Gary North

David Chilton (1951-1997) wrote four major books. I published them. Click to download each of them.

Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators ([1981] 1985)
Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (1985)
The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (1987)
The Great Tribulation (1987)

He was a self-taught economist of the highest order. He was a self-taught theologian of the highest order. He was the most gifted author I ever worked with. His books required no editing. They could be typeset and sent to the printer.

I hired him in late 1980 to write Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt-Manipulators: a Biblical Response to Ronald J. Sider. This was a response to Sider's bestseller, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: A Biblical Study (1977).

Chilton had to write that book in three months. I was scheduled to debate Sider at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts. That was one of those odd occurrences. A student telephoned me to invite me to come to speak. I replied, "Only if it's to debate Ron Sider." He immediately replied, "We want you to debate Ron Sider."

I needed the book to sell for $1 at the debate. Boxes of them arrived the day before the debate. At the debate, I had a copy on the desk in front of us. Sider was sitting next to me. I could see that the book caught his eye. "How long has this been in print?" I replied "One day." That debate is still available:

Four years later, we had another rush printing job for that book. The Institute for Christian Economics had a book table at a conference where Sider was scheduled to speak. We needed the third edition for sale. A crate of them arrived the day before the conference. Sider strolled through the book sale room on the day it opened. He stopped at the ICE book table. There was the new edition with the new cover. "How long has this been out?" Like a shot, the student at the table, who knew the original story, said, "One day."

I regard the book as the most effective polemical book I have ever read. He used the Bible and economic theory to undermine Sider's position, line by line, errir by error. The book became the bestselling book in the history of the ICE (1976-2001).

Sider never responded openly to it in his three subsequent editions. Each time Sider revised his book, Chilton revised his. He could not respond to the 20th anniversary edition. He died that year. In that fourth edition, Sider backed away from his pro-socialist first edition. He even incorporated several of Chilton's recommended economic reforms. I wrote about the revised book in 1997: "Ron Sider Has Moved in the Right Direction." I re-published it as an appendix in my book, Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy (1999): "The Economic Re-Education of Ronald J. Sider."

I hired Chilton as a full-time writer in 1983. He wrote the other three books while working for me. He left to become a pastor in 1987. He died of a heart attack in 1997.

I have never read a book on theology that is more of a page-turner than Paradise Restored. It is clear, lively, and a joy to read. It is the finest presentation of postmillennialism for a layman ever written.

The Days of Vengeance almost matches it for readability, yet it is a scholarly book. He makes sense out of one of the two most difficult books in the Bible. The other is Ezekiel, which was John's model.

The Great Tribulation is a short book. It shows that the prophesied great tribulation of Luke 21 was fulfilled by the Roman army's destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. It is behind us, not ahead of us.

You can buy physical copies of his books here: www.AmericanVision.com.