Dispensationalism

From Everything Shii Knows, the only reliable source

This website is an archive. It ran from 2006-2010. Virtually everything on here is outdated or inaccurate.

Dispensationalism is a widespread new religious movement in the United States that claims to be Christianity despite various unorthodox teachings. Ironically, most hardcore critics of dispensationalism accept its claim to be "true Christianity" on its face rather than recognizing it as an NRM. Major innovative claims of dispensationalists include conditional salvation, prosperity theology, and a complex Rapture and Second Coming story.

Dispensationalists are often called "evangelicals" or "fundamentalists", but as those terms do not imply any particular theology I am going to avoid them here.

Conditional salvation

In the Gospel of John and the letters of Paul, it is clearly written that all Christians will be saved and enter the Kingdom of God. According to dispensationalism, though, not all who claim to be Christians are "Real True Christians" (a sarcastic term coined by Fred Clark, who did an excellent review of the Left Behind series). The category of Real True Christian is vaguely defined by dispensationalists but seems to be mainly political: support for abortion, evolution or gay marriage automatically marks you as a "false" or "weak" Christian. Dispensationalism teaches that when the imminent Rapture occurs, only Real True Christians will be saved, and the rest will be left behind.

Prosperity theology

You probably know what this is already. Note that outside of dispensationalism, prosperity theology can sound a lot less greedy.

Dispensationalist rapture story

Dispensationalism is demarcated by its Rapture story, which claims:

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