Prophecy and the Millennium
Talk to the Dorking Readers
26 June 1997
1. Introduction
Should Christians have a moratorium on discussions of the end times and the apocalypse until the year 2001? Perhaps after tonight. It seems strange that the Western world is celebrating 2000 years of rejecting Christ.
Commentators and writers have already begun to draw together all the mindless popular theologies, philosophies, cults and new religious movements, weird practices and beliefs under the broad and humorous umbrella of what Dr Andrew Walker has described this as PMT or Pre-millennial tension. 'We're counting up to the year 2000 and there's a strong apocalyptical anxiety.' When the year 2001 finally dawns without any more significant incident than a cosmic post-millennial hangover, we will undoubtedly all breathe a sigh of relief that all talk about the millennium is finally over.
While Waco, the Solar Temple and Japanese cults have provided the most startling manifestations of self-conscious millenarianism, some argue there is a correlation between the growing fascination with New Age belief, speculation over UFO’s, the revival of paganism and witchcraft, with fundamentalist fervour in all the major religions, not least Islam and Christianity. Place this alongside international evangelistic initiatives such as AD2000 which appears to be a deliberate attempt to fulfil biblical prophecy by ensuring the gospel is preached to every nation by the year 2000, and you have a heady and volatile cocktail. Timing appears to be the only thing that holds everything in common, and perhaps commercial interest.
Here is an example, "Israel plans a hell of a party at Armageddon" (Sunday Times)
It is helpful to realise that there has been a good deal of millennialist speculation during the decades prior to the end of each century, especially since the 1590's. (see Norman Cohn).
The first decades of the nineteenth century saw an increasing dissatisfaction with the oversimplified Gospel of the earlier evangelical movement. The quest for a more experimental faith and a fuller biblical exegesis led to greater emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology , and prophecy.
The revival during the 1790-1800 period was a direct result of the turmoil Europeans felt in the wake of the French and American revolutions coupled with the approach of a new century. The British, like Europeans on the continent, began to feel that their world was falling apart. People turned away from new secular philosophy and political answers and embraced a more fundamentalist form of Christian teachings that included a revived form of prophetic interpretations of the Bible.
In the last couple of years we have seen something of this "Millennium Madness" in the tragic mass suicides among several cults in the USA and Japan. (show examples)
Many Christians who would repudiate these cults are nevertheless convinced that we are in the Last Days and that 1948 and the Return of the Jews to Israel marked a significant fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. There is a large and growing number of books written by evangelical and fundamentalist Christian Zionists presenting a largely pro-Israel yet apocalyptic scenario. The frequency of military and apocalyptic terminology in the titles of popular books written by Christian Zionists since the 1980's would suggest a strong connection between Christian Zionism and Millennial speculation. (see examples)
For example Fundamentalist Christians often advocate the annexation of the entire West Bank by Israel; support the lobby for other nations to return their embassies to Jerusalem as the undivided and eternal capital of the Jews; are committed to the building of the Third Jewish Temple and the re-institution of the priesthood and temple sacrifices as a precursor to the return of the Messiah. They have also helped facilitate the return or 'restoration' of Jews from around the world to Israel, especially those living in Russia and Eastern Europe, and deliberately encouraged their re-settlement in the Occupied Territories.
Within contemporary Christian fundamentalism the most influential theological interpretation of history is known as premillennial dispensationalism.
Premillennialism
Traditionally there have been three mutually exclusive interpretations of the references to a millennial reign of Christ in Revelation 20 depending on whether it is understood literally or figuratively. These are amillennial, postmillennial, and premillennial. Premillennialists hold to the belief that Christ will return prior to the millennium.One popular exponent of this position is Tim LaHaye.
Are you ready for Christ's return? Do you believe that at any instant you could find youself hurtling through the skies to meet your Lord face to face? Are you confident that God will spare you and your loved ones the horrifying judgment of the Tribulation...Are you living your life as if each moment could be your last on earth?
