#2. Premillennial Dispensationalism: The Eschatology of Hurry

Top Ten Powerful Ideas That Have Redefined the Gospel (and Not for the Better)

When I was in Bible college, one professor stood before our class and asked, “Do you know what the greatest-selling books in Christianity are about?” Then, he answered his own question: “Dating and the end times are #1 and #2.” With a grin, he added, “I’m going to write a book that hits both. I’m calling it Dating in the End Times!” The class erupted in laughter, but there was a grim truth underneath. If you want to sell books in the Christian world, write about dating or the end times. The same principle applied in pastoral ministry—conferences on singleness or marriage? Packed house. A seminar on the Antichrist and end-time prophecies? People showed up in droves! But host a conference on discipleship and spiritual formation? You might get the staff and their families.

Eschatology, the study of the last things, is tricky. It’s a subject that seems to breed division. I remember churches of my youth where heated debates centered on pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, premill, amill, and post-mill—the terminology was endless. Eventually, I adopted the joke: “I’m a panmillennialist—it’ll all pan out in the end!” While eschatology doesn’t dominate church discussions today like it once did, it still matters because it influences how we live and minister now.

Take, for instance, the difference between premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. If you believe Jesus will return before the millennium (premillennialism), you likely expect the world to worsen, which might lead to disengagement from cultural transformation. If you’re postmillennial, believing that the world will improve before Christ’s return, you may feel a strong responsibility to impact society positively. If you are amillennial, you have a tendency to avoid both extremes, so you just keep doing what you are doing. Imagine each of the three like approaching a house. Premillennialism sees the house getting torn down and trying to pull people out of it. Postmillennialism is like building a house to get people to live in it. Amillennialism might be described as maintaining and caring for a house that's already been established (the kingdom of God through Christ’s reign). It’s not necessarily building or tearing it down; it’s about living in the house and tending to it in light of its current and future fulfillment.

These theological views don’t just influence our thinking about the future; they shape our daily engagement with the world.

Theological systems, like premillennial dispensationalism, are often shaped by cultural and political movements. Postmillennialism was the dominant eschatology from the Reformation until the 19th century. Key figures like Jonathan Edwards, William Wilberforce, and Alexander Campbell espoused it. However, the horrors of World War I led many to abandon the optimism of postmillennialism, and the rise of premillennial dispensationalism gained traction. This shift in eschatology deeply shaped American evangelical theology.¹

For those who grew up with the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, or who watched A Thief in the Night or read Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, premillennial dispensationalism was more than just a theological backdrop. For me, it was foundational to my training and ministry. Even for those who don’t strictly follow its tenets, premillennial dispensationalism remains interwoven into American evangelicalism.

What exactly is premillennial dispensationalism and where did it originate?

Historian Mark Noll offers a succinct description of premillennial dispensationalism:

“This theology divided the teaching of the Bible into separate divisions—or dispensations—in each of which God was said to act from common principles but with different purposes. Prophecy was important in dispensationalism, especially the effort to perceive the divine plan for the end of time. As dispensationalists interpreted Scripture, Christ would return before establishing a thousand-year reign of peace and righteousness called the millennium (hence a ‘premillennial’ return).”²

The impetus for premillennial dispensationalism was an effort to “…rebuild the church on the model of the New Testament directly.”³ Historian Andrew Walls traces the origins of this theological framework,

“An Irish clergyman, John Nelson Darby, produced a rereading of the Scriptures that he believed to reflect that New Testament model. He and his followers called themselves Brethren; popularly they became known as Plymouth Brethren. Darby insisted that an important feature of the early church was the expectation of the imminent return of the Lord, and he produced a developed scheme to harmonize all the prophecies and replace the accepted eschatology that we have seen in Wesley and Edwards and Carey and Anderson. The historicist interpretation of Revelation was replaced. Revelation is a book not about history but about future events. And hope lies not in the approach of a converted world through a renewed church; what Darby saw was an increasingly evil world and an increasingly corrupt church. Hope lay in the return of the Lord. The study of prophecy could help us discern the signs of the of the times and put the events there foretold in that order.”⁴

