C. I. Scofield and Polotics

Introduction

Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (August 19, 1843 – July 24, 1921) was a theologian of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He experienced the rise of both theological and political progressivism. This article attempts to examine the life and ministry of Scofield in light of the economic and political conditions of the early twentieth century. Scofield was able to take what D.L. Moody had begun in establishing a network of like minded fundamentalist Christians that included some of the most well recognized seminaries and publications in America. He did this in a country that was rapidly dividing between progressivism and fundamentalism. The economic conditions were equally dividing among the industrialist and traditional agrarian.

Politics and religion are often linked to one another. So, when examining the success of Christian enterprise one must ask what is driving it; changes in faith or if faith is driving politics and economics. What conditions allowed for someone like Scofield to succeed in the market place of ideas and opportunity in America?

Who was Scofield?

Scofield was born in Michigan in 1843. He had intended to go into law by enrolling into a Tennessee law school. His education was delayed with the beginning of the Civil War. After the war he found employment as a lawyer in Kansas before becoming a US district attorney and state legislator. He was forced to leave those positions under allegations of corruption causing his marriage and life to fall apart. Under the influence of evangelist Dwight L. Moody he became a Christian. Moody encouraged Scofield to become a minister in a Congregationalist church first in Massachusetts and then in Texas. Along with his success in pastoral ministry, Scofield became a popular speaker at Bible conferences.

Scofield desired to help the average Christian to be able to do their own study of Scripture. He believed that reading and study of the Bible was the key to the Christian life. He recognized an inability of many Christians to apply Scripture to their own lives. This led him to the world of Christian publication. He wrote the popular Scofield Reference Bible which was published in 1909.

The Scofield Reference Bible

Scofield’s reference Bible included footnotes that were readable to the average Christian layperson. These notes were also conservative in nature which stood in direct contrast with the teaching of many seminarians of that day. These reference Bibles allowed Christians to reject the modern literary criticism that questioned the authenticity and reliability of the Bible. It is a key element to the division between progressivism which many Christians were accepting and fundamentalists. Its popularity can be seen by the number of Bibles sold. It sold more than two million copies by the end of World War II in 1945. Another important component of the Scofield Reference Bible is that it was premillennial and dispensational. This is a key feature as many popular and successful preachers of the past like Jonathan Edwards had been postmillennial in their eschatological beliefs. The optimistic postmillennial theology had been shaken because of the Civil War. The anticipation of the world continuing on a positive trajectory would go on to be unsettled by World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. The pessimistic view of dispensationalism provided answers about the present state of the world in Scofield’s day and for years and events that followed. Scofield’s writings portray a world with a corrupt and decaying society that would eventually fail and collapse. For example, he wrote, “in a yet larger sense to the final crash of the present world-system at the end of the age.”^[1] The failure of optimistic eschatology left a vacuum that would be filled by Scofield’s premillennialism for many believers. Like any good entrepreneur minded minister, Scofield took the proceeds of his reference Bible and invested it. In 1914 he established the Philadelphia School of the Bible which would produce many important pastors and theologians that maintained a fundamental and dispensational theology.

The economic conditions of the early nineteenth century provided opportunities for Scofield. On one hand there was societal upheaval and economic inequality that many interpreted as the failed system Scofield argued that the Bible predicted.  For many in the country wages were on the rise. Church membership was also on the rise. “In 1906 the population of the United States was 84,246,252; by 1956 it was estimated 168,091,000. The rate of the increase in these 50 years was 99.5 percent. In that same period membership in religious bodies rose from 32,936,445 to 100,162,529, or 204 percent.”[2]

The impact of the Scofield Reference Bible was dramatic. First the Scofield Reference Bible became popular and second; many seminaries embraced higher criticism and liberal theology. Christians who used the Scofield Bible became estranged from the theology of new pastors, who had been trained in liberal schools, who then attacked premillennial beliefs.^[3] Dispensational Premillennialism, the theology espoused by Scofield, became the dominate view of many churches in America, especially among Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians,^[4] despite the attack of more liberal pastors and theologians. Scofield’s Bible college led to a multi-decade long dynasty of dispensational and fundamental thought.

Bibliography

Blaising, Craig A. “Developing Dispensationalism Part I: Doctrinal Development in Orthodoxy.” Bibliotheca Sacra 145, no. 578 (1988), 133-9.

Trumbull, Charles Gallaudet. The Life Story of C. I. Scofield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1920.

Walvoord, John F. “Reflections on Dispensationalism.”, Bibliotheca Sacra 158, no. 629 (2001), 131-7.

Wolf, Richard C. “1900–1950 Survey: Religious Trends in the United States.” Christianity Today (April 1959).

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^[1] C. I. Scofield, ed., The Scofield Reference Bible: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments (New York; London; Toronto; Melbourne; Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1917), 727.

[2] Wolf, Richard C., “1900–1950 Survey: Religious Trends in the United States,” Christianity Today (April 1959).

[3] John F Walvoord, “Reflections on Dispensationalism.”, Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 158, 629 (Dallas TX: Dallas Theological Seminary, 2001), 132-33.

[4] Craig A Blaising, “Developing Dispensationalism Part I: Doctrinal Development in Orthodoxy,: Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 145, no. 578 (1988), 134.