A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

alism. This spirit of super-patriotism is also noticeable in some sections of the M.B. Church. Considerable influence has been exerted upon Mennonite Brethren churches through attendance of their young people at Fundamentalist Bible institutes. According to Daniel B. Stevick, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and the Moody Bible Institute were in the vanguard of the Fundamentalist movement." After World War I (and even earlier) a number of Mennonite Brethren ministers, leaders, and Bible school teachers had received their training in these and other schools of a similar theological position. Fundamentalist views were also widely disseminated through periodical literature. The Sunday School Times had a fair circulation among Mennonite readers. More influential in Mennonite Brethren churches was the Defender magazine, published in the twenties, thirties, and forties by Gerald B. Winrod in Wichita, Kansas. Among Canadian evangelicals, including Mennonite Brethren, T. T. Shields, pastor of the Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto, exerted a similar influence through The Gospel Witness and Protestant Advocate. Much research is needed in order to accurately assess the nature and scope of the impact of Fundamentalism on the theology of the M.B. Church. This much, however, can be said from present observations: Fundamentalism has had a restricting influence on the gospel message as portrayed in the New Testament, and has weakened the historic UNDERSTANDING BIBLICAL REVELATION 377 evangelical Anabaptist foundations of Mennonite Brethren faith and practice. 2. Dispensationalism" Possibly no other theological system has influenced Mennonite Brethren theology during the past fifty years as much as dispensationalism. In the thinking of many Bible students this form of Scripture interpretation is identified with premillennialism, and even with true biblicism. Although age schemes are almost as old as the Christian church, modern dispensationalism is of comparatively recent origin. According to Lewis S. Chafer, "scholarly research of the Bible with dispensational distinctions in view was made during the last century in England by J. N. Darby, Charles H. Mackintosh, Wm. Kelly, F. W. Grant and others who developed what is known as the Plymouth Brethren Movement." 68 John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), the outstanding leader of the early Plymouth Brethren, had much to do with systematizing and promoting dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a system of thought which conceives of redemptive history (as revealed in Scripture) not in terms of one organically-related Heilsgeschichte, but in terms of seven distinct dispensations of time, during each of which "man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God" (Scofield). According to the more moderate view of Ryrie, "a dispensation is a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God's purpose." 69 Each dispensation i