Dispensationalism and Responsibility for the Holocaust

Todd Baker, a dispensationalist theologian, wrote an article for the Levitt Letter in the June/July 2002 edition, which accused those who hold to non-dispensational views as being responsible in part for the Holocaust and other atrocities committed against the Jews, or at least to creating an environment suitable for such events. Particularly in light of the controversy over The Passion of the Christ, the charges of Christian anti-Semitism have arisen with new furor. We must of necessity look at his position and whether it is a valid one.

Baker, like other dispensationalists, holds to a viewpoint, contrary to historic Christian theology, that God is not finished with the Jewish people in terms of their destiny in history. Historic Christian theology, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, holds that the church is the new Israel, grafted onto the roots of the Old Testament Jewish "church," to use the metaphor Paul cites in Romans 11. Some Reformed believers, including most postmillenialists, believe that national Israel will be re-grafted onto the roots of Old Testament Israel before Judgment Day, supplying the basis for Paul's prediction in Romans 11:26 that all Israel shall be saved. However, most non-dispensationalists follow the view that the promised kingdom is a spiritual one and that the Jewish nation is now but one of over 190 nations on this planet, having rejected, through its national leaders, the claims of Jesus Christ to be Israel’s Messiah.

Dispensationalism, in many respects a 19th Century offshoot of Reformed theology, holds that in the "Church Age" (basically from Jesus' resurrection until the pre-Tribulation rapture of the church, personal salvation can be found, for Jew and Gentile, only by knowing (or accepting) by faith that Jesus was the Messiah Who died for that person's sins. So far this teaching differs little from Reformation theology. Where dispensationalists differ from other conservative Protestants is in their belief that the Jewish people remain a chosen nation in the eyes of God in a way that America, France, Sri Lanka, Sudan, etc., are not. Thus, the claims for the glorious future for national Israel made in the Old Testament are still valid.

In dispensational theology, the church, God's people in the Church Age, will be raptured well before Armageddon and Judgment Day, usually just before the seven years of tribulation that will occur before Jesus Christ's Second Coming. During the period, Israel as a nation will accept Jesus Christ as its promised Messiah. Messianic Jewish preachers, 12,000 from each of their nation's 12 tribes, will spread the Gospel during a period of intense persecution of the remaining Christian believers by a one world government led by the Antichrist and a one world religion led by the False Prophet. National Israel will play a heroic role in the days before Armageddon, and the armies of the world will converge upon the Jewish state. Jesus Christ, returning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and legions of angels, will destroy the armies of the world at the Battle of Armageddon, as indicated in Revelation 19. After that, Jesus Christ Himself will establish an earthly kingdom for 1,000 years, ruling a restored world from Jerusalem.

As such, the dispensational distinctives are not heterodox. There have been many believers in premillenial eschatology, including ante-Nicene church fathers, and Reformed and even Catholic theologians. However, the elements of national Israel's special role in end times events and the disappearance of Christian believers from the world well before Judgment Day are unique to dispensationalism. There are numerous schools of interpretation of the Book of Revelation and end times events. However, the right viewpoint on eschatology has nothing to do with personal salvation or the merits of Jesus' Substitutionary Atonement as payment for the sins of the individual believer. That is why the ancient creeds, such as the Apostles Creed, the statements of the early church councils, the Reformation era confessions, and the Council of Trent discussed only the existence of a final Judgment Day. None of these statements were dogmatic relative to eschatology.

Some dispensationalists, such as David Hunt, Zola Levitt, Thomas McCall, and Todd Baker, have tried to smear their opponents as believers in "Replacement Theology." a neologism contrived by some dispensationalists as a smear tactic. In his article, Baker states, "Furthermore, it can be said without fear of exaggeration that the devastation imposed and inflicted on the Jewish people by the Church's anti-Jewish reading of Matthew 27:25 has shed oceans of Jewish blood issuing into a ceaseless stream of misery and desolation that horribly culminated in Hitler's Holocaust." However, Baker nowhere cites from any official doctrinal statement from the early church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation or Counter-Reformation era, or modern times, or from any major theologian, Protestant or Catholic, that supports his statement that the Christian church has read Matthew 27:25 in a manner that supports the blood libel. The only damage evident in his article is to Baker's reputation as a theologian.

The "blood libel" exists as a matter of folk theology, outside of the official creeds and confessions of the Christian churches. It is also true that the churches, especially the Catholic Church, did not do enough to counter these folk beliefs. Dowsing, haunted houses, St. Peter as the gatekeeper at the pearly gates, the existence of UFOs, and Halloween ghosts are folk beliefs as well. However, we would not judge the Christian churches just because many people believe in such things. Should we judge the Founding Fathers and the limited government and individual rights philosophy behind the Constitution because some Americans held slaves and some states still supported a state church in the first days of our Republic?

