From Geneva to Dallas

When theological traditions move apart from one another, their shared history can prove almost embarrassing to latter day adherents. Certainly, no two schools of theology are more seemingly distinct to the modern evangelical mind than Calvinism (most notably associated with the doctrines of sovereign grace) and Pre-millennial Dispensationalism (most notably associated with the theology of the “secret rapture” of the Church. Think “Left Behind” books . . .).

Dr. Richard Ice, a noted exponent of premillenialism, has found that not only were the founders of the Dispensationalist school mostly Calvinists, but in America, there were clearly warm relations between the “prophecy” movement and the Princeton Presbyterians B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge. Many readers—particularly the modern-day descendents of Old Princeton—have a different perspective on the covenant and the “end times,” but the “forgotton history” should interest us all.

From Geneva to Dallas: The Forgotten History

Modern, systematic Dispensationalism is approaching two hundred years of expression and development. We live at a time in which Dispensationalism and some of its ideas have been disseminated and adopted by various theological traditions. This is not surprising since our day is characterized by anti-systemization and eclecticism in the area of thought. It may be surprising, to some, to learn that Dispensationalism was developed and spread during its first 100 years by those within a Reformed, Calvinistic tradition. It had only been in the last 75 to 50 years that Dispensationalism and some of its beliefs were disseminated in any significant way outside of the orbit of Calvinism.

Definitions
Before proceeding further I need to provide working definitions of what I mean by Calvinism and Dispensationalism. First, by Calvinism, I am speaking mainly of the theological system that relates to the doctrine of grace or soteriological Calvinism. This would include strict and modified Calvinism (i.e. four and five point Calvinism). I am referring to that aspect of Calvinism that speaks of the fallen nature of man and the elective grace of God.

Second, by Dispensationalism, I have in mind that system of theology that was developed by J. N. Darby that gave rise to its modern emphasis of consistent literal interpretation, a distinction between God’s plan for Israel and the church, usually a pretribulational rapture of the church before the seventieth week of Daniel, premillennialism, and a multifaceted emphasis upon God’s glory as the goal of history. This includes some who have held to such a system but may stop short of embracing pretribulationism. The focus of this article will be upon Dispensational premillennialism.

Theological Logic
In concert with the Calvinist impulse to view history theocentricly, I believe that dispensational premillennialism provides the most logical eschatological ending to God’s sovereign decrees for salvation and history. Since Dispensational premillennialists view both the promises of God’s election of Israel and the church as unconditional and something that God will surely bring to pass, such a belief is consistent with the Bible and logic. A covenant theologian would say that Israel’s election was conditional and temporary. Many Calvinists are covenant theologians who think that individual election within the church is unconditional and permanent. They see God’s plan with Israel conditioned upon human choice, while God’s plan for salvation within the church is ultimately a sovereign act of God. There is no symmetry in such logic. Meanwhile, Dispensational premillennialists see both acts as a sovereign expression of God’s plan in history which is a logically consistent application of the sovereign will of God in human affairs.

Samuel H. Kellogg, a Presbyterian minister, missionary, and educator wrote of the logic between Calvinism and “modern, futurist premillennialism,” which was in that day (1888) essentially dispensational. “But in general,” notes Kellogg, “we think, it may be rightly said that the logical relations of premillennialism connect it more closely with the Augustinian than with any other theological system.”¹Samuel H. Kellogg, “Premillennialism: Its relations to Doctrine and Practice,” BibliothecaSacra, Vol. XLV, (1888), 253. His use of “Augustinian” is the older term for Calvinism. Kellogg points out the different areas in which Calvinism and premillennialism are theologically one. “Premillennialism logically presupposes an anthropology essentially Augustinian. The ordinary Calvinism affirms the absolute helplessness of the individual for self-regeneration and self-redemption.”²Kellogg, “Premillennialism,” 254. He continues, it is “evident that the anthropological presuppositions on which premillennialism seems to rest, must carry with them a corresponding soteriology.”³Kellogg, “Premillennialism,” 257. Kellogg reasons that “the Augustinian affinity of the premillennialist eschatology becomes still more manifest. For nothing is more marked than the emphasis with which premillennialists constantly insist that . . . the present dispensation is strictly elective.”⁴Kellogg,”Premillennialism,” 258-9. “In a word,” concludes Kellogg, “we may say that premillennialists simply affirm of the macrocosm what the common Augustinianism affirms only of the microcosm.”⁵Kellogg, “Premillennialism,” p. 256.

