MILLENNIALISM

Millennialism is the belief, based on an interpretation of Revelation 20, that there will be a distinctive one-thousand-year period (the millennium) before the Last Judgment. This belief was especially popular in America from the 1750s to the 1840s.

Because the Book of Revelation is written in highly figurative language, believers differ over the details of the millennium. One fundamental point of difference is whether it will be ushered in by a fiery apocalypse, with only a faithful remnant saved to reign with Christ for one thousand years (premillennialism), or if it will be a peaceful interlude that precedes the Second Coming of Christ (postmillennialism).

The significance of this distinction is that post-millennialists are generally more optimistic about human progress: human agency through the reform of societal ills can help bring about the millennium. Premillennialists are generally more pessimistic about the ability of human agency to effect the millennium and therefore are more likely to focus on cultivating their own spirituality. Protestants were drawn to both kinds of millennialism in unprecedented numbers during the era of the new nation. According to Nathan O. Hatch in The Democratization of American Christianity (1989), "the first generation of United States citizens may have lived in the shadow of Christ's Second Coming more intensely than any generation since" (p. 184).

Although interest in the millennium in America goes back to the first generation of Puritans, throughout the colonial period most of that interest was confined to ministers. Ordinary laymen and -women wrote next to nothing in their spiritual journals concerning the millennium. The Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763 ushered in a period of increasingly widespread interest in the millennium. That war pitted Protestant Great Britain against Catholic France and included a great many battles in the American colonies, where it became known as the French and Indian War. Some ministers in the colonies, in keeping with a 250-year Protestant tradition, argued that the Antichrist mentioned in the Book of Revelation was in fact the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the Seven Years' War was a war against the Antichrist and the defeat of France might help usher in the millennium. Because thousands of American colonists fought in this war, the ministerial rhetoric seems to have touched a nerve among the populace.

After the American Revolution (1775–1783) and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1787), millennial interest increased. What was once the preserve of learned ministers became a concern for many laymen and -women. In the new Republic, most Protestants were optimistic postmillennialists, believing that if they worked to rid the nation of sin they might help initiate the millennium. This partly accounts for the connection between religion and reform in this period. Many churchgoers participated in reform movements such as abolition and temperance; a large number of them did so with one eye toward the future, hoping their efforts might help begin Christ's reign on earth. But most mainstream Protestants, though hopeful that the millennium would someday arrive, believed that that day was nonetheless far off. Many in the new Republic still followed the computations of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), who had calculated that the millennium would begin around the year 2000.

But there were smaller, more radical groups of premillennialists, many of whom believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent. Not only was the Second Coming near at hand, but when it came only true believers would survive the fiery apocalypse. The Shakers and Free Will Baptists of northern New England, for example, believed that the millennium was imminent. Indeed, before the death of their founder Ann Lee in 1784, the Shakers had believed that Lee was the messiah, returned to earth to initiate the millennium. Throughout the early national period, this strain of millennialism persisted, reaching its peak in the Millerite movement of the early 1840s. Followers of William Miller, a Baptist preacher from New York, believed that an apocalyptic Second Coming of Christ was going to occur in 1843 or 1844. The radical possibilities of millennial belief can be glimpsed in the Millerites' openness to female preaching: since they felt that the end times were so near, it seemed imperative for all believers to spread the word, whether they were male or female.

Ultimately, of course, the Millerites were disappointed. Christ did not return in 1844. Indeed, at the time people referred to their situation as the Great Disappointment. But even among mainstream Protestants, active speculation regarding the millennium declined after the 1840s. In two thousand years of Christian belief, interest in the millennium has waxed and waned. Rarely has that interest captured the imagination of a people as it did during the era of the new nation.

See alsoReligion: Overview .

bibliography

Brekus, Catherine A. Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Hatch, Nathan O. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989.

Holifield, E. Brooks. Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003.

Erik R. Seeman