Collapse of Tennessee Temple University

The collapse of Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga tells of a faltering faction in Christianity that had its heyday in the 1960s in American fundamentalism's peak.

The school was a bastion of conservative Baptist thinking styled premillennial dispensationalism that yanks Christianity out of its optimistic dynamism and steeps it in pessimism. The Tennessee Temple theory in Christianity is a historic novelty about 200 years old, but it is a majority report in the conservative wing of evangelical Christianity. Its ideas are reflected in Christian radio stations such as WMBW with Moody Radio and WDYN, and national ministries such as The John Ankerberg Show. Theologically, it argues for cultural withdrawal, dislikes God’s law as a grid for economics and national life, shuns the public square, cheers modern-day Israel as if its people were God’s chosen and leaves a paltry theological record.