Dispensationalism
John Nelson Darby is regarded as the father of modern dispensationalism, although William Kelly Edward Irving played no small part in the restoration of premillennial speculations out of which Darby's dispensationalism arose. The publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 by the Oxford University Press was something of a innovative literary coup for the movement, since for the first time, overtly dispensationalist notes were added to the pages of the biblical text, becoming the leading bible used by American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists for the next sixty years.
Dispensationalists claim to find in Scripture evidence of seven distinct dispensations during which mankind has been tested in respect of specific revelation as to the will of God. In each, mankind, including in the sixth dispensation, the visible Church, has failed the test according to the distinct way in which God responded to humankind. These dispensations began with Creation and will end, it is claimed, in the Millennial kingdom. These dispensations are seen by proponents as 'providing us with a chronological map to guide us' through history on into the future.
Dispensationalism claims that God has two separate but parallel means of working, one through the Church, the other through Israel, the former being a parenthesis to the later. Thus there remains a distinction, 'between Israel, the gentiles and the church.' Chafer elaborates this dichotomy,
The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity.
Dispensationalism therefore refutes the supposition inherent in covenant theology that God has one purpose for all people and that in Jesus Christ the earthly is transformed into the heavenly.
This is probably the most basic theological test of whether or not a person is a dispensationalist, and it is undoubtedly the most practical and conclusive. The one who fails to distinguish Israel and the church consistently will inevitably not hold to dispensational distinctions; and one who does will.
Dispensationalism is based on a hermeneutic in which all Scripture, and especially the prophetic, must always be interpreted literally. Scofield, who popularised and synthesised Darby's theology, taught,
Not one instance exists of a 'spiritual' or figurative fulfilment of prophecy...Jerusalem is always Jerusalem, Israel is always Israel, Zion is always Zion...Prophecies may never be spiritualised, but are always literal.
Based on such an interpretative principle, dispensationalists hold that the promises made to Abraham and Israel must await future fulfilment since they were never completely fulfilled in the past. So, for example, it is an article of normative dispensational belief that all Israel will be literally saved; that the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham and his descendants will be literally instituted; that Jesus Christ will return to a literal and theocratic kingdom centred on Jerusalem in the State of Israel.
In the light of this principle, it is legitimate to ask whether dispensationalism is not orientated more from the Abrahamic Covenant than from the Cross. Is not its focus centred more on the Jewish kingdom than on the Body of Christ? Does it not interpret the New Testament in the light of Old Testament prophecies, instead of interpreting those prophecies in the light of the more complete revelation of the New Testament?
For normative dispensationalists then, the church is relegated to the status of a parenthesis in God's future and literal kingdom rule. This will be centred on Jerusalem during the millennium in which the Temple will be rebuilt and sacrifices restored. Often this kind of dogma, based on forced exegesis, is also asserted by those who are uncomfortable with or disillusioned by Jewish resistance to proselytism and who rest in the belief that 'all Israel will be saved' when or after Christ returns. Bass insists that,
No part of historic Christian doctrine supports this radical distinction between church and kingdom. To be sure they are not identical; but dispensationalism has added the idea that the kingdom was to be a restoration of Israel, not a consummation of the church.
Premillennial Dispensationalism has come to dominate American Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism especially through the influence of Dallas Theological Seminary and the Moody Bible Institute, to the point where the two (Evangelicalism and Dispensationalism) are virtually synonymous.
The movement has grown in popularity within evangelical circles, particularly in America and especially since 1967, coinciding with the Arab-Israel Six Day War and a few years later in 1970 with the publication of Hal Lindsey's 'The Late Great Planet Earth'
Crucial to the premillennial dispensationalist reading of biblical prophecy, drawn principally from Daniel and Revelation, is the assertion that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount as a precursor to the Lord returning to restore the Kingdom of Israel centred on Jerusalem. This pivotal event is also seen as the trigger for the start of the war of Armageddon.
