Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism

Moody Publishers, 2007.

Summary: An update of the earlier “Dispensationalism Today,” it has been expanded and in many ways improved. (I don’t have a copy of the earlier work and must rely on my memory.)

The author argues that Dispensationalism springs from a normal or literal hermeneutic. “The nonliteralist is the nonpremillennialist, the less specific and less consistent literalists are covenant premillennialist and the progressive dispensationalist, and the consistent literalist is a dispensationaslist” (102). He then attempts to defend normative or historical Dispensationalism, against progressive dispensationalists, non-premillennialists, and covenant premillennialists.

The marks of a Dispensationalist are then teaching a separation between Israel and the Church and literalism.

Benefits/Detriments: The spirit of the work is generally irenic. There seems to be a lack recognition of the role of presuppositions in Dispensationalistional hermeneutics. I was amused to discover that the only systemic theology of my childhood home (besides the Scofield and Ryrie study Bibles) was by an “ultradispensationalist,” Charles F. Baker.