In this post, Randal Rauser polishes the old chestnut that
premillennialism is pessimistic:
He then
uses that claim to say premillennialism, and–by extension, Christian
conservatism–has “dangerous tendencies” in reference to social justice.
Let’s
examine the premise: is premillennialism pessimistic? Let’s consider some of
the pessimistic doctrines or implications of premillennialism. Premils believe
Jesus is coming back. Is that pessimistic? Premils believe Jesus will
inaugurate the millennium when he returns. Is that pessimistic? Premils believe
Jesus will judge the wicked. Is that pessimistic? Premils believe Jesus will
trounce the devil and his followers. Is that pessimistic? Premils believe
Christians go to heaven when they die. Is that pessimistic? On the face of it,
that all seems pretty optimistic to me.
Off-hand,
the only “pessimistic” element in premillennialism that I can think of is the
Tribulation. And even in that case, most premils (i.e. pretribers) believe the
church will be raptured before the Tribulation, thus sparing Christians from
the coming ordeal. So that, too, sounds optimistic.
Some
premils think Christians will live through part or all of the Tribulation. I
guess that’s “pessimistic.”
On the
other hand, knowing that something bad will happen in the future isn’t inherently
pessimistic, is it?
Statistically
speaking, we know that natural disasters are bound to happen. Sooner or later,
a volcanic eruption will destroy Mexico City. Sooner or later, a subduction
quake will destroy Seattle. Sooner or later, a major tornado will flatten
Dallas. Sooner or later the East Coast or the West Coast will be hit by a
tsunami. Sooner or later a catastrophic earthquake will level L.A. Sooner or
later a massive hurricane will inundate Miami. And so on and so forth.
Since,
however, we don’t know when these events will happen, they have little effect
on our daily lives. In addition, the bad events are evened out by good events.
All the times when natural disasters didn’t strike. All the places where
natural disasters didn’t strike. So your overall outlook might be positive.
Likewise,
if you knew the Tribulation was going to happen three years from now, that
might make you pessimistic about the future in that particular respect.
However, premils don’t know if the tribulation lies in the near future or the
distant future. So it’s like the abstract awareness that natural disasters are
inevitable. Odds are, a natural disaster will hit sometime somewhere. But since
you don’t have advance knowledge of when and where, that doesn’t affect your general
outlook.
While
we’re at it, let’s compare premillennialism to other millennial positions on
the optimistic-pessimistic continuum. If premillennialism allegedly represents
the pessimistic end of the spectrum, postmillennialism allegedly represents the
optimistic end of the spectrum, although you wouldn’t know that from reading
Gary North’s Chicken