The predominant and historical Christian belief is that in the Church Age the Christian church is the "Israel of God," cited by the apostle Paul in Galatians 6:16. Despite what Baker might claim, this belief is no more anti-Semitic than the secular belief that America replaced Britain as the leading Western democracy after 1945 is anti-British. To say otherwise is as much an infamy on fellow Christian believers as and the insistence of certain Catholic traditionalists on "extra ecclesia nullum salus" and the belief of some Church of Christ adherents that those who are not baptized by immersion by a Campbellite minister are eternally damned.

The proper term for the historic Christian belief is properly called Covenantal Theology. The Westminster Confession of Faith gives the best explanation of this position. "This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in Scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequeathed. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come,..., by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old Testament. Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper: ...in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations. "

It is a historic fact that in the three centuries before the Holocaust, discrimination against the Jews was being eliminated, beginning in those nations most affected by Reformed theology: the Netherlands, Britain, and America. In the years after our war for independence, virtually all legislation and judicial rulings discriminating against Jews were eliminated in the thirteen states. The new Constitution denied the Federal government the authority to establish a state religion or to impose a religious test on its officeholders. Most of the new state constitutions did likewise. In our first century as a republic, Jews in America suffered far less discrimination than did Catholics, Mormons, and Quakers.

After 1880, anti-Semitism sharply increased in America as an offshoot of Darwinian evolutionary theory known as Nordic supremacy became increasingly popular. In the waning years of the 19th Century, America's intellectual elite, including the Northeastern WASP establishment, was pulling away from their Calvinist and orthodox Christian past under the sway of Biblical higher criticism and naturalistic philosophy. If God's revelation was viewed as at best flawed and at worst primitive fables, a new philosophy took its place, offering support to the adage that nature abhors vacuums. That philosophy was that of the Nordic "Superman," endowed by "Nature" to rule over the world and the lesser breeds, in other words, the "blond beast" of Nietzsche, exercising his "will to power." This worldview, untempered by long traditions of individual liberty and representative government as in America or Britain, was a major focus of Nazism. To the theories of Nordic (Aryan) supremacy and the will to power were added anti-capitalist concepts taken from both Marxist and "throne and altar" critics of the free market, a major element of homosexual eroticism, as documented in the book, The Pink Swastika and occultism, as Hitler and other leading Nazis were fascinated with Hindu mysticism, ancient Germanic paganism, and even the Jewish Cabala.

Unlike Marxism, Nazism is not a comprehensive philosophy. It is eclectic in origins. However, none of the elements of the Nazi worldview were derived from Scripture or the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, numerous statements by Hitler and other leading Nazis evidenced their disdain for the claims of the Christian religion.

Baker states in his article: "The anti-Jewish interpretation of Matthew 27:25 is simply false because it plainly contradicts the general teaching of Scripture regarding the present and future reality of the Jews being God's Chosen People (Romans 9-11). This kind of misinterpretation of Scripture is dangerous because such a meaning has helped spawn and stimulate Christian anti-Semitism via the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust, and more subtly, Replacement Theology." The Crusaders persecuted Jews, as did the Inquisition. However, Baker overlooks the historical fact that the main targets of these events were in the former case Muslims and Orthodox believers and in the latter case Protestants and Muslims. The Russian pogroms had nothing to do with Western Christianity; I don't know what the attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church was in this matter. The Holocaust stemmed from Nazism, which was itself anti-Christian. As for Replacement Theology being cast in the same venue as these persecutions, Baker is nothing short of slanderous.

Perhaps the dispensationalist theologians who make such arguments should re-read the Biblical prohibitions against bearing false witness.

The Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust.

The Nazis were post-Christians -- apostates -- genuinely avowed Pagans. They followed a religion of Norse gods and mythologies. The Nazi Party was founded by people involved in anti-Christian occult societies such as the Vril and the Thule. I have researched this stuff personally and thoroughly, and I know very well whereof I speak.

They were not any kind of Christian at all.

The Big Lie is that Christians of any sort, of any denomination, were in any way responsible for what the Third Reich did. True Christians of ALL denominations helped our Jewish brethren any way they could, often at the cost of their lives. These included Reformed such as the Ten Boom family and their underground network and Roman Catholics, such as the Franciscans of Assisi who hid and smuggled out thousands of Jews.

The game of the Anti-Christian, anti-Jewish Leftists is always divide and conquer -- don't help them win their game.

If you want any documentation on any of this, I am able and happy to provide it.

Instead of taking pot-shots at each other concerning the particularities of our various church communities, could we maybe get back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Our Lord:

The Kingdom of God is at hand -- repent and believe the Good News!!!