Darby argued that the world was declining—contrary to the optimism of postmillennialism—and that the early church’s expectation was for Christ's imminent return. He also reinterpreted the Book of Revelation, not as an account of past or present events but as a prophecy of future ones. From his perspective, hope did not lie in transforming the world through a renewed church; rather, it lay in the return of Christ. As historian Douglas Sweeney writes,

“Dispensationalism is a special form of premillennialism that coalesced in England during the early nineteenth century. As designed by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), its founding architect who was also an early Plymouth Brethren leader, it divided all of history into seven ‘dispensations,’ six of which are centered around the progressive clarification of God’s promises to the Jews. According to most dispensationalists, we are now in the sixth dispensation, a ‘great parenthesis’ between the mainly Jewish dispensations, one that started with the birth of the Christian church at Pentecost and will continue until the eve of the great tribulation (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 6-19). During the current dispensation, God has turned from his chosen people (who rejected the promised Messiah) and has extended a plan of salvation to the Gentiles. In the great millennial age, or the seventh dispensation, God will resume his saving activity with the Jews. Although rooted in covenant theology, which dates from the Middle Ages, dispensationalism has two novel characteristics: a doctrine of the rapture (1 Thess. 4:17) of Christians out of the world before the great tribulation (and the seventh dispensation) and a division between New Testament texts that apply to national Israel (God’s earthly people) and others that apply to the Christian church (God’s heavenly people).”⁵

Dispensationalism took off in the U.S. with the backing of key figures like D.L. Moody, C.I. Scofield, and later Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Dispensationalism, with its emphasis on prophecy and the end times, heavily resonated with American evangelicalism in the 20th century.

While dispensationalists sought to reclaim what they saw as the New Testament model, they inevitably interpreted Scripture through the lens of their own time. They often held a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other, using each to make sense of the other in a world increasingly shaped by modernity. Rather than anticipating progress, they viewed the world as spiraling into decline.

The Impact

One of the most enduring contributions of premillennial dispensationalism is its dual-stage return of Christ: the secret “rapture” of believers, followed by the public Second Coming. The concept of the rapture—where believers are taken up to meet Christ in the air—does not appear in the early church writings and only emerged in the 19th century through Darby. This idea, largely absent from the historical Christian tradition, has surprisingly become central to many modern evangelical eschatologies.

For many evangelicals, dispensationalism shaped not only how they read Scripture but also how they engaged with the world and prepared for the future. The conviction of an imminent end—whether through the rapture or the tribulation—often fostered a disengagement from cultural and societal investment, exemplifying what Andrew Walls called the “eschatology of hurry.”⁶ If Christ's return was imminent, why commit to long-term cultural renewal or transformation? Evangelist D.L. Moody embraced premillennial dispensationalism precisely because it prioritized evangelism above all else, declaring, “I look on this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat, and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.’”⁷

Moody’s approach reduced the gospel to a narrow focus on personal salvation, stripping it from its broader kingdom framework. By emphasizing a “heaven-only” gospel, he prioritized evangelism and conversion but neglected a holistic vision of Christian engagement with the world. While this approach led to many coming to faith, it failed to equip believers to fully grasp the church’s role in God’s redemptive mission or to engage meaningfully with society.

In contrast to Moody’s eschatology of hurry, historians such as Alan Kreider emphasize that the early church was not characterized by hurry as Darby had maintained, but rather it was a "theology of patience" that characterized the first two centuries of the early church.⁸ Rather than viewing time as a diminishing commodity, they stress the slow and steady work of spiritual formation, cultural engagement, and holistic mission. Kreider, in The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, demonstrates how the early church grew not through urgency but through patient, embodied witness.

