Crawford Gribben

What is dispensationalism?

Well, the way I come at it as a historian is I think about first, where did it come from? Dispensationalism as a system of theology is about 200 years old, and it started in the British Isles.

So that's one way to think about it is it's one of these many isms or systematic theologies that are in the evangelical world today.

Its main sort of interpretive or argument in terms of theology is dispensationalists make a core distinction between the church and Israel that really defines their hermeneutics or the way they read the Bible.

And so probably the most famous thing dispensationalists will know from at least in America is the rapture idea.

And so the rapture will be God taking away the remnant true believers of the church to essentially end this dispensation and kick off the events that will bring in the next dispensation, the kingdom.

Can you briefly – I know in the email that you send out to people who ask you to do interviews, you say things like, I'm a trained intellectual historian, not a theologian, so I'm not going to try to get you to do too much theology.

Your book is more about the history of dispensationalism.

It's called...

It's by Crawford Gribben, Writing the Rapture: Prophecy, Fiction, and Evangelical America.

And this is, this is-- See if this sounds familiar to you.

Um, let's see.