I'm afraid the theology in question is a bit more diverse than it at first appears. Both dispensationalist and nondispensationalist (and blends of the two) theologies exist across a number of different denominations.

Further, 'covenant theology' is NOT synonymous with *all* of Christian theology, nor is it in every way identical to that which was espoused by the Early Church Fathers. Covenant theology is an adaptation of Calvinism. Because of that, while it (apparently) accurately reflects calvinist theology, it does *not* adequately address Orthodox, Roman, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, or Pentecostal theological perspectives and in a number of cases directly conflicts with them at various points (as well as conflicting with some of the ECF). Note that I did *not* say that any or all of the above were of neccessity in any way dispensationalist. Rather the issue here is that 'covenant' theology does not and cannot be assumed to cover the same topics in the same manners, and from the same perspective they do. Also please note that I did NOT and do not agree with Mr. Baker's,er, 'distinctive' (sorry nicest word I could think of) take on the holocaust - which I personally think indicates more concerning Mr. Baker's lack of theological training than it does anything else.

In any case I would suggest you might want to rephrase your article in terms of what you are actually attempting to address, that is: a particular calvinist perspective on some aspects of dispensationalist theology in general, and how that conflicts with the particular dispensationalist theological perspective of Mr. Baker.

There are, of course, other elements to dispensationalism. Nor am I saying that Reformed theology precisely agrees with the understanding of the covenantal relationship between God and man that the other Christian traditions have. However, both the Reformed and the other strands of orthodox Christianity, with the exception of the dispensationalists, believe that God's sole relationship with an earthly people is that which He has with the church. As such, the nondispensational groups believe that the church has inherited at least some of the promises made to Israel in the Old Testament.

My objection is not to the dispensational view of the relation between Israel and the church. Rather, it is to those dispensationalists who believe that those who adhere to non-dispensational views are all potentially anti-Semitic and contributed to the atmosphere that led to the murders of six million Jews 60 years ago.

I insist on my original point: The Germany which created the Holocaust was a thoroughly POST-Christian country. At best, they were hyper-Enlightenment types who had no use for religion. At worst, they were rank occultists. The rest of Europe which colluded in the process were at best nominal Christians who just didn't care about Christian Faith or anything other than their own personal advantage.

Your idea is very "nice" and neat: if you have a wrong theological view in regard to the place of the Jewish people, you will not value or stand by them. However, like all ideas which are too neat and tidy, this one misses so many other dimensions (as ahadams has so aptly pointed out) that it really doesn't account for anything genuinely true or useful. It also places a burden of blame on one group among our brethren which does not at all build up the Body of Christ.

AND -- it lends itself strongly to the complete misconception of what the underpinnings of the Holocaust were: a deep and violent hatred for God, His People, His Word and His Church. This point is important -- please at least ponder it.

Speaking of World War II, it was in the postwar period that dispensationalism "took off" and gained the huge audience it enjoys today. Remember that most of the early dispensational leaders came out of Presbyterian or other Reformed backgrounds: Donald Barnhouse, Vernon McGee, and John Walvoord, to name a few. Scofield was a Congregationalist, as was Ironside; John Nelson Darby was originally an Anglican. (Remember that the Anglican Church had a Calvinist wing, known as the Puritans, and that the "Thirty Nine Articles of Faith" was strongly influenced by Calvin and Knox.) In the 1920s, liberals captured the Northern Presbyterian Church; they accomplished the same task in the Southern Presbyterian Church in the 1960s. Both denominations abandoned strict subscription to the Westminster Standards by the turn of the last century. Along with the dispensationalists, as conservative as the classical Calvinists, were repelled by the liberal takeover; both conservative factions were either expelled or seceded from the liberal denominations.

Starting in the 1920s, the dispensationalists began setting up their own infrastructure of seminaries and Bible colleges, led by Dallas Theological Seminary, as influential in 20th Century conservative Protestant ranks as Princeton had been in the 19th Century. Because of their Biblical scholarship, dispensationalism, or at least its eschatological views, made deep penetration into the Baptist and Pentecostal/charismatic churches. What really helped spread the dispensational viewpoint were the events of the postwar era, specifically, the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in Israel, from which the Jewish people had been exiled for over 1,800 years, and in apparent fulfillment of Biblical promises to the Jews. Additionally, the development of nuclear weapons, television, computers, and other technologies seemed to indicate that the events described in the Book of Revelation could be interpreted more literally than most Christian theologians had thought possible in previous centuries.

It was only in the 1990s, after the fall of Communism, the absence of a global superpower other than the historically Christian USA, the passing of more than a generation after the re-establishment of Israel (1948) or the Jewish re-capture of all of Jerusalem (1967), and the failure of sensational end times authors to have their predictions fulfilled, that dispensationalists began to have their eschatological viewpoint strongly challenged among conservative Christians.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.