This is not to say that Dispensationalism and Calvinism are synonymous. I merely contend that it is consistent with certain elements of Calvinism which provide a partial answer as to why Dispensationalism sprang from the Reformed womb. C. Norman Kraus contends, “There are, to be sure, important elements of seventeenth-century Calvinism in contemporary dispensationalism, but these elements have been blended with doctrinal emphasis from other sources to form a distinct system which in many respects is quite foreign to classical Calvinism.⁶C. Norman Kraus, Dispensationalism in America: Its Rise and Development (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1958), 59.”

Nevertheless, Dispensationalism did develop within the Reformed community and most of its adherents during the first 100 years were from within the Calvinist milieu. Kraus concludes: “Taking all this into account, it must still be pointed out that the basic theological affinities of dispensationalism are Calvinistic. The large majority of men involved in the Bible and prophetic conference movements subscribed to Calvinistic creeds.”⁷Kraus, Dispensationalism, 59. I will now turn to an examination of some of the founders and proponents of Dispensationalism?

Darby and the Brethren
ScofieldModern systematic dispensationalism was developed in the 1830s by J. N. Darby and those within the Brethren movement. Virtually all of these men came from churches with a Calvinistic soteriology. “At the level of theology,” says Brethren historian H. H. Rowdon, “the earliest Brethren were Calvinists to a man.”⁸Harold H. Rowdon, Who Are The Brethren and Does it Matter? (Exeter, England: The Paternoster Press, 1986), 35. This is echoed by one of the earliest Brethren, J. G. Bellett, who was beginning his association with the Brethren when his brother George wrote, “for his views had become more decidedly Calvinistic, and the friends with whom he associated in Dublin were all, I believe without exception, of this school.”⁹George Bellett, Memoir of the Rev. George Bellett (London: J. Masters, 1889), 41-42. Cited in Max S. Weremchuk, John Nelson Darby (Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1992), 237, f.n. 25.

What were Darby’s views on this matter? John Howard Goddard observes that Darby “held to the predestination of individuals and that he rejected the Arminian scheme that God predestinated those whom he foreknew would be conformed to the image of Christ.”¹⁰John Howard Goddard, “The Contribution of John Nelson Darby to Soteriology, Ecclesiology, and Eschatology,” (Th. D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1948), 85. In his “Letter on Free-Will,” it is clear that Darby rejects this notion. “If Christ has come to save that which is lost, free-will has no longer any place.”¹¹J. N. Darby, “Letter on Free-Will,” in The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby (Winschoten, Netherlands: H. L. Heijkoop, 1971), Vol. 10, 185. “I believe we ought to hold to the word;” continues Darby, “but, philosophically and morally speaking, free-will is a false and absurd theory. Free-will is a state of sin.”¹²Ibid., 186. Because Darby held to the bondage of the will, he logically follows through with belief in sovereign grace as necessary for salvation.

Such is the unfolding of this principle of sovereign grace, without which not one should would be saved, for none understand, none seek after God, not one of himself will come that he might have life. Judgment is according to works; salvation and glory are the fruit of grace.¹³J. N. Darby, “Notes on Romans,” in The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby (Winschoten, Netherlands: H. L. Heijkoop, 1971), Vol. 26, 107-8.

