Dr Renald Showers went home to be with the Lord this year (1935-2019). He was involved with the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry and the author of many books. In 2015 Dr. Showers sent a note to a friend, who recently passed me the information. I was granted permission to comment. So, here are my thoughts on a note from Renald Showers.
The subject of the exchange was “The Rapture of the Church.” Showers wrote two books on the subject. One was a presentation of the pretribulational view: “Maranatha: Our Lord, Come.” The other was a critique of the prewrath system: “The Pre-wrath Rapture View.” These two books were a response to Marvin Rosenthal’s “The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” and Robert Van Kampen’s “The Sign.”
Showers’ critique of the PW system was met with high condemnation by one PW author. Though this writer observed Showers to be “a godly man with sincere intentions,” she claimed he misrepresented the system. He was charged with being “tangential” and not having properly analyzed her view.
A lot of emotional ink has been spilled over these issues. But my first thought was, “What a load of drivel!” The writer’s reference to Showers being a godly man, yet misrepresenting the PW view, was a poisoning-the-well setup.
While Showers didn’t interact with Van Kampen’s later work: “The Rapture Question Answered,” he pedantically analyzed the ingredients of the view (which haven’t essentially changed). He cited both sources with their relevant texts and page numbers, and then critiqued using Scripture. I made a point of checking the sources.
Moving on to the contents of his note to my friend…
Renald Showers reveals that he was a close friend of Rosenthal (who he met
first) and Van Kampen. He named his younger daughter after Marv’s wife. He met
the Van Kampens while on the faculty at Moody Bible Institute. In turn it was
through Showers that Rosenthal met Van Kampen.
According to Showers, Van Kampen was a convinced posttribulationist. He asked Showers why he didn’t hold to the posttrib view. When the latter gave his reasons, Van Kampen agreed. Yet he was so biased against pretribulationism that he was driven for three years searching for an alternate view. And so the prewrath system was born.
Eventually Van Kampen convinced Rosenthal. When board members of the mission (FOI) learned about this new view they asked several “doctrinally qualified” men to examine it. When it was rejected, Rosenthal resigned. I’m sure some will say these men wanted to hold onto pretrib, and were biased. I’m not getting into that other than to point to Showers’ critique mentioned earlier.
Showers notes that Van Kampen bought land in Illinois and built a church through which he could teach his PW view. In order to join, one had to adopt the view – all church officers had to be committed to it. Ironically RVK had previously accused pretribulationists of dividing over this rapture timing issue.
Some time later, Dr. Showers published his book “Maranatha.” After Van Kampen’s
death someone sent a copy of “Maranatha”
to his son, who was an officer at Van Kampen’s church. The book was distributed
around and Showers was informed that, as a result, they became convinced of
pretribulationism and changed their doctrinal view.
Here are my personal observations, which I’m sure will offend some folk. I’ll
begin with the last few points.
It’s roundly accepted that Van Kampen started a church to promote his view. There’s no hard data – I’m aware of – on whether the church re-stated its doctrinal statement concerning the rapture. Although, interestingly enough, none of the HBC churches which evolved out of Van Kampen’s initial impulse currently have the prewrath view in its statement of faith.
This is also true of the Harvest Church which Van Kampen’s son-in-law David Wisen pastors (at time of writing). The timing of the rapture in all the statements of belief isn’t stated. Kristen Wisen (Van Kampen’s daughter) at one point had online files discussing the PW rapture. These have been removed. Perhaps they’ve concluded that forcing a particular view may be detrimental to growing the membership. Who knows!
Renald Showers doesn’t comment on whether his relationship with Rosenthal and Van Kampen soured. But we do have the latter men’s two books.
Rosenthal came across as a bitter man. Of course, that’s only my perception. One may argue that he’s justified being bitter about losing his position at FOI because of his principles. Yet if “rapture timing” is as important as Rosenthal believed it to be, then you do what you think is right. We get a feel for the need for Marv’s departure from FOI when we read that he believes the pretrib rapture is, “a satanically planned sneak attack” (page 282 of his book).
Showers’ assessment of Robert Van Kampen’s disdain for pretribulationism appears accurate based on what RVK wrote in TRQA. On page 193 he erroneously associated pretribulationism with Edward Irving. He further wrote that at the time of the development of pretribulationism, new cults also emerged: e.g., Mormonism, Christian Science, Unitarianism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Van Kampen self-identified as a person with logical analytical skills based on his successful business acumen. We’re informed that his co-workers called him, “The Charger” He wrote:
If I needed something, I went after it. If I wanted to know something my charger personality and my analytical mind drove me until I got the answers. ~ TRQA (p 18)
I have done my homework in advance…It is always a particular delight to me when I can point to chapter and verse, then tell my accuser that the issue is not with me, but with what the Scriptures clearly say. Usually that puts and end to the conversation. ~ TRQA (p 32)
A few pages over, RVK says he kept an eye out for friends and professors of Moody Bible Institute at Chicago’s Train Loop. He said he had a lot of unanswered questions. But if they saw him they would duck behind their newspapers. Presumably they didn’t have answers. I doubt this was always the case. There hasn’t exactly been a dearth of responses to his position.
I wasn’t a witness to these Chicago Train Loop jaunts, but I do know that once you entertain determined individuals in rapture discussions you can get caught in an almost endless loop of debating. They’re often so committed to their view they won’t let it go until you concede defeat. There hardly ever is “an end to the conversation.”
With his resume out of the way, RVK proceeded to unpack what his logical-analytical mind discovered while searching for the true timing of the rapture. Whatever else may be said of Robert Van Kampen, he wasn’t shy.
In contrast, Renald Showers never resorted to promoting personal attributes. Not once did he accuse the other side of being unbiblical or using eisegesis. Nor did he accuse the other system of being satanic. He was always respectful in his criticisms.
I’m personally thankful for that, and for his work.
Maranatha!
Further resources:
Jim McClarty discusses the prewrath rapture in an irenic manner HERE There may be areas where I disagree. One is that I think pretrib has more in common with midtrib rather than prewrath. Both PW and posttrib have the church suffering under the Antichrist. That said; Jim McClarty makes many excellent points.
Darrel Cline has penned an extensive review of Van Kampen’s TRQA. Some readers may get their noses out of joint because of his bluntness. Again, there are areas where I disagree, but his evaluation of the book hits most targets. Read it HERE
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