The More Time Goes On, The More Relevant Our Publishing Becomes

Seemingly out of nowhere, our offices received large orders for a book we first published in 1988 by Joseph Canfield on the history of the famous dispensationalist, C. I. Scofield, and his equally well-known Scofield Reference Bible, or Scofield Study Bible. The Canfield book we published is titled The Incredible Scofield and His Book, and it’s “flying off the shelf” according to Jill Rouse, Chalcedon staff member—and granddaughter of R. J. Rushdoony for those interested!

As you might imagine, our readers and subscribers are typically not dispensationalists, and we can all easily tire of current events serving as renewed fodder for the end-times prophecy teachers. In this instance, no doubt, the recent upheavals in the Middle East are keeping the doomsayers busy, but that’s not all to the story in regards to the sudden interest in Canfield’s The Incredible Scofield.

However, radio host, Chuck Baldwin, recently addressed the silence of Christian Zionists to what he sees as the injustices of Israel on the Palestinians. Again, this is nothing new to our community, but Baldwin lays a great deal of the blame at the doorstep of C. I. Scofield and his popular study Bible on dispensational theology. Baldwin promoted Canfield’s book on his radio show, and on his website, and contacted our offices to purchase a good many to sell through his own ministry.

According to Jill, we’ve also seen a significant uptick in orders for the book on our own website, and that may be because the landscape of social media has changed dramatically since Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X). Simply stated, the social media newsfeeds are flooded with every version of conspiracy theory imaginable, and in some respects, Canfield’s book mentions the support that Scofield received from certain insiders. Now, in a similar criticism of evangelicals as that of Baldwin, some social media influencers are also mentioning Scofield. All to say, it’s good that once again, Rushdoony had the foresight to underwrite the publishing of works he deemed important, and Canfield’s book is one such project. We’re in the process of ordering more, and it’s your faithful support of Chalcedon which really makes this happen. May it happen even more!