American Millennialism:

19th-20th Centuries---1800-1880's; 1914-1920

By the end of the 19th century, fundamentalism in America was reaching maturity. The two basic characteristics were:

1. anti-evolutionism

2. pre-millennialism.

From a historical point of view American Millenarianism was an adoption of a British heritage. Edward Irving (British) and William Miller (American) became the leading interpreters of prophetic details in the English speaking world.

The 19th century was a time of great optimism which held two competing idealistic themes, the absolute value of the individual and the inherit goodness of man. It was a time known as "upward mobility." Secular progress and faith in human endeavors were gradually replacing the Christian paradigm. The "progressive" ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud were replacing the Bible with their new way of looking at sin and salvation. On the American frontier progress seemed a permanent condition of the new world experience. This continued until what we know as the "civil war" or "war of aggression" of the 1860's. Before the great war of aggression the dominant American eschatological position was "Post millennialism." Post millennialism is the idea that things are getting better and better and the Post millenarian sees him/herself as working on earth to usher in a new utopia. Cotton Mather(Look Here) and Jonathan Edwards(Look Here) both had the concept of America as the New Jerusalem and the "melting pot" was the origin of the "almost chosen" people. Even Alexander Campbell(Look Here) was carried away with millennialism. He founded what was known as the Millennial Harbinger.

     In the fourth decade of the 19th century William Miller's prediction of the advent of 1843 was proven false but nevertheless, prophetic visions were rampant on the American scene. Mormon millenarianism had reached a fever pitch. (The Mormon Library)They were busy building the "New Jerusalem" in Utah. Mormonism was one of those groups (a church of Christ apostasy) that claimed to have restored the "New Testament Church" through prophetic insight. Rome and the Pope were evil and held up as examples of religious apostasy. These were no doubt the fulfillment of the prophecies both of Daniel and Ezekiel's 'end times" according to their way of reasoning. 

After Miller's failure of 1843, another school of thought came into play. This was "Dispensationalism," invented by James Nelson Darby. Darbyite Dispensationalism dominated the 19th century and the Scofield Reference Bible became the method of promoting the idea. American Fundamentalism reached its greatest audience during the social upheavals of the 1950's and 60's. Some of the "signs" of the "end times" were the were the Beatles, the prolific drug culture, the Jesus People, Watergate, and the Vietnam war. All the above made contributions to the reemergence of a radical Premillennial-Dispensational-Pretribulationalism. If you remember we said that the basic idea behind Post Millenarianism was things are getting better and better but Pre Millenarianism thought is just the opposite. For the Pre Millenarian, things are getting "worse and worse."

The 19th and 20th Century Prophecy Conferences

After 1875, the millenarian message was promoted through the Prophecy and Bible Conference Movement. There were other conferences before 1875 but as a matter of a turning point 1875 seems to be the key date. 1902 marks the origin of the Scofield Reference Bible. As stated above, this is the single most influential work that came out of the Fundamentalist Movement. We are now on the eve of WWI and the Bible and Prophecy Conferences are being held at Moody Bible Institute. All of these conferences advocated a pre tribulationist view of the "end times." For the first two decades of the 20th century these views were embraced and advocated by Hal Lindsey and company. His immediate for runner was William Jennings Bryan most noted for his part in the Scopes Monkey Trial. It was the fiasco of the Scopes Monkey Trial that brought us to where we are today. Becaused of the Scopes Monkey Trial,  fundamentalism dug in with a siege mentality. In their eyes, the lines were drawn between the intellectual heathen and the Bible believing Christians. Here is the sad part. During this period of time there were only TWO Fundamentalist with earned doctorates in the decades of 1920-30--Dr. H. Thiessen ( Wheaton and Dallas Theological Seminary), and Dr. H. Ockenga, former preacher at Park Street in Boston, and now president of Gordon-Conwell College and Seminary.

The ultimate outcome as relating to the Fundamentalist culture of the 20's and 30's was:

1. anti-intellectualism (anti-science, i.e. anti-evolution, etc).

2. Pre-millennial-Dispensationalism as a necessary mark of orthodoxy and salvation.

3. Orthodox hermeneutics meant a literal interpretation of every word and pericope in the scriptures regardless of the Bible's own self understanding and:

4. A negative view of this world ("love not this world") and all forms of human culture, since____all creativity of unregenerated man was sinful.

5. anti-institutional in the sense of oppositions to the '"liberal" ecclesiastical structures of the standard denominations, thus the modern Evangelical Movement with its multi named meetings places.

Thus Fundamentalism was really a rebellion against an era. IN this milieu, especially in England, an epidemic of prophetic preoccupations ruled the day. By 1850, British Millenarianism had been imported to the United States. But the excitement created by all the second advent proclamations was all but destroyed by the failure of William Miller (1840's), the father of Seventh Day Adventism. Miller became a "theological leper." Sandeen rightly declares that "America in the early nineteenth century was drunk on millennialism.¹

After the "Modernist-Fundamentalist" controversy of 1900-1920, the "ignorant believers" had been vanquished from the field forever. At the heart of the controversy was the uniqueness of biblical revelation, inspiration and authority. Basic Fundamentalism held the view then and now that every word of scripture was to be taken literally. The Modernist who were based in Princeton University said that all scripture was not to be taken literally and that some words were "symbolic." As things ended up, the literalism interpretation became the property of the pre-millenarianism movement and the "symbolic" or "modern" interpretation belonged to the post millenarian moment. Those lines remain drawn today. The pre millenarian doctrine is depends on a complete literal interpretation of all scripture. The major drawback to this approach is that the New Testament writers do not agree with them as we will see with our study of Revelation.