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Book Review: 88 Reasons to Ignore Dispensationalists

September 5th, 2007 at 04:58am Albert McIlhenny

88 reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988: The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hash-Ana) September 11-12-13 – Edgar C. Whisenant Whisenant/World Bible Society (1988) Topic: Eschatology Summary: Pamphlet predicting the rapture would occur in September 1988 Rating:

Reviewing a book that was proven to be dead wrong almost two decades ago might seem like a colossal waste of time but I believe the Church can learn from her mistakes. Althought embarassing, it is useful to be reminded just how easily many Christians can be swept away by a combination of poor reasoning and mass hysteria. Hopefully, exposure to the follies of the past will help innoculate us from traveling the same path in the future.

In 1987, an unknown former NASA engineer named Edgar Whisenant caused a sensation in Protestant Evangelical circles with the publication of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Taking as a given the highly dubious premillennial dispensationalist system, Whisenant predicted the expected “rapture of the saints” would occur during Rosh Hashana in Spetember 1988. The pamphlet was a huge success – it sold millions of copies, earned Whisenant a brief period of star status in the Evangelical speaking circuit, and manged to make Paul and Jan Crouch preempt regular programming on their Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) during the predicted “rapture time” with programs teaching the rapture so those left behind would know what had happened.

This certainly wasn’t the first time the Crouch’s had made fools of themselves and it wouldn’t be the last. When the date came and past, Whisenant revised his prediction to alter it by a few weeks. This too passed and he claimed he had miscalculated by a year and it would surely come during Rosh Hashanah 1989. That too passed and it became 1990, 1991, and so forth as each year he attracted a much smaller audience. It could all be mildly amusing if so many had not staked their hopes in Whisenant’s fantasies and accepted his claim that he could only be wrong if the Bible were wrong as well. Who knows how many discounted the witness of Holy Scripture after a few such false predictions?

Many of the eighty-eight reasons Whisenant gave were not original to him. Other self-procalined “prophecy experts” had been pointing out the conditions necessary for the predicted rapture for years but were careful to hedge their bets. For example, Hal Lindsey pointed out the year 1948 (the founding of the nation of Israel) as the beginning of the “last generation” of 40 years in his best selling book The Late Great Planet Earth almost two decades earlier and seemd to confirm it in his later book 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon?. However, Lindsey is a slippery target who slyly slips in qualifiers as an escape and rewrites his books to cover any missteps. Whisenant was far more confident and appeared on TV and radio proclaiming that 1988 as the year of the rapture.

Since Whisenant has not been heard from in over a decade, I am unsure, assuming he is still alive, if he has any opinions on his past errors. It is painfully obvious to anyone with any perspective on Church history that his first – and most crucial – mistake was placing his trust in the premillennial dispensationalism. This terribly flawed system is a modern concoction that places an external hermeneutic upon the workings of Holy Scripture without any logical or historical warrant and forces meanings into passages that are completely alien to their original context. If one begins with this system as a basis, the results are inevitably worthless.

Although Whisenant’s career as a “prophecy expert” was cut short by his repeated failures, others like Lindsay who were less overt and did a better job of covering their tracks continue to make money selling their snake oil to thousands of gullible customers. More recently, Tim LaHaye and his Left Behind series of novels have taken the “prophecy industry” to new heights despite its continued failures.

Eventually, the dispensationalist system will be assigned to the dustheap of history (there are some signs this is already occuring) as its weaknesses become more well known. Until then, more Edgar Whisenants will rise on the scene and leave disillusioned followers behind when their predictions fail. Thus, despite its worthlessness, we should remember 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 so when we see its like again we can warn others to ignore the rotten fruit the dispensationalists are trying to sell.

Entry Filed under: Eschatology, Whisenant, Edgar C.