Clearly such views, whether promulgated by respectable Christian theological institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute, Jewish fanatics such as Baruch Ben-Yosef and the Temple Mount Yeshiva, or simply by naive members of pilgrimage parties, are anathema to the majority of Jews, Christians and Moslems living in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Even more tragic, these beliefs sour relations between Moslem Arabs and Christian Arabs perpetuating fears of a revived Western military adventurism dating back to the Crusades. According to Armstrong, who traces the pervading legacy of the Crusades on the contemporary Middle East, fundamentalists, 'have returned to a classical and extreme religious crusading.'
Examples of Millennial Speculation
A prolific Millennial writer of the 19th Century was Benjamin Willis Newton, a Brethren colleague of John Nelson Darby, whose books were reprinted several times between the 1850's and 1900's.
Newton appears to have been something of a nineteenth century Hal Lindsey, interpreting the contemporary European political scene in the light of prophecy. He saw, for example, great significance in the fact that one of the Rothschild's was allegedly negotiating with the Sultan for the construction of a railway from Constantinople to Baghdad. He believed this to be one of many signs of the impending merger of the revived Eastern and Western halves of the Roman Empire, a 'Roman world, from England to the Euphrates' centred on Rome. Writing in 1859, Newton comments at length on the theological significance of geo-political developments in Europe,
The interests of France, Great Britain and Austria are more and more felt to be identical as respects the aggression of Russia; and this feeling Spain, Italy and Greece, will soon thoroughly share...
Following this logic, his colourful predictive map of the ten kingdoms making up this revived Roman Empire, published in 1863, comprised the then most influential countries surrounding the Mediterranean, namely, France, Spain, Northern Italy, the Neopolitan States, Austria, Turkey, Greece, Syria and Egypt, together with the British Isles.
In the forward to 'Babylon: Its Future History and Doom with remarks on the Future of Egypt and Other Eastern Countries', (3rd Edition) published in 1890, Newton could still insist, 'On Israel, and on Western Europe chiefly will rest the responsibility of causing the revived Eastern Branch of the Roman World to be what it is to be.' Just as some contemporary apocalyptic writers fear the rise of New Age inter-faith religious unity as a sign of the coming Antichrist, so Newton was predicting the same at the end of the 19th Century.
The result of the late war with Russia has been to bring the Turkish dominions into recognised political connection with Western Europe...The ancient outline of the Roman Empire will again appear...At bottom, Mohommedanism, what is it but a sect of Christianity? When the Papists, and the Greek church and Judaism, and Mohommedanism, and Anglicanism, shall re-echo this sentiment, and when it shall become governmentally adopted by the nations of the Roman world, we shall soon see the 'Ephah' and 'wickedness', its inmate, established in the land of Shinar.
George Marsden's historical overview of the rise of fundamentalism and evangelicalism in America between 1870-1930, shows that despite some evidence of anti-Semitism, there was little interest in contemporary Israel. The 1967 Six Day War and its aftermath appears to mark a watershed in Evangelical Christian interest in Israel and Zionism. For example, Jerry Falwell did not begin to speak about modern-day Israel until after Israel's 1967 military victory.
Falwell changed completely. He entered into politics and became an avid supporter of the Zionist State...the stunning Israeli victory made a big impact not only on Falwell, but on a lot of Americans...Remember that in 1967, the United States was mired in the Vietnam war. Many felt a sense of defeat, helplessness and discouragement. As Americans we were made acutely aware of our own diminished authority, of no longer being able to police the world or perhaps even our own neighbourhoods...Many Americans, including Falwell, turned worshipful glances toward Israel, which they viewed as militarily strong and invincible. They gave their unstinting approval to the Israeli take-over of Arab lands because they perceived this conquest as power and righteousness...Macho or muscular Christians such as Falwell credited Israeli General Moshe Dayan with this victory over Arab forces and termed him the Miracle Man of the Age, and the Pentagon invited him to Vietnam and tell us how to win the war.
The combination of the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the capture of Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, and the defeat on both occasions of the combined Arab armies, increasingly came to be seen as significant fulfilment's of biblical prophecy by a new generation of American and European dispensational premillennialists.