Further evidence of Darby’s Calvinism is that on at least two occasions he was invited by non-dispensational Calvinists to defend Calvinism for Calvinists. One of Darby’s biographers, W. G. Turner spoke of his defense at Oxford University:

It was at a much earlier date (1831, I think) that F. W. Newman invited Mr. Darby to Oxford: a season memorable in a public way for his refutation of Dr. E. Burton’s denial of the doctrines of grace, beyond doubt held by the Reformers, and asserted not only by Bucer, P. Martyr, and Bishop Jewell, but in Articles IX-XVIII of the Church of England.¹⁴W. G. Turner, John Nelson Darby: A Biography (London: C. A. Hammond, 1926), 45.

On another occasion Darby was invited to the city of Calvin-Geneva, Switzerland —to defend Calvinism. Turner declares that “He refuted the ‘perfectionism’ of John Wesley, to the delight of the Swiss Free Church.”¹⁵Ibid., p. 58. Darby was awarded a medal of honor by the leadership of Geneva.¹⁶Rowdon, Who Are The Brethren, 205-7.

Still yet, when certain Reformed doctrines came under attack from within the Church in which he once served, “Darby indicates his approval of the doctrine of the Anglican Church as expressed in Article XVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles”¹⁷Goddard, “The Contribution of Darby,” 86. on the subject of election and predestination. Darby said, For my own part, I soberly think Article XVII to be as wise, perhaps I might say the wisest and best condensed human statement of the view it contains that I am acquainted with. I am fully content to take it in its literal and grammatical sense. I believe that predestination to life is the eternal purpose of God, by which, before the foundations of the world were laid, He firmly decreed, by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and destruction those whom He had chosen in Christ out of the human race, and to bring them, through Christ, as vessels made to honour, to eternal salvation.¹⁸J. N. Darby, “The Doctrine of the Church of England at the Time of the Reformation,” in The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby (Winschoten,Netherlands: H. L. Heijkoop, 1971), Vol. 3, p. 3. (Italics are original.)

Dispensationalism in America
Darby and other Brethren brought dispensationalism to America through their many trips and writings that came across the Atlantic. “In fact the millenarian (or dispensational premillennial) movement,” declares George Marsden, “had strong Calvinistic ties in its American origins.”¹⁹George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism: 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 46.Reformed historian Marsden continues his explanation of how dispensationalism came to America: This enthusiasm came largely from clergymen with strong Calvinistic views, principally Presbyterians and Baptists in the northern United States. The evident basis for this affinity was that in most respects Darby was himself an unrelenting Calvinist. His interpretation of the Bible and of history rested firmly on the massive pillar of divine sovereignty, placing as little value as possible on human ability.²⁰Ibid., 25.

The post-Civil War spread of dispensationalism in North America occurred through the influence of key pastors and the Summer Bible Conferences like Niagara, Northfield, and Winona. Marsden notes:
The organizers of the prophetic movement in America were predominantly Calvinists. In 1876 a group led by Nathaniel West, James H. Brookes, William J. Eerdman, and Henry M. Parsons, all Presbyterians, together with Baptist A. J. Gordon, . . . These early gatherings, which became the focal points for the prophetic side of their leaders’ activities, were clearly Calvinistic. Presbyterians and Calvinist Baptists predominated, while the number of Methodists was extremely small . . . Such facts can hardly be accidental.²¹Ibid., 26.

Proof of Marsden’s point above is supplied by Samuel H. Kellogg—himself a Presbyterian and Princeton graduate—with his breakdown of the predominately dispensational Prophecy Conference in New York City in 1878. Kellogg classified the list of those that signed the call for the Conference as follows:

Presbyterians – 31
United Presbyterians – 10
Reformed (Dutch) – 3
Episcopalians – 10
Baptist – 22
Refrm. Episcopalians – 10
Congregationalists – 10
Methodists – 6
Adventists – 5
Lutheran²²Kellogg, “Premillennialism,” 253. – 1