The Unintended Consequences of an Eschatology of Hurry

It’s at this point that it is imperative to stop and consider the consequences of adopting an eschatology of hurry and how it is affecting us today. Mark Noll writes that while it “preserved something essential to the Christan faith,” it was, along with a few other movements of the time, “a disaster for the life of the mind”⁹ and has wreaked havoc on the modern church.

#1. Shallow Discipleship & Gospel Reductionism—The urgency of dispensationalism often prioritized conversions over lifelong discipleship, emphasizing justification while neglecting sanctification. In the rush to secure decisions for Christ, structures for deep spiritual growth were often jettisoned, reducing the church to a conversion-driven enterprise rather than a community that cultivates spiritual maturity and embodies the kingdom of God. Sidelined in the process were broader theological discussions on social ethics, justice, and the kingdom of God—all deemed to be irrelevant to salvation. This narrow focus made personal piety a priority while neglecting to develop a deep, thoughtful engagement with the world.

#2. Anti-Intellectualism—Dispensationalism prioritized a plain, literal reading of Scripture and was suspicious of academic biblical scholarship. This led to a distrust of historical-critical methods, philosophy, and even theological traditions that encouraged deep intellectual engagement.

#3. Prophetic Speculation > Rigorous Study—The tendency to interpret world events through the lens of biblical prophecy meant that dispensationalists were often more interested in current events as fulfillment of prophecy than in developing a robust intellectual tradition. This led to an unhealthy emphasis on speculative eschatology rather than serious theological reflection.

#4. Cultural Disengagement—If the world was worsening, teetering on the edge of destruction with the rapture imminent, why bother engaging it critically? Why invest in philosophy, the arts, humanities, or sciences? Rather than shaping society through rigorous intellectual engagement, dispensationalists often withdrew, creating a bunker mentality, abandoning culture and academia to be shaped by those who did not know God.

This withdrawal mindset led many evangelicals to pull away from societal institutions, deepening the secular/sacred divide. Andrew Lynn’s Saving the Protestant Ethic illustrates this shift powerfully, noting that Lyman Stewart, once a philanthropist who had invested heavily in government reform, temperance, and poor relief—along with gospel missions—helping thousands of people in the process, eventually withdrew his support from these efforts. Instead, he redirected his resources exclusively to ministries focused on personal conversion.¹⁰

#5. Crisis in Missions—Short-term missions flourished under an eschatology of hurry, but long-term investment in cross-cultural discipleship waned. The rise of globalization and post-Christian contexts now demands a different kind of missionary formation—one that is deeply rooted in the long game of gospel witness.

At this point, it’s important to note that it wasn’t that premillennial dispensationalists didn’t care about what was going on in the culture. On the contrary, they were very concerned with the “least of these” founding several hundred soup kitchens, rescue missions, and the like. Their effect on evangelism is undeniable, but their focus on discipleship and formation is wanting. It must be stated, that not every premillennialist was a dispensationalist.¹¹ However, it did set the stage by putting social concerns secondarily to evangelism. As Douglas Sweeney describes it,

“...their efforts usually focused on the individual sinner, placing the gospel message first and frequently forcing people to listen to an evangelistic sermon before receiving physical care. As in the case of slave missions, so with ministry to the poor, the goal of getting people to heaven trumped their needs in the here and now.”¹²

Sweeney again,

“As lamented by their own, neoevangelical children, in the long run, the great reversal hurt their gospel witness, giving observers reason to think that they had become so heavenly minded that they were no earthly good.”¹³

The problem with premillennial dispensationalism is that it rendered history irrelevant or harmful, thus severing itself from the rich interpretive history of Christians throughout time. What is needed is to recover the full gospel expression that doesn’t deny prophetic elements, nor does it minimize evangelistic pursuits, but it keeps in tension the now and the not-yet. It recognizes the kingdom of God as both present and coming, urging the church to actively engage in the world while eagerly awaiting Christ’s return. This tension allows for faithful participation in God’s mission through justice, mercy, and evangelism, while maintaining a future hope that shapes and fuels present action. Such a vision honors the past, engages with the present, and moves toward the future with purpose and anticipation, rooted in the whole counsel of God and a deeper understanding of God’s redemptive plan for the world.

