From the dispensationalism of John Darby (b. 1801, London) to 20th c. American Christian Zionism (salvation, lordship)

[ParkTwain]

Who was John Darby? ("father of dispensationalism")
John Nelson Darby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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John Nelson Darby, (November 18, 1800 - April 29, 1882) was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. ... [In the 1830s and 1840s, Darby] gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hopes of the church (L'Attente actuelle d'eglise). These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy.
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Where were the Plymouth Brethren?
Plymouth Brethren - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Brethren are a Christian Evangelical movement that began in Dublin, London, Plymouth, and the continent of Europe in the late 1820s. ... The movement found its motivation in a perceived abandonment of many of the basic truths of Christianity by the established Church, and from the beginning, the emphasis was on meeting together only in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, without reference to denominational differences. ... The first meeting in England was established in 1830 in Plymouth by, amongst others, John Nelson Darby.[3] The movement soon spread throughout the UK and by 1831, the group assembled in Plymouth had over 1,500 members. ...

Their teaching has been identified as combining elements of Calvinism and Pietism, and an emphasis on the Millennium.[4] ... Since the 1950s the Assembly Movement has seen a decline in membership in the UK. ... The main concentrations in the UK today can be found in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
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What is dispensationalism?
Dispensationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In the context of Christianity, dispensationalism is an interpretive or narrative framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible, and is frequently contrasted with an opposing interpretation: supersessionism, also referred to as Covenant Theology, see also New Covenant theology. In simple terms, supersessionism teaches that the Christian Church has been established for the salvation of "the Jews first, and also to the Gentiles", and that there is one people of God joined in unity through Jesus Christ. Since the Jews have largely refused to accept Jesus as Christ, "the Messiah of Israel", and since he is their only means of salvation, those individual Jews that reject him, reject the merits of his atoning sacrifice for sins, and have in effect rejected the only provision God has offered for divine forgiveness, therefore they no longer are the true Israel, and Christians have become the "New Jews". This view is also often referred to as "replacement theology"; in that according to this theology, the Church from its very inception has replaced the Jewish people as God's "chosen people" and "holy nation", now and forever. One of the scriptures often cited as a basis for this theology is 1 Peter 2:9.

In contrast, dispensationalism teaches that the Christian Church is a "parenthesis" in God's dealings with the Jews, when the Gospel began to go to the Gentiles instead of the Jews, but that God's continued care for the Jews will be revealed after the Church Age (or Dispensation), when the Jews will be restored to their land, and will accept Jesus as their Messiah. Hence, dispensationalists typically believe in a Jewish restoration. ... Dispensationalism refers to the dividing of history into specific periods according to how God is said to have dealt with humanity. For example, from the Fall to Noah, God related to man through his conscience, from Moses to Christ, he related to man through the Law, and so forth. ... Composed of seven dispensations, the last would be the Millennium. Dispensationalism was made popular through the notes of the Scofield Reference Bible.
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Who was Cyrus Scofield and how did Darby's ideas influence him?
Cyrus Scofield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Cyrus Scofield was born in Lenawee County, Michigan, but during the American Civil War he served for a year as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, C.S.A.. ... Admitted to the Kansas bar in 1869, he was elected to the Kansas legislature as a Republican in 1871 and 1872 and was appointed U.S. attorney for the district of Kansas. Probably because of his alcoholism, he abandoned both his career and his wife and two daughters. Leotine Cerre Scofield divorced him in 1883, and the same year he married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he had a son.[1]

After his conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1879, Scofield assisted in the St. Louis campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody and served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of James H. Brookes, pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent dispensationalist premillennialist.

In 1883 Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, and he accepted the pastorate of small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church, Dallas, Texas (now Scofield Memorial Church). The church grew from fourteen to over five hundred members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895.

In 1888 Scofield attended the Niagara Bible Conference where he met pioneer missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. ... Scofield also served as secretary of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana; and in 1890, he helped found Lake Charles College (1890-1903) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. As the author of the pamphlet, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (1888), Scofield himself soon became a leader in dispensational premillennialism, a forerunner of twentieth-century Christian fundamentalism. ... [W]hen the Scofield Reference Bible was published in 1909, it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism, and Scofield's popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline.
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What was the Balfour Declaration of 1917?
Balfour Declaration of 1917 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Balfour Declaration of 1917 (dated November 2, 1917) was a classified formal statement of policy by the British government on the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the World War I.

