Millenarianism and Christian hope

Millenarianism is "the expectation of the universal kingdom of Christ and the saints on earth in the final future of this world, as a kind of this-worldly, historical transition to the new creation at the end of history", writes biblical scholar and theologian Richard Bauckham, emeritus professor at St. Andrews University, Scotland. ¹ Meredith B. McGuire, a sociologist, defines it as “ the expectation of an immenent collapse of the entire social order and its replacement with a perfect new order.” ² This eschatological outlook emerged among the earliest Christians and flourished till 4^th century and then reappeared late after Reformation. 

There are various strands of millenarianism. Common at present are historical premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. The former commonly espoused by scholars and the latter common among lay Christians. And this latter version is a later development in Christian thinking. This is derived from a passage a Revelation 20, the last book of the New Testament, where it is mentioned that Jesus Christ will reign for a thousand year with the saints on earth. In her book McGuire writes that this term millenarianism “ is derived from occult Christian predictions that the world would end one thousand years after Jesus' birth”. But McGuire assertion is not found in the Bible nor in the history of Christian thought. So I am quite intriqued where from she got this idea! Millenarianism is not about a belief in a thousand year reign after Jesus' birth, but a thousand year reign of Jesus in the future on earth with his saints.

However, this idea of “Jesus reigning on earth for a thousand year” has been interpreted in different ways by Christians throughout its history. There are those Christians, quite many of them, who approach the book of Revelation with a more non-literalistic interpretation. Since the book Revelation is filled with colourful symbolism, such interpretation is a valid one as much as a more literalistic interpretation is valid, if not less.

The kind of future presented in popular novel/movie like Left Behind is the least preferred option among trained Christian theologians. Due to popularity of such view among common Christians, it is possible to project that as the universal Christian understanding. But it is not. I am open to historic premillennialism though at present I prefer ammillenialism. But millennarianism of the kind of dispensational premillenialism is the least preferred position. One strand of meaning system that attempts to locate human lives and events within that millenarian framework is the work of Jürgen Moltmann. Not all Christians agree with everything he says, but he is perhaps the most popular and rigorous contemporary scholar who has written much on the subject.

1. Eschatology in Bible and Theology: Evangelica Esssays at the Dawn of a New Millennium, Eds. Kent E. Brower and Mark W. Elliott ( IVP, 1997)
2. Religion: The Social Context, Meredith B. McGuire( Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2002)