My Journey

It has taken me years to understand how premillennial dispensationalism had distanced me from engaging with the world. Before becoming a Christian, I had enjoyed art, musical theater, and film, but after my conversion, I felt compelled to abandon these interests because they were considered “worldly” and were going to burn up at the end of time, so why invest any time in them? My faith didn’t equip me to appreciate them beyond assessing their moral content and whether it benefited the kingdom of God.

I was so focused on getting people saved that I didn’t fully grasp how the gospel should shape our interaction with the world. Yet, I felt increasingly detached from the public sphere for fear of being compromised. Yes, I was pastoring and shepherding, running programs to help believers grow in Christlikeness, but internally, something didn’t feel right. There was a growing sense of unease, and I began to realize that my “eschatology of hurry” was quietly eroding.

I began to question why we claimed to preach the whole counsel of God, yet so many "problem passages" and entire Old Testament books were left unexplored. This wasn’t just my personal experience. I recall when missionary Nik Ripken was a guest on the Apollos Watered podcast, and he shared his observations after visiting churches across the United States. He pointed out that 90% of the sermons he encountered were based on Paul’s letters, with very few drawn from the Gospels (except during Christmas or Easter), and almost nothing from the Old Testament beyond Genesis. This reflected the deep influence of premillennial dispensationalism on the preaching diet of modern churches. It troubled me deeply. What kind of theological system were we operating under that treated the rest of the Bible as a spiritual “flyover”? There must be a better way.

Mike Goheen, in Living at the Crossroads, co-authored with Craig Bartholomew, shares his story that echoes my own,

“Mike grew up in a Baptist church. The gospel that was preached there was one of individual, future, and otherworldly salvation. It was all about going to heaven when you die. Nevertheless, that church was a place where God was at work through the gospel; people loved the Lord, and their faith was alive. Mike remains grateful for much in this tradition–for example, its earnest commitment to reading Scripture, to prayer, and to evangelism; its stress on the importance of individual holiness and morality; and its emphasis on the personal relationship that we have with Jesus. These remain important issues for every Christian, and Mike is thankful for this early training. Yet it had little to say about the broader, public life of Western culture–politics, economics, scholarship, education, work, leisure, entertainment, and sports.”¹⁴

Like Mike, I am deeply grateful to the many saints who invested in my life. While many were dispensationalists, most didn’t know what the term meant and wouldn’t have recognized it if you had mentioned it—they simply loved Jesus and wanted to make Him known. I am thankful for their commitment to the Word of God, prayer, evangelism, holiness, and cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus. I praise God for them. However, many unknowingly participated in a system that, despite its many positive aspects, also unintentionally created layers of confusion. These misunderstandings have hindered many Christians from engaging the world effectively, leading to a weakened Christian witness. Rather than actively participating in God’s mission and engaging culture with the fullness of the gospel, the church was often left with a truncated message, less equipped to address the pressing needs of a world in need of the kingdom's transformation.

My goal is to address this by recapturing the full gospel message and allowing the breadth of God’s counsel to sweep away the cobwebs of confusion. This is where the missioholistic approach plays a crucial role.

Missioholism: A Way Through

While premillennial dispensationalism may have been a helpful framework for many, the missioholistic approach (or missioholism—I use both terms frequently) offers a more integrated and holistic vision of God’s work in the world. Missioholism doesn’t retreat into the certainty of an impending rapture (premillennial dispensationalism), nor does it place the burden of salvation on human efforts to transform society (postmillennialism). Instead, it centers on the work of Christ in the present and the future, urging believers to live with purpose in the here and now.