The letter stated the position, agreed at a British Cabinet meeting on October 31, 1917, that the British government supported Zionist plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, with the condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there.

The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London but, as they had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as “the” Jewish national home, the Declaration fell short of Zionist expectations.[1]

The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine. The declaration was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour (Foreign Secretary) to Lord Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation, a private Zionist organization.
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What was the British Mandate of Palestine?
British Mandate of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The British Mandate for Palestine, sometimes referred to as the Mandate of Palestine, was a system of government in the Middle East from 1920 to 1948, over the former Turkish provinces of Palestine, Iraq and Syria - territory that now comprises modern-day Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Great Britain was awarded the Mandate for Palestine after World War I by the Treaty of Versailles. Its purpose was to oversee the administration of Germany's former overseas possessions and parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire, which had been in control since the 16th century, "until such time as they are able to stand alone." ([1]) The borders of the Mandate for Palestine extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the West, the French Mandate of Lebanon, French Mandate of Syria, and the British Mandate of Mesopotamia to the North, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the East and South, and the Kingdom of Egypt to the Southwest. ...

This territory was inhabited by the Canaanites, then the Israelites, and then it became part of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman Empires with periods of independence or autonomy for the Jews. When the Roman Empire split, the region was ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. After that it was ruled by the Sassanians, Omayyads, Crusaders and Mamelukes, and then by the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1922.

The Ottomans gained control of the Middle East under Selim I (1465–1520), and incorporated the region into an administrative unit, the eyalet of Syria. The name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, and much of the region became part of the vilayet (province) of Damascus-Syria until 1660, then the vilayet of Saida (Sidon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March 1799–July 1799 French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. On 10 May 1832 it was one of the Turkish provinces annexed by Muhammad Ali's briefly imperialistic Egypt (nominally still Ottoman), but in November 1840 direct Ottoman rule was restored. ...

Before the end of World War I, the British, in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign under General Allenby and the Arab Revolt stirred up by the intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), defeated Ottoman Turkish forces in 1917 and occupied Palestine and Syria. The land was administered by the British for the remainder of the war. ... During World War I the British had made two promises regarding territory in the Middle East. Britain had promised the local Arabs, through Lawrence, independence for a united Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their supporting the British; and Britain had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home as laid out in the Balfour Declaration, 1917. The British had, in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, previously promised the Hashemite family [see present-day leadership of Jordan --PT] lordship over most land in the region in return for their support. At the same time, British interest in Zionism dates to the rise in importance of the British Empire’s South Asian enterprises in the early 19th century, concurrent with "the Great Game" and planning for the Suez Canal. Eminent British figures such as Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, Lloyd George, Lord Palmerston and Arthur Balfour were among the enthusiastic proponents of Zionism.

In October British forces in Syria and the last British soldiers stationed east of the Jordan were withdrawn and the region was under exclusive control of Faisal bin Hussein from Damascus.[5]

On November 23, 1918, a military edict was issued dividing Ottoman territories into occupied enemy territories (OET). The Middle East would be divided into three OETs, and OET-South extended from the Egyptian border of Sinai into Palestine and Lebanon as far north as Acre and Nablus and as tar east as the River Jordan. ... In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed a partition between Jewish and Arab areas. The proposal was rejected by the Arabs and by the Zionist Congress (by 300 votes to 158) but accepted by the latter as a basis for negotiations between the Executive and the British Government.[37][38]

In 1936–1939 the mandate experienced an upsurge in militant Arab nationalism that became also known as "the Great Uprising." The revolt was triggered by increased Jewish immigration, primarily Jews that escaped the Nazi regime in Germany as well as rising anti-Semitism throughout Europe. The revolt was led or co-opted by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini and his Husseini family. The Arabs felt they were being marginalized in their own country, but in addition to non-violent strikes, they resorted to violence, committing numerous attacks on Jewish civilians including rioting and massacres in 1921, 1929, and in the late 1930s. The Jewish organization Irgun used violence, with marketplace bombings and other massacres that also killed hundreds. Eventually, the uprising was put down by the British using severe measures. ...

The British placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in the remaining land, directly contradicting the provisions of the Mandate. A similar proposal to limit immigration in 1931 had been termed a violation of the mandate by the League of Nations. According to the Israeli side, the British had by 1949 allotted over 8500 acres (34 km²) to Arabs, and about 4100 acres (16 km²) to Jews. ...