Billy Graham's father-in-law, Nelson Bell, the editor of the prestigious and authoritative mouthpiece of conservative Evangelicalism, Christianity Today, appeared to express the sentiments of many American Evangelicals when, in an editorial in 1967 he wrote,
That for the first time in more than 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives a student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible.
The most influential of all Fundamentalist writers is Hal Lindsey. He has been described by Time Magazine as 'The Jeremiah for this Generation', and by his own publisher as 'The Father of the Modern-Day Bible Prophecy Movement.' Lindsey is a prolific writer, with no less than eight books dealing with the end times, his own radio and television programmes, seminars, Holy Land Tours, and for $40 per year, his monthly International Intelligence Briefing.
Lindsey's most famous book, The Late Great Planet Earth has been described by the New York Times as the '#1 Non-fiction Bestseller of the Decade.' It has gone through more than 100 printings with sales, by 1993, in excess of 18 million, with a further 30 million copies in 31 foreign editions. Despite dramatic changes in the world since its publication in 1970, most significantly, it remains in print in its original unrevised form. Lindsey has, perhaps not surprisingly, since become a consultant on Middle Eastern affairs to both the Pentagon and Israeli Government.
This particular kind of reading of history, coloured by a literal exegesis of selected biblical scriptures, is dualistic, triumphalist and confrontational. Lindsey's latest book, The Final Battle, includes the statement on the cover "Never before, in one book, has there been such a complete and detailed look at the events leading up to 'The Battle of Armageddon.'" It asserts that the world is degenerating and that the forces of evil manifest in godless Communism and militant Islam are the real enemies of Israel. Various speculative apocalyptic scenarios are postulated, centred upon a great battle at Megiddo between massive armies that will attempt but fail to destroy Israel. These will only hasten the return of Jesus Christ to be the King of the Jews who will rule over the other nations from the rebuilt Jewish temple on the site of the destroyed Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem will be the spiritual centre of the entire world...all people of the earth will come annually to worship Jesus who will rule there.
One of the reasons fundamentalists appear so enthusiastic about such a terrible scenario may have to do with their doctrine of the secret rapture. Just before the final conflagration they believe Jesus will,
...'rapture' true Christians into the upper air, while the rest of humankind, was being slaughtered below. 144,000 Jews would bow down before Jesus and be saved, but the rest of Jewry would perish in the mother of all holocausts.
Authors such as Lindsey also Goldberg, a professor of Theology and Jewish Studies at the Moody Bible Institute, offer detailed illustrated plans ostensibly showing future military movements of armies and naval convoys leading up to the battle of Armageddon.
Since the Reformation it was popular to see Rome as the Babylon of the Book of Revelation. Then in the mid-20th Century the European Community became the favoured interpretation. Charles Dyer, a professor of Bible exposition at Dallas now argues that guess what Babylon is Babylon. His book even includes photographs allegedly showing Saddam Hussein reconstructing Babylon to the same specifications and splendour as Nebuchadnezzar. Dyer warns that this is evidence that Hussein plans to attempt to repeat Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Israel, the only Arab ever to have done so. 'The Middle East is the world's time bomb, and Babylon is the fuse that will ignite the events of the end times.'
An indication of how seriously Fundamentalists take the military aspect of their apocalyptic scenario can be seen from the content of the itinerary used by Jerry Falwell in his Friendship Tour to Israel in 1983. It included meetings with top Israeli government and military officials and an,
.....On-site tour of modern Israeli battlefields...Official visit to an Israeli defence installation...strategic military positions, plus experience first hand the battle Israel faces as a nation.
The demise of the Soviet Union, the rise of militant Islam, the 'success' of the Allies in the Gulf War, and the approaching third millennium have only fuelled more imaginative speculations among Fundamentalists, while the same anti-Arab prejudices and Orientalist stereotypes persist.
Long ago the psalmist predicted the final mad attempt of the confederated Arab armies to destroy the nation of Israel...The Palestinians are determined to trouble the world until they repossess what they feel is their land. The Arab nations consider it a matter of racial honour to destroy the State of Israel. Islam considers it a sacred mission of religious honour to recapture Old Jerusalem.