Kellogg concluded that “the proportion of Augustinians in the whole to be eighty-eight per cent.”²³Ibid., 254 “The significance of this is emphasized,” continues Kellogg, “by the contrasted fact that the Methodists, although one of the largest denominations of Christians in the country, were represented by only six names.”²⁴Ibid., 254 Kellogg estimates that “analyses of similar gatherings since held on both sides of the Atlantic, would yield a similar result.”²⁵Ibid., 254-255

George Marsden divides Reformed Calvinism in America into three types: “doctrinalist, culturalist, and pietist.”²⁶George M. Marsden, “Introduction: Reformed and American,” in Reformed Theology in America: A History of Its Modern Development, ed. David F. Wells (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 3. He then explains that “Dispensationalism was essentially Reformed in its nineteenth-century origins and had in later nineteenth-century America spread most among revival-oriented Calvinists.”²⁷Ibid., 8. This is not to say that only revival-oriented Calvinists were becoming dispensational in their view of the Bible and eschatology. Ernest Sandeen lists at least one Old School Presbyterian —L. C. Baker of Camden, New Jersey—as an active dispensationalist during the later half of the nineteenth century.²⁸Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970, 1978), 94. Timothy Weber traces the rise of Dispensationalism as follows:

The first converts to dispensational premillennialism after the Civil War were pietistic evangelicals who were attracted to its biblicism, its concern for evangelism and missions, and its view of history, which seemed more realistic than that of the prevailing postmillennialism. Most of the new premillennialists came from baptist, New School Presbyterian, and Congregationalist ranks, which gave the movement a definite Reformed flavor. Wesleyan evangelicals who opposed premillennialism used this apparent connection to Calvinism to discredit it among Methodists and holiness people.²⁹Timothy P. Weber, “Premillennialism and the Branches of Evangelicalism,” in The Variety of American Evangelicalism, eds. Donald W. Dayton and Robert K. Johnston (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 14-15.

It is safe to say that without the aid of Reformed Calvinists in America dispensational premillennialism would have had an entirely different history. Men like the St. Louis Presbyterian James H. Brookes (1830-1897), who was trained at Princeton Seminary, opened his pulpit to Darby and other speakers. Brookes, considered the American father of the pretribulational rapture in America, also discipled a new convert to Christ in the legendary C. I. Scofield.³⁰For more on the life of Brookes see Larry Dean Pettegrew, “The Historical and Theological Contributions of the Niagara Bible Conference to American Fundamentalism,” (Th. D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1976). David Riddle Williams, James H. Brookes: A Memoir, (St. Louis: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1897). Others such as Presbyterians Samuel H. Kellogg (Princeton trained), E. R. Craven, who was a Princeton College and Seminary graduate and Old School Presbyterian,³¹Samuel Macauley Jackson, ed., The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1952), Vol. III, 296. and Nathaniel West provided great leadership in spreading dispensationalism in the late 1800s.

Scofield, Chafer and Dallas Seminary
C. I. Scofield (1843-1921), Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), and Dallas Theological Seminary (est. 1924) were great vehicles for the spread of dispensationalism in America and throughout the world. Both Scofield and Chafer were ordained Presbyterian ministers. The “Scofield Reference Bible, is called by many the most effective tool for the dissemination of dispensationalism in America.”³²Larry V. Crutchfield, The Origins of Dispensationalism: The Darby Factor (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992), preface. Scofield was converted in mid-life and first discipled by James H. Brookes in St. Louis. He was ordained to the ministry at the First Congregational Church of Dallas in 1882 and transferred his ministerial credentials to the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. in 1908.³³Daniel Reid, ed., Dictionary of Christianity in America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 1057-58. Thus, his ministry took place within a Calvinist context.