The Holocaust had a major effect on the situation in Palestine. During the war, the British forbade entry into Palestine of European Jews escaping Nazi persecution, placing them in detention camps or deporting them to places such as Mauritius.[41] ... Starting in 1939, the Zionists organized an illegal immigration effort, known as Aliya Beth, conducted by "Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet", that rescued tens of thousands of European Jews from the Nazis by shipping them to Palestine in rickety boats. Many of these boats were intercepted. The last immigrant boat to try to enter Palestine during the war was the Struma, torpedoed in the Black Sea by a Soviet submarine in February 1942. The boat sank with the loss of nearly 800 lives. Illegal immigration resumed after WW II.

Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri, members of the Jewish Lehi underground, assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo on 6 November 1944. Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East. The assassination is said by some to have turned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause, but for Lehi the priority was to allow Jewish refugees to enter the country and to establish the state on their own.

The British considered Arab support more important, because of their interests in Egypt and control of oil production in Iraq, Kuwait and the Emirates, and especially to guarantee the friendship of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. The ban on immigration continued.

As a result of the assassination of Lord Moyne, the Haganah kidnapped, interrogated, and turned over to the British many members of the Irgun (ironically Lehi members were not harmed as a result of an understanding with Haganah, even though Lehi committed the assassination). This period is known as the 'Hunting Season'. Irgun ordered its members not to resist or retaliate with violence, so as to prevent a spiraling to civil war.

Following the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of US President Harry S. Truman and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the British refused to lift the ban on immigration and admit 100,000 displaced persons to Palestine. The Jewish underground forces then united and carried out several attacks against the British. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people.

Following the bombing the British Government began interning Jews in British camps on Cyprus. The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine, meant the mandate was widely unpopular in Britain and caused US Congress to delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. The Labour party had promised before it's election to allow mass Jewish migration into Palestine. Additionally the situation required maintenance of large numbers of war-weary troops in the country (this was funded by taxing the Jewish community). In response to these pressures the British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and withdraw by May 1948.
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What is Christian Zionism, specifically American Christian Zionism?
Christian Zionism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. This belief is primarily, though not exclusively, associated with Christian Dispensationalism, mainly in English-speaking countries outside Europe.

Christian Zionism, as a specifically theological belief, does not necessarily entail sympathy for the Jews as a nation or for Judaism as a religion. Since the biblical text is filled with references to God's chosen people, it is common for Christian Zionists to emphasize the Jewish roots of Christianity, and even to promote Jewish practices and Hebrew terminology as part of their own practice; however, Christian Zionists commonly believe that to fulfill prophecy, a significant number of Jews will accept Jesus as their Messiah, and that in the last days, such Messianic Jews will practice a thoroughly Hebraic form of Christianity.

Many Christian Zionists believe that the people of Israel remain part of the chosen people of God, along with the ingrafted (based on Romans 11:17-24, Holy Bible) Gentile Christians. This has the added effect of turning Christian Zionists into supporters of Jewish Zionism. ...

Ideas of the restoration of the Jews in Palestine or so-called "Land of Israel" entered the British public discourse in the 19th century, though British reformationists had written about restoration of the Jews as early as the 16th century, and the idea had strong support among Puritans.[2] Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,[3] or by a streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite,[4] or by hopes to extend the Empire. (See The Great Game)

At the urging of Lord Shaftesbury, Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment to Palestine (late 20th century Zionists have starting calling Palestine as "Land of Israel" for obvious propaganda purposes. It has no basis in history or in legal terms). In 1839, the Church of Scotland sent Andrew Bonar and Robert Murray M'Cheyne to report on the condition of the Jews in their land. Their report was widely published[5] and was followed by a "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine." In August 1840, The Times reported that the British government was considering Jewish restoration.[2] The Treaty of Paris (1856) granted Jews and Christians the right to settle in Palestine and opened the doors for Jewish immigration.

An important, though often neglected, figure in British support for restoration of the Jews was William Hechler (1845-1931), an English clergyman of German descent who was Chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna and became a close friend of Theodor Herzl. Hechler was instrumental in aiding Herzl with his diplomatic activities, and may, in that sense, be called the founder of modern Christian Zionism. [1]
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