As I discussed last week, missioholism is a term formed from two words: the Latin “missio,” meaning “to send,” which refers to the Missio Dei, or the mission of God, and “holism,” which signifies that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Together, these words convey the idea that we are sent to fulfill God’s mission with every aspect of our lives.

Missioholism is a gospel-centered, mission-driven, and holistically healthy approach to ministry and the Christian life. Like a wheel, it begins with a deep understanding of the gospel to gain momentum, but it is framed according to the grand narrative of God's kingdom. From this foundation, the church—God’s distinct, transcultural community—is empowered to engage the culture for Christ, rather than retreat from it causing the mission of God to move forward. Through the gospel, kingdom story, the church’s distinctiveness, and cultural engagement, we discover how to engage culture and make disciples, all for the glory of God.

Missioholism encompasses many elements, all rooted in this foundational framework. From it, we derive four overarching purposes for our presence in the world:

1. Gospel: To know Christ our King, who defines our identity and purpose.

2. Kingdom: To participate in His kingdom—the grand narrative of creation—revealing where we come from and where all creation is ultimately headed: renewal and recreation.

3. Community: To embody the values of His kingdom within a distinct community, called the church.

4. Culture: To engage culture for Christ in ways that bring Him glory and lead to the salvation of many.

Each of these four elements encompasses various components that illustrate how they take shape in everyday life but are beyond the scope of this article.

Missioholism views history as unfolding according to God’s kingdom agenda, with the church playing an active, redemptive role in the world. Rather than passively waiting for an end, the church is called to actively participate in God’s mission, embodying the values of His kingdom through justice, mercy, and evangelism. The hope of Christ’s return doesn’t lead to disengagement but fuels our engagement with the world in anticipation of the new creation.

Missioholism calls us to a theology that embraces the present reality of the Kingdom of God, seeing all areas of life—culture, work, relationships—as opportunities to live out God’s mission. We are not waiting for a “secret rapture” to escape the world, but instead, we actively engage in bringing about God’s reign, knowing that Christ’s return will bring ultimate renewal.

This approach doesn’t abandon the future hope of Christ’s return but reframes it. Rather than fleeing the world in anticipation of a dramatic end, we live with the conviction that Christ’s return will culminate in the renewal of all things. We labor in the present with the confidence that God’s work is not finished but is continuing through us, His people.

Conclusion

The theological shifts of premillennial dispensationalism have shaped the church for generations. However, the eschatology of hurry—the belief that the end is imminent, and we should escape before it all burns—leaves the church disengaged, passive, and waiting. By embracing a missioholistic vision, we shift from an eschatology of escape to an eschatology of engagement, where we actively participate in God’s kingdom work, engaging the world faithfully until Christ returns.

Eschatology matters. How we understand the end affects how we live today. Missioholism offers a more active, forward-looking theology, urging us to build God’s kingdom here and now, even as we look forward to the day when Christ will make all things new.

Stay tuned next week, as we delve into the #3 powerful idea that has redefined the gospel: expressive individualism.

1. Darren Dochuk, “Revisiting Bebbington’s Classic Rendering of Modern Evangelicalism at Points of New Departure,” in Evangelicals, ed. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George M. Marsden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019), 152.

2. Mark A. Noll, The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 144.

3. Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement from the West: A Biography from Birth to Old Age (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023), 93.

4. Walls, The Missionary Movement from the West, 93–94.

5. Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 197.

6. Walls, The Missionary Movement from the West, 95.

7. Douglas Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 164, quoting Dwight L. Moody, “The Return of Our Lord,” in American Evangelicals, 1800-1900, ed. William G. McLoughlin (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 184-185.

8. Alan Kreider, The Ferment of the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 74.

9. Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 24.

10. Andrew Lynn, Saving the Protestant Ethic,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 40.

11. Sweeney, 164.

12. Sweeney, 163.

13. Sweeney, 164.

14. Michael W. Goheen and Craig G. Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 4. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 4.