Canfield On C.I. Scofield and His 1909 Reference Bible

Posted : 15 Nov, 2012 08:17 AM

Canfield On C.I. Scofield and His 1909 Reference Bible



Joseph M. Canfield wrote a book on C.I. Scofield and his Reference Bible, called "The Incredible Scofield and His Book," 1988. However, Canfield apparently became a Preterist. But his work on Scofield tends to be scholarly, with careful research done on important points.



Scofield was offered a membership

in the Lotus Club of New York, a prestigious club in the literary

circles of the United States catering to non-Christians. This was not

a club in which one applied for membership, rather, you had to be

invited and have a sponsor. The answer to how Scofield got into the club, Canfield shows, was Samuel Untermeyer (1858-1941).



On pages pages 173 to 175 of The Incredible Scofield, Canfield focuses on the evidence in existence about C.I. Scofield's unlikely membership in the artistic and literary exclusive New York Lotos Club.



"The other act of 1901 was one that, according to the principles of he

Brethren, should have made J.N. Darby spin in his grave. Scofield was

admitted to membership in the Lotos Club in New York City. Now such a

step was in complete conflict with the standard Plymouth Brethren

working interpretation of II Cor 6: 14, "Be ye not equally yoked

together with unbelievers."



The Lotos Club is an exclusive club of a sort more common in London,

as so often described in British literature. The phenomenon, while

present in the United States, has never developed on this side of the

Atlantic to the extent it did in England...The club's purpose as noted

in Article I, Section II of its Constitution, was:



"The primary object of this Club shall be to promote social

intercourse among journalists, artists, and members of the musical and

dramatic professions, and representatives, amateurs, and friends of

Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts..."...



"The Club's Literacy Committee, when Scofield's application was

presented, included Samuel Untermeyer (1858-1941), a notorious

criminal lawyer. Untermeyer's accomplishments, described in Who's Who

in America take up more than two columns. There is not one activity

listed which would suggest that Untermeyer could have appreciated

either Scofield's Bible Correspondence Course or his magazine

The-Believer. Unteremeyer's life was so remote from the circles in

which Scofield normally moved, that we must remain amazed that

Untermeyer would have given Schofield the "white ball" rather than the

"black ball." A possible clue - Schofield's "postponed Kingdom"

theory (of which more anon - many Christians hold that theory to be

without Scriptural basis) was most helpful in Getting Fundamental

Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer's

pet projects - the Zionist Movement...



"It defies understanding that an "obscure" pastor from the

hinterlands, whose literary output up to 1901 consisted of very

sectarian booklets, articles and courses, would be considered

acceptable in the Lotos Club. Indications are that had Reid or Samuel

Untermeyer seen any of Scofield's works, they would have reacted with

raucous laughter. Scofield kept up his membership in Lotis until his

death in 1921. The membership was not referred to in any obituary or

eulogy. (The dispensational community knew nothing of it!) The Club

was given as Scofield's residence in 1912 in Who's Who in America.

The 1905 letter to Gaebelein was written on the Lotis Club

stationery."



Canfield writes, "The selection of Scofield for admission to the Lotos Club, which

could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion

which has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of

C.I. Scofield. Such direction probably was motivated by concerns

remote from fidelity to the person, work and truth of Jesus Christ."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Untermyer "Samuel Untermeyer[

was a Jewish-American lawyer and civic leader as well as a self-made

millionaire....Untermyer advocated the Zionist liberation movement and

was President of the Keren Hayesod, the agency through which the

movement was then and still is conducted in America.[9]......



Canfield says "...the Bible project was not originally based on the

support of a broad spectrum of the Christian constituency. It was

supported from a select group who were economically able to finance

special ideas and ride ideological hobbies." He is talking about Scofield's Reference Bible.



Again, Canfield says "The selection of Scofield for admission to the Lotos Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion which has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C.I. Scofield. Such direction probably was motivated by concerns remote from fidelity to the person, work and truth of Jesus Christ."



My comment: Without that directing and help, Scofield's probably would not have

gotten his Reference Bible published by Oxford University Press, whose

prestige helped sell the book and its ability to transmit the

dispensationalist man-made theological system to millions of American and English Christians

since 1909. And many American dispensationalist missionaries to other

nations have planted dispensationalist churches in other lands. The

publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 is one one date in history that

marks the beginning of the spread of dispensationalism, and its process of becoming the dominant theology in the evengelical denominations, a leavening going on over time (Luke 13: 21). Another possible date would be the earlier Niagra Bible Conferences held annually from 1876 to 1897. The Conferences helped to establish dispensationalism in the United States.

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