Post-millenialism and a New World

One of the things that has gotten me thinking about heaven in the real world was a recent request by one of our women's small groups. The women are currently going through a bible study on the book of Daniel, a tough task for a lot of believers. As they have gone through the study, they have naturally come up with a lot of questions, so they have asked me to come and do a "Stump the Pastor" night with them so they can pick my brain.

In preparation for this question and answer time, I just began thinking through various issues of eschatology to begin to formulate some answers. I got to thinking about the four major approaches to eschatology (postmillenialism, historic premillenialism, dispensational premillenialism, and amillenialism) and was about to fly past posmillenialism.

Postmillenialism was perhaps the predominant viewpoint within the church for at least its first thousand years. Postmillenialism teaches that the world will get increasingly better through the efforts of Christians and the expanding of the gospel to the ends of the earth. As a result, the church will usher in a period of peace and the coming of God's kingdom that will last for a thousand years. At the end of that time, Christ will return to earth. The death nell for this millenial perspective came in the form of the horrors of the 20th century: WWI and WWII, the holocaust, the dropping of the atomic bomb, the cold war. It appeared that humanity was not getting better.

So, postmillenialists are a rare breed these days. But I got to thinking about the positive aspect of the postmillenialist perspective. You see, postmillenialists have a very positive outlook on life and the world and the ability of the church to make a difference in the world. They see the world as entirely redeemable. They hold out the possibility that we can impact culture for the good. I'm not yet a postmillenialist, but I am gaining a greater love for that kind of outlook in life.