Following the Gulf War, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism hired the Fundamentalist musician Pat Boon to promote pilgrimages in North America through a series of costly advertisements in Evangelical journals and on television. According to Wagner there are a number of Evangelical Christian Zionist leaders even more right wing than Falwell and Robertson, who in the 1980's had direct access to Reagan and the White House. These include Terry Risenhoover and Doug Kreiger who were very influential in gathering American support for the Jewish extremist organisation, the Temple Mount Faithful. These particular Christian and Jewish Zionists believe that the Moslem Dome of the Rock must be destroyed and the Third Jewish Temple built in order to ensure the return of Jesus.
Basilea Schlink, for example is typical of many who elevate the State of Israel to a privileged status far above any human sanction or criticism.
Anyone who disputes Israel's right to the land of Canaan is actually opposing God and his holy covenant with the Patriarchs. He is striving against sacred, inviolable words and promises of God, which He has sworn to keep.
In a conversation reported in the Washington Post in April of 1984, Ronald Reagan, then President of the US, told the chief Israeli lobbyist, Tom Dine,
You know, I turn back to the ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if-if we're the generation that is going to see that come about. I don't know if you've noted any of these prophecies lately, but believe me they certainly describe the times we're going through.
For Fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell and Mike Evans, America is seen as the great redeemer, her role in the world providentially and politically preordained. The two nations of America and Israel are like Siamese twins, linked not only by common self interest but more significantly by similar religious foundations. Together they are perceived to be pitted against an evil world dominated by Communist and Islamic totalitarian regimes antithetical to the values of America and Israel. So for example, Mike Evans, founder and president of Lovers of Israel Inc, in the following quotations from his book, Israel, America's Key to Survival, almost mimics and plays on the apocalyptic scenario of Benjamin Netanyahu, offering 'biblical' grounds for their countries mutual survival.
If America goes down, then the whole world goes down. Nothing will remain of the world. If America was not around, the Soviet Union would take over the world in three days. Their goals are to destroy America...to destroy it...to reduce it to nothing; and they feel they can effectively do it through terrorism.
Only one nation, Israel, stands between Soviet-sponsored terrorist aggression and the complete decline of the United States as a democratic world power...Surely demonic pressure will endeavor to encourage her to betray Israel. This must not happen. Israel is the key to America's survival. For God has said of the nations who will oppose Israel, "Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted...I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee..."(Isa.60:12; Gen. 12:3)...As we stand with Israel, I believe we shall see God perform a mighty work in our day. God is going to bless America and Israel as well. It is not too late. I believe this is the greatest hour to be alive, and the key is unity, standing tall, proclaiming with a voice of love our commitment to the House of Israel, and to the God of Israel.
Solutions to Millennial Speculation
Karen Armstrong is not alone in tracing in Western Christian Zionism evidence of the legacy of the Crusades. Fundamentalists have, she claims, 'returned to a classical and extreme religious crusading.' Rosemary Ruether also sees the danger of this kind of Christian Zionism in its, 'dualistic, Manichaean view of global politics. America and Israel together against an evil world.'
This 'simple dualism' and 'highly dogmatic thinking' is something a number of sociologists have observed as common to much Fundamentalism in particular.
It is so; God chose the Jews; the land is theirs by divine gift. These dicta cannot be questioned or resisted. They are final. Such verdicts come infallibly from Christian biblicists for whom Israel can do no wrong-thus fortified. But can such positivism, this unquestioning finality, be compatible with the integrity of the Prophets themselves? It certainly cannot square with the open peoplehood under God which is the crux of New Testament faith. Nor can it well be reconciled with the ethical demands central to law and election alike.
