Dispensational Modernism by Brendan Pietsch Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Grant Wacker, Supervisor ___________________________ Yaakov Ariel ___________________________ Julie Byrne ___________________________ Bruce Lawrence ___________________________ Thomas Tweed Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT Dispensational Modernism by Brendan Pietsch Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Grant Wacker, Supervisor ___________________________ Yaakov Ariel ___________________________ Julie Byrne ___________________________ Bruce Lawrence ___________________________ Thomas Tweed An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Brendan Pietsch 2011 Abstract This dissertation begins with questions about the epistemic methods that late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century American Protestants used to create confidence in new religious ideas, and particularly the role of scientific rhetoric in this confidence making. It concentrates on early Protestant fundamentalists and the emergence of dispensationalism modernism. Distinct from dispensational premillennialism—a set of theological ideas about prophecy belief and the end times—dispensational modernism was a constellation of epistemic ideas and methods used to interpret texts and time. Historians have traditionally portrayed fundamentalists and dispensationalists as anti- modern, reactionary foes of modern scientific reasoning. Yet early dispensational thinkers created new, modernist methods for readings texts (particularly the Bible) and structuring time (through elaborate interpretations of prophecy). These ideas emerged amidst popular beliefs about the power of quantification, classification, and scientific analysis to construct firm religious knowledge. While liberal higher critics adopted practices of interpreting texts in light of the times—particularly historicism—dispensationalists took a contrary approach and interpreted the times in light of the text of the Bible. Seeing time as divinely ordered and classified with distinct divisions, dispensationalists argued that the meaning of time came from without, through supernatural ruptures in the temporal order. Dispensationalism thrived in the interdenominational networks of mainstream and conservative Protestant clergy who sought to retain intellectual authority for biblical interpretation. As knowledge production became increasingly specialized and professionalized— the domain of elites—dispensational methods provided clergy means to navigate the tension between the need for specialized expertise and popular appeal. These ideas took canonical form iv in the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909 and still the best-selling reference Bible in American history. The reference notes in Scofield’s Bible—condensed expert interpretations and taxonomic divisions—promised methodological proficiency and theological confidence to anyone who studied it. v Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................xi Introduction............................................................................................................................................1 Argument .........................................................................................................................................1 Method.............................................................................................................................................4 Terms.............................................................................................................................................14 Significance ....................................................................................................................................30 Chapter summaries and arguments ..............................................................................................30 1. Taxonomic Minds............................................................................................................................34 1.1 Newer, bigger stuff...................................................................................................................34 1.2 Sunday school organization.....................................................................................................38 1.3 Crises and social contexts........................................................................................................46 1.4 Engineering a new world.........................................................................................................50 1.4.1 Numbers and measurements.............................................................................................54 1.4.2 Efficiency ............................................................................................................................59 1.4.3 Order ..................................................................................................................................64 1.4.4 Taxonomic minds ..............................................................................................................70 1.5 Products of the taxonomic mind: Sunday schools.................................................................71 1.5.1 Unification and standardization.........................................................................................73 1.6 Methods and modernisms ......................................................................................................77 Summary........................................................................................................................................84 2. Premillennial Backgrounds..............................................................................................................86 2.1 Developments in development...............................................................................................86 vi 2.2 Specialization and professionalization....................................................................................89 2.3 Re-tuning clerical professionalization .....................................................................................93 2.3.1 Origins of the Bible conference movement......................................................................93 2.3.2 First International Bible Conference.................................................................................97 2.3.3 Northfield .........................................................................................................................104 2.4 Accumulating accreditations .................................................................................................108 2.5 Two paths of clerical re-professionalization .........................................................................113 2.5.1 Professional clerical networks..........................................................................................115 2.5.2 Popular Bible conferences...............................................................................................122 2.5 Summary................................................................................................................................127 3. Dispensational Hermeneutics........................................................................................................129 3a Academic sciences of the Bible..............................................................................................129 3a.1 The terrain of science........................................................................................................129 3a.2 Refining old-fashioned science..........................................................................................133 3a.2.1 Princeton common sense realism .............................................................................134 3a.3 Forging a new science of higher criticism .........................................................................139 3a.3.1 Newman Smyth and modern doubt .........................................................................140 3a.3.2 William Robertson Smith and higher criticism........................................................144 3a.3.3 Egbert Smyth and disciplinary regimes of method...................................................149 3b Popular reading and grassroots science.................................................................................156 3b.1 Vengeful elephants and meaningful questions.................................................................156 3b.2 Spirit sightings....................................................................................................................160 3b.2 Republican perspicuity......................................................................................................161 3b.3 Brethren conversational Bible reading.............................................................................165