Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
this book becomes a recruiting device for Christian
Reconstructionism. Too many bright, young readers
will be tipped off to the existence of dominion
theology.
Our opponents know this, so I do not expect to see any
systematic effort to refute Chilton on eschatology, any
more than we have seen a book-long effort to refute
Greg Bahnsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics (1977) 12
or R. J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (1973). 13
The potential critics have had plenty of time; they
have not had plenty of definitive answers. I believe the
reason is that the Bible’s case for the continuing
standard of Biblical law is too strong. Our opponents
would prefer that we remain silent and stop raising
these difficult ethical questions. Our opponents are
caught in a major dilemma. If they continue to fail to
respond, their silence becomes a public admission of
intellectual defeat. If they do respond, we have an
opportunity to reply – and the replies are where the
academic debating points are always scored. When you
fail to respond effectively to the replies, you lose the
debate. Our opponents understand the rules of the
academic game. They do not begin the confrontation.
At the same time, they need our insights in order to
make sense of at least parts of the Bible. I have seen
copies of Rushdoony’s Institutes for sale in the Dallas
Theological Seminary Bookstore. They need his
insights on Biblical law, yet they cannot deal with the
underlying theology of his book. They simply dismiss
him as somehow unimportant on such issues. They
pretend that he has not offered a monumental
challenge to dispensational ethics. 14 They pretend that
they can successfully use his book as a kind of neutral
reference work on the Old Testament case laws, and
also somehow avoid losing their most energetic
students to the Christian Reconstructionist movement.
The career of Pastor Ray Sutton (a graduate of Dallas
Theological Seminary) indicates that they have made a
mistake.
In a popularly written essay for a non-Christian
audience, two fundamentalist authors insisted that
while R. J. Rushdoony’s insights on education and
politics are used by fundamentalists, they do not take
his kingdom views seriously. When their Christian
schools are brought to court by some arrogant state
attorney general, they call in Rushdoony to take the
witness stand for the defense. This has been going on
since the mid-1970’s. They need him. They know they
need him. Yet his two fundamentalist critics went on to
say that hardly anyone in the Christian world takes his
views on the kingdom of God seriously. “Fortunately,
we can say with confidence that he represents a very
small group with absolutely no chance of achieving
their agenda.” 15
12. 2nd edition, 1984. Published by Presbyterian & Reformed, Phillipsburg, New
Jersey.
13. Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973.
14. The one book-length attempt of any dispensationalist scholar to refute
theonomists is an unpublished Dallas Theological Seminary doctoral
dissertation: Ramesh Paul Richard’s Hermeneutical Prolegomena to
In terms of numbers, they were correct: The Christian
Reconstruction movement is small. In terms of young
men who can write and speak and take leadership
positions, the two authors were whistling by the
graveyard – their own movement’s graveyard. If
traditional, pessimillennial fundamentalist intellectual
leaders really had the academic answers to today’s
problems in social, economic, and political life, they
would not be drinking at the well of Christian
Reconstructionism. But they are. They have no place
else to go.
I do not expect to see The Days of Vengeance for sale in
the Dallas Seminary Bookstore. I do not expect to see
it on any traditional dispensational seminary’s
recommended reading list. If this book gains wide
circulation among the next generation of
dispensational pastors, there will be a sharp break of
leadership within dispensationalism. The best and the
brightest will be absent.
If Dallas Seminary students read it, and also read
Paradise Restored, the professors at Dallas will be
subjected to hard questioning, the likes of which they
have never seen since that school was founded. (If the
students also read Sutton’s That You May Prosper, the
faculty will have a theological revolution on its hands.)
The faculty is not about to make this sort of short-run
trouble for itself, even though in the longer run this
conspiracy of silence will cost dispensationalism dearly.
These books probably will not be sold at Grace
Theological Seminary, either. And, just for the record,
let me predict that you will not see Chilton’s books
recommended at non-dispensational seminaries either,
for very similar reasons: They are too hot to handle.
I will make myself perfectly clear: If the faculty
members of any institution calling itself a Biblebelieving
theological seminary cannot risk assigning to
their seniors, Chilton’s Paradise Restored, Sutton’s That
You May Prosper, and Bahnsen’s By This Standard –
three short, easily read, minimally footnoted books –
because they are afraid of disturbing their students’
thinking, or because they themselves are not ready to
provide answers to their students’ inevitable questions,
then that faculty has raised the white flag to the
Christian Reconstructionists. It means that we
Reconstructionists have won the theological fight.
We are already picking off some of their brightest young
men, and doing it on a regular basis. They read our
books secretly, and they are waiting for their instructors
to say something in response. Their instructors are
hiding. They are involved in the child’s game of “let’s
pretend.” “Let’s pretend that these books were never
published. Let’s pretend that our brightest students are
not being picked off by them. Let’s pretend that this
flood of newsletters out of Tyler, Texas doesn’t exist.
Premillennial Social Ethics (1982). It has not been published even in a
reworked form. It is understandable why not: a terrible title. Worse, the
dissertation gave away too much theological ground to the theonomists. This
indicates the crisis facing dispensationalism today.
15. Ed Dobson and Ed Hindson, “Apocalypse Now?” Policy Review (Ott. 1986),
p. 20.
12