people, and sunk in moral degradation, obduracy, and ignorance of the Gospel …They are not only worthy of salvation but also vital to Christianity’s hope of salvation.”

It seems that this might have been the first time that Christian Europeans felt that creating a Zionist state in Palestine was not only in their national interests, but loosely related to their Christian responsibility. Shaftesbury’s proposal was that Great Britain should flood Palestine with Jews, remain under Turkish rule (a virtual vassal state of Great Britain anyway), and have British protection.

On August 17, 1840, an op-ed appeared in The London Times, publicizing their dream (penned by Palmertson) and later again publicized in a full page ad by Shaftesbury. And all in a sudden, non-Jews adopted the plan to send Jews back to Palestine.

It’s important to note, according to the timeline, that the British elite society’s adoption of Zionism was contemporaneous with the development of Darby’s Dispensationalism, and Herzl’s Jewish Zionist appeals occurred in the same century, but several decades later.

With the above caveat being given for clarity, I draw your attention to the ad placed by Shaftesbury. It reads:

‘RESTORATION OF THE JEWS. A memorandum has been addressed to the Protestant monarchs of Europe on the subject of the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Palestine. The document in question, dictated by a peculiar conjunction of affairs in the East, and other striking “signs of the times”, reverts to the original covenant which secures that land to the descendants of Abraham.’

And there, you see it in print. The primary reason, of first importance to Palmertson and Shaftesbury, was Britain’s national strategic interests. The second reason, given to support the first, was the claim that the Jews were entitled to the land of Promise, despite them not being Sons of the Promise, according to St. Paul. And there, you see, the influence of Darby’s Dispensationalism.

Can it be said that Darby was used by British Zionists, or that they influenced the development of his theology as a scheme to promote Zionism? The timeline does not indicate that as a possibility, because they happened so contemporaneously. However, it certainly seems that the British Zionists used Darby’s theology to promote their own nationalistic goals.

It doesn’t seem that Zionists created Dispensationalism. But whether or not they used it to their end, is another thing altogether.

But that’s not the crazy conspiracy. As the article series title would suggest, the conspiracy does not start with Darby, but with Scofield. The Zionists in Europe saw the appeal of Darby’s Dispensationalism. But the Americans did not, largely because it didn’t coincide with a national policy that wanted a colony or puppet state in Palestine. In fact, America wanted nothing to do with a policy that could possibly drag the United States back into a war across the Atlantic. And Americans certainly had no warm feelings toward the Jews of Europe. In fact, neither did the Jews of America.

In order for Europe to entice America to join the effort, Dispensationalism would have to grow like wildfire among America’s powerful Protestant churches - and so far, it had not. But how could the Zionists’ convenient Dispensational conversion spread among the Americans, as it had in Europe, the birthplace of the Brethren?

Enter…Scofield.

He is the man that did more to convince Americans to support the birth of an Israeli state than anyone except, perhaps, Adolf Hitler. We’ll pick up with Scofield in the next and final part on Friday.

And frankly, it might blow your mind.

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