The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), representing the indigenous and ancient Oriental and Eastern Churches, has been highly critical of the activities of Christian Zionists, and the ICEJ in particular. They assert, for instance, that the ICEJ has aggressively imposed an aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an erroneous interpretation of the Bible which is subservient to the political agenda of the modern State of Israel. Indeed they represent a tendency to,
...force the Zionist model of theocratic and ethnocentric nationalism on the Middle East...(rejecting)..the movement of Christian unity and inter-religious understanding which is promoted by the (indigenous) churches in the region. The Christian Zionist programme, with its elevation of modern political Zionism, provides the Christian with a world view where the gospel is identified with the ideology of success and militarism. It places its emphasis on events leading up to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today.
In 1988 the MECC went further insisting that Christian Zionism had no place in the Middle East and should be repudiated by the universal Church because it was 'a dangerous distortion' and significant shift away from orthodox Christocentric expressions of the Christian faith .
(This is) ...a fundamental disservice also to Jews who may be inspired to liberate themselves from discriminatory attitudes and thereby rediscover equality with the Palestinians with whom they are expected to live God's justice and peace in the Holy Land.....is placed in a reductionist eschatology by engaging in actions designed to bring 'comfort and support' to modern political Israel. Accordingly, Jesus is de-emphasised, as is His death and resurrection, while salvation and judgment are redefined.... Christians will be judged solely according to their actions on behalf of the state of Israel. True Christians are those who leave their Gentile background and become 'Israelites of God'
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that among the Middle East churches generally, Christian Zionism is regarded as a devious heresy and an unwelcome and alien intrusion into their culture, which advocates an ethnocentric and nationalist political agenda running counter to their work of reconciliation, and patient witness among both Jews and Moslems. As one leading Anglican cleric described it, 'Making God into a real estate agent is heart breaking...they are not preaching Jesus any more.' They are, in the words of another Palestinian clergyman, 'instruments of destruction' Another senior churchman was equally forthright,
Their presence here is quite offensive....projecting themselves as really the Christians of the land... with total disregard for the indigenous Christian community.
Essentially, Christian Zionism and the Premillennial Dispensationalism which feeds distorts the Bible and marginalises the universal imperative of the Christian gospel; has grave political ramifications and ultimately ignores the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of indigenous Christians. It is a situation that many believe Israel exploits to her advantage, cynically welcoming American Christian Zionists as long as they remain docile and compliant with Israeli government policy. Consequently, as Kenneth Cragg puts it,
Local Christians are caught in a degree of museumization. They are aware of tourists who come in great volume from the West to savour holy places but who are, for the most part, blithely disinterested in the people who indwell them. The pain of the indifference is not eased insofar as the same tourism is subtly manipulated to make the case for the entire legitimacy of the statehood that regulates it.
The overriding criteria of Christian perception have to be those of equal grace and common justice. From these there can be no proper exemption, however alleged or presumed. Chosenness cannot properly be either an ethnic exclusivism or a political facility.
Dr Carl Truman offers this closing advice,
The solution, however, is not simply to pour scorn on such teachings...for all its faults, the kind of bizarre millennial claims of...(people like)...Lindsey reflect in a perverse and mutilated way certain emphases within the Bible, and the best way to ensure that we are not taken in by every wind of doctrine is to make sure that we have a good grasp of what the Bible really does teach on these issues...eschatology (that part of theology that deals with last things) is a central aspect of New Testament teaching
Zealous piety has never provided any defence against doctrinal error and subsequent ecclesiastical disaster. Calvin said: ‘Zeal without knowledge is like a sword in the hands of a lunatic."
Of all theological issues, those dealing with eschatology are perhaps the most difficult and controversial, and they take time to think and pray through-but are we to ignore something which is of such importance to the teachings of Christ and of the apostle Paul? And before we adopt the all-to-common modern position that these things are only for the intellectually gifted, we should remind ourselves that even the least intellectual people in our congregations are better equipped in terms of education resources and time to study than many of those whom Christ, Peter, Paul and John taught in the 1st Century, and were fully expecting to benefit from such teaching.
Most Christians come into contact with dubious millennial teaching in some kind or another. Confronted by such claims we need to have a sound grasp of biblical eschatology, and need to understand how to interpret those passages of Scripture which the lunatic fringe always refer to with such apparent knowledge and confidence.
2 Tim 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.