Scofield was the major influence upon the development of Chafer’s theology. John Hannah notes that “it is impossible to understand Chafer without perceiving the deep influence of Scofield.”³⁴John David Hannah, “The Social and Intellectual History of the Origins of the Evangelical Theological College,” (Ph. D. diss., The University of Texas at Dallas, 1988), 118-9. In fact, “Chafer often likened this relationship to that of father and a son.”³⁵Jeffrey J. Richards, The Promise of Dawn: The Eschatology of Lewis Sperry Chafer (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), 23. This relationship grew out of Chafer’s study under Scofield at the Northfield Conference and from a life-changing experience in Scofield’s study of the First Congregational Church of Dallas in the early 1900s. Scofield told Chafer that his gifts were more in the field of teaching and not in the area of evangelism in which he had labored. “The two prayed together, and Chafer dedicated his life to a lifetime of biblical study.”³⁶Ibid., 23-28

Scofield and Chafer were two of the greatest American dispensationalists and both developed their theology from out of a Reformed background. Scofield is known for his study bible and Chafer for his Seminary and systematic theology. Jeffrey Richards describes Chafer’s theological characteristics as having “much in common with the entire Reformed tradition. Excluding eschatology, Chafer is similar theologically to such Princeton divines as Warfield, Hodge, and Machen. He claims such doctrines as the sovereignty of God, . . . total depravity of humanity, election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.”³⁷Ibid., 3 C. Fred Lincoln describes Chafer’s 8 volume Systematic Theology as “unabridged, Calvinistic, premillennial, and dispensational.”³⁸C. F. Lincoln, “Biographical Sketch of the Author,” in Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), Vol. VIII, 6.

Since its founding in 1924 as The Evangelical Theological College (changed to Dallas Theological Seminary in 1936), it has exerted a global impact on behalf of dispensationalism. Dallas Seminary’s primary founder was Chafer, but William Pettingill and W. H. Griffith-Thomas also played a leading role. Pettingill, like Chafer was Presbyterian. Griffith-Thomas, an Anglican, wrote one of the best commentaries on the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church,³⁹W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-nine Articles (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979, 1930). which is still widely used by conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians today. The Thirty-nine Articles are staunchly Calvinistic. Both men were clearly Calvinists. The Seminary, especially before World War II, considered itself Calvinistic. Chafer once characterized the school in a publicity brochure as “in full agreement with the Reformed Faith and its theology is strictly Calvinistic.”⁴⁰Cited in Hannah, “Origins of the Evangelical Theological College,” 199-200. In a letter to Allan MacRae of Westminster Theological Seminary, Chafer said, “You probably know that we are definitely Calvinistic in our theology.”⁴¹Cited in Ibid., 200.{/footnote} “Speaking of the faculty, Chafer noted in 1925 that they were ‘almost wholly drawn from the Southern and Northern Presbyterian Churches.'”{footnote}Cited in Ibid., 346. Further, Chafer wrote to a Presbyterian minister the following: “I am pleased to state that there is no institution to my knowledge which is more thoroughly Calvinistic nor more completely adjusted to this system of doctrine, held by the Presbyterian Church.”⁴²Cited in Ibid., 346, f.n. 323.

Since so many early Dallas graduates entered the Presbyterian ministry, there began to be a reaction to their dispensational premillennialism in the 1930s. This was not an issue as to whether they were Calvinistic in their soteriology, but an issue over their eschatology. In the late 1930s, “Dallas Theological Seminary, though strongly professing to be a Presbyterian institution, was being severed from the conservative Presbyterian splinter movement.”⁴³Ibid., 357-8. In 1944, Southern Presbyterians issued a report from a committee investigating the compatibility of dispensationalism with the Westminster Confession of Faith. The committee ruled dispensationalism was not in harmony with the Church’s Confession. This “report of 1944 was a crippling blow to any future that dispensational premillennialism might have within Southern Presbyterianism.”⁴⁴Ibid., 364. This ruling effectively moved Dallas graduates away from ministry within Reformed denominations toward the independent Bible Church movement.

Dr. Richard Ice is the author of thirty books and currently serves on the faculty of Liberty University. Reprinted with permission. The complete text may be found here.