Postmillennialism sees Christ coming to set up his kingdom
after the millennium when man has adequately prepared the world through
faithful preaching of the gospel message as the church is empowered by the Holy
Spirit.
Although some postmillennialists hold to a literal millennium
of 1,000 years, most postmillennialists see the thousand years more as
figurative term for a long period of time (similar in that respect to
Amillennialism). Among those holding to a
non-literal "millennium" it is usually understood to have already begun.
This eschatological view looks for a great revival in the church. Swelling
numerical growth and spiritual vitality leading up to the Second Coming.
Postmillennialists believe Christ will not come again until after there
has been what Robert Bater of Queen's Theological College in Kingston, Ontario,
calls "a holy utopia" - a Millennium that has been achieved on Earth by human
means.
Jonathan Edwards, a staunch postmillennialist of his time,
believed in the gradual accomplishment of the utopian kingdom of God. The
progress of the gospel message would assure the return of Christ toward the end
of the twentieth century - right around the year 2000, to be exact, according
to Edwards.
The Westminster Larger Catechism espoused an eschatology
mostly in harmony with postmillennialism. Frequently used terms for this
current belief are are Christian Reconstruction, Kingdom Now Theology and
Dominion Theology.
The strongest postmillennial influence in America
today comes from the Chalcedon Foundation, founded in 1965 by Rousas J.
Rushdoony. Rushdoony published his first book, By What Standard? in 1959
and was instrumental in the development of the homeschool movement during the
1960s. In general, Rushdoony's vision was for the reconstruction of society
based on Christian principles. In Rushdoony's book Institutes, he argues
that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society and supported the
reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the
list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include
homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality,
witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying,
kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.
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Rousas J. Rushdoony
Rushdoony's work has been used
by Dominion Theology advocates who attempt to implement a Christian theocracy,
a government subject to Biblical law, especially the Torah, in the United
States. Authority, behavioural boundaries, economics, penology and the like
would all be governed by biblical principles in Rushdoony's vision, but he also
proposed a wide system of freedom, especially in the economic sphere.
Major theological problems remain intact for postmillennialism, and nineteen
hundred years of church history argue directly against this position.
Postmillennialism is the least popular among Christians today: apparently
deteriorating world conditions don't square with its premises. Today not a
single evangelical seminary is committed to postmillennialism.
Most
people think things are getting worse rather than better. There is no evidence
that the church, through the spread of the gospel, is purifying the world.
Conversely, all one need do is look around to see that the world is polluting
the church in perfect fulfillment of 2 Tim. 3:1-5, which describes the decline
of the church in the last days. Scripture makes it clear that the end of the
age will not be characterized by world revival. It will be the Antichrist's
ultimate hour of power, cut short not by the universal spread of the gospel but
by the Day of the Lord judgment.
