C. I. Scofield
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Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (August 19, 1843 – July 24, 1921) was an American theologian, minister, and writer whose best-selling annotated Bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism among fundamentalist Christians.
Biography
Childhood
Cyrus Scofield was born in Clinton Township, Lenawee County, Michigan, the seventh and last child of Elias and Abigail Goodrich Scofield. Elias Scofield's ancestors were of English and Puritan descent, but the family was nominally Episcopalian. Abigail Scofield died three months after Cyrus's birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's childhood.[1] Details of his early education are unknown, but there is no reason to doubt his later testimony that he was an enthusiastic reader and that he had studied Shakespeare and Homer.[2]
Civil War service
By 1861, Scofield was living with relatives in
Lawyer and politician
In 1866, he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St. Louis.
Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking,[10] Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period.[11] Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.[12]
Conversion and ministerial career
Pastorates
According to Scofield, he was converted to
In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a
Interest in missions
In 1888, Scofield attended the Niagara Bible Conference where he met pioneer missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. Taylor's approach to Christian missions influenced Scofield to found the Central American Mission in 1890 (now Camino Global).[17] Scofield also served as superintendent of the American Home Missionary Society of Texas and Louisiana. In 1890, he founded Lake Charles College (1890–1899) in Lake Charles, Louisiana.[18]
Fundamentalist leader
As the author of the pamphlet "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" (1888), Scofield soon became a leader in
Scofield left the liberalizing Congregational Church to become a Southern Presbyterian and moved to the New York City area where he supervised a correspondence and lay institute, the New York Night School of the Bible. In 1914, he founded the Philadelphia School of the Bible in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (now Cairn University).[21]
Personal life
During the early 1890s, Scofield began styling himself Rev. C. I. Scofield, D.D.; but there are no extant records of any academic institution having granted him the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.[22] Scofield's second wife proved a faithful companion and editing assistant, but his relationships with his children, including librarian Abigail Scofield Kellogg, were distant at best.[23] Scofield died at his home on Long Island in 1921.[24]
Religious significance
Scofield's correspondence Bible study course was the basis for his Reference Bible, an annotated, and widely circulated, study Bible first published in 1909 by
Notes
- ^ Lutzweiler, 60–61.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 61–62. Scofield told his first biographer that his personal reading had inspired him to begin making a chart of universal history when he was twelve.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 63–65. Scofield argued that he was native of Michigan, had never exercised the rights of citizenship in the Confederacy, had enlisted as a minor, was suffering from bad health, and intended to "enter Guerilla service in East Tenn." He was discharged on September 26, 1862.
- ^ Rushing, 24.
- ^ Rushing, 26. In 1903, Scofield was awarded the Southern Cross of Honor by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Dallas Chapter #6. Rushing, 105.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 71.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 73–74.
- White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841–2001 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 47–48.
- ^ History of the United States Attorney District of Kansas. The apologetic Mangum & Sweetnam note that "there are discrepancies in these reports as to where his time was served or what the crime was he allegedly committed." Even Canfield, after scouring public records, looking for corroboration of the jail-time stories, concludes that such reports are only "unsubstantiated rumors."(37)
- ^ Mangum & Sweetnam, 25.
- ^ Scofield also had a son by Leontine, Guy Sylvestre (1872–74), who died of scarlet fever at the age of two. Mangum & Sweetnam, 24.
- ^ Noel Paul Scofield (1888–1962) consistently refused to give interviews about his father. Lutzweiler, 198. C. I. Scofield almost certainly provided deliberately inaccurate personal information to Who's Who and to his official biographer, Charles Trumball. As another biographer has written, Scofield "was secretive about his past and not above distorting the facts of his shadowy years." John D. Hannah, "Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson" American National Biography Online February 2000.
- ^ Trumbull, 28.
- ^ Mangum & Sweetnam, 11.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 101.
- ^ When Moody died in 1899, Scofield presided at his funeral service. Mangum & Sweetnam, 15.
- ^ Tucker, 304–305.
- ^ "Guide to Scofield Memorial Church Selected Records". Yumpu. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
- ^ Mangum & Sweetnam, 13–15.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 182.
- ^ Richardson, Sarah (2019). "C. I. Scofield: True Believer". HistoryNet. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
- ^ Mangum & Sweetnam, 46. Scofield did not include the "D.D." in the information he provided Who's Who.
- ^ Lutzweiler, 192-98. Both daughters lived in Atchison, Kansas, and became school teachers. Mangum & Sweetnam, 26.
- ^ Mangum & Sweetnam, 18. The funeral was held in the large sanctuary of the First Baptist Church, Flushing, New York, and Scofield was buried in Flushing Cemetery.
- A. C. Gaebelein. "Just what role these consulting editors played in the project has been the subject of some confusion. Apparently Scofield only meant to acknowledge their assistance, though some have speculated that he hoped to gain support for his publication from both sides of the millenarian movement with this device." Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 224.
- ^ Nevertheless, dispensationalist Charles Caldwell Ryrie argues that Scofield was actually following the dispensationalist scheme of hymn writer and theologian Isaac Watts (1674–1748) rather than that of Darby, although Watts had rejected the Millennium as a dispensation. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), 55.
- ^ Richardson, Sarah (2019). "C. I. Scofield: True Believer". HistoryNet. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
References
- Joseph M. Canfield, The Incredible Scofield and His Book, (Vallecito, California: Ross House Books, 1988).
- William E. Cox Why I Left Scofieldism (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992) ISBN 0-87552-154-1.
- John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth, (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991).
- John D. Hannah, "Scofield, Cyrus Ingerson," American National Biography.
- Hummel, Daniel G. (2023). The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-802-87922-6.
- David Lutzweiler, The Praise of Folly: The Enigmatic Life and Theology of C. I. Scofield (Draper, VA: Apologetics Group Media, 2009).
- R. Todd Mangum and Mark S. Sweetnam, The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009).
- D. Jean Rushing, "From Confederate Deserter to Decorated Veteran Bible Scholar: Exploring the Enigmatic Life of C. I. Scofield, 1861–1921," MA Thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2011.
- Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
- Charles G. Trumbull, The Life Story of C. I. Scofield (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920).
External links
- C. I. Scofield books
- The Scofield Reference Bible Notes 1917
- Cyrus Scofield letters, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
- Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth
- Reformedperspective.