Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[SeriousMoney]

Dispensationalism is another essential teaching of Christian Fundamentalists. Haven't heard too many leftists preaching Dispensationalism lately, brainless.

Dispensationalism is a conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible. As a branch of Christian theology, it teaches biblical history as a number of successive economies or administrations under God known as "dispensations," and emphasizes the continuity of the Old Testament covenants God made with the Jewish people through Abraham, Moses and King David. Dispensationalist Christian eschatology emphasizes a premillennial futurist view of prophecy of the "end times" and a pretribulation view of the rapture.

Dispensationalism and world politics

Dispensationalism teaches that Christians should not expect spiritual good from earthly governments, and should expect social conditions to decline as the end times draw nearer. Dispensationalist readings of prophecies often teach that the Antichrist will appear to the world as a peacemaker. This makes some dispensationalists suspicious of all forms of power, religious and secular, and especially of human attempts to form international organizations for peace, such as the United Nations. Almost all dispensationalists reject the idea that a lasting peace can be attained by human effort in the Middle East, and believe instead that "wars and rumors of wars" (cf. Matt 24:6) will increase as the end times approach. Dispensationalist beliefs often underlie the religious and political movement of Christian Zionism.

Some dispensationalists teach that churches that do not insist on Biblical literalism as they deem appropriate are in fact part of the Great Apostasy. This casts suspicion on attempts to create church organizations that cross denominational boundaries such as the World Council of Churches. (See also ecumenism.)

Dispensationalism and United States politics

Some political analysts have argued that dispensationalism has had a major influence on the foreign policy of the United States, because believers in dispensationalism have had large amounts of influence through the Republican Party. This influence has included strong support for the state of Israel. Some dispensationalist authors such as Hal Lindsey have explicitly identified the Antichrist as having his homeland be in the Soviet Union or the European Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism