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C. I. Scofield
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.
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' birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's childhood. 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.
In 1861, Scofield was visiting relatives in Lebanon, Tennessee. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the 17-year-old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, Confederate States of America. His regiment fought at Cheat Mountain, Seven Pines, and Antietam.[citation needed] In 1862, after spending a month in Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge. Scofield then returned to Lebanon and was conscripted again into Confederate service. Ordered to McMinnville, Tennessee, Scofield deserted and escaped behind Union lines in Bowling Green, Kentucky. After taking the Union oath of allegiance, Scofield was allowed safe passage to St. Louis, Missouri, where he settled.
In 1866, he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St. Louis. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law and then worked in the St. Louis assessor's office before moving to Atchison, Kansas, in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, first from Atchison for one year and then from Nemaha County, for a second. In 1873 he worked for the election of John J. Ingalls as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, he had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country. Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, which may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures. It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges, although there is no extant evidence in the public records.
Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking, Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period. 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.
According to Scofield, he was converted to evangelical Christianity through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance. Certainly by the late fall of 1879, Scofield was assisting in the St. Louis evangelistic campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody, and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of James Hall Brookes, pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent dispensationalist premillennialist.
In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister—while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final—and he accepted the pastorate of a small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church of Dallas, Texas (now Scofield Memorial Church). The church grew from 14 to over 500 members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895. In 1895, Scofield was called as pastor of Moody's church, the Trinitarian Congregational Church of East Northfield, Massachusetts. Scofield also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody's Northfield Bible Training School.
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). 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.
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C. I. Scofield
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.
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' birth, and his father twice remarried during Cyrus's childhood. 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.
In 1861, Scofield was visiting relatives in Lebanon, Tennessee. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the 17-year-old Scofield enlisted as a private in the 7th Tennessee Infantry, Confederate States of America. His regiment fought at Cheat Mountain, Seven Pines, and Antietam.[citation needed] In 1862, after spending a month in Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, Scofield successfully petitioned for a discharge. Scofield then returned to Lebanon and was conscripted again into Confederate service. Ordered to McMinnville, Tennessee, Scofield deserted and escaped behind Union lines in Bowling Green, Kentucky. After taking the Union oath of allegiance, Scofield was allowed safe passage to St. Louis, Missouri, where he settled.
In 1866, he married Leontine LeBeau Cerrè, a member of a prominent French Catholic family in St. Louis. Scofield apprenticed in the law office of his brother-in-law and then worked in the St. Louis assessor's office before moving to Atchison, Kansas, in late 1869. In 1871, Scofield was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, first from Atchison for one year and then from Nemaha County, for a second. In 1873 he worked for the election of John J. Ingalls as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, he had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country. Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, which may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures. It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges, although there is no extant evidence in the public records.
Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking, Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period. 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.
According to Scofield, he was converted to evangelical Christianity through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance. Certainly by the late fall of 1879, Scofield was assisting in the St. Louis evangelistic campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody, and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA. Significantly, Scofield came under the mentorship of James Hall Brookes, pastor of Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, a prominent dispensationalist premillennialist.
In October 1883, Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister—while his divorce was proceeding but not yet final—and he accepted the pastorate of a small mission church founded by that denomination, which became the First Congregational Church of Dallas, Texas (now Scofield Memorial Church). The church grew from 14 to over 500 members before he resigned its pastorate in 1895. In 1895, Scofield was called as pastor of Moody's church, the Trinitarian Congregational Church of East Northfield, Massachusetts. Scofield also attempted with limited success to take charge of Moody's Northfield Bible Training School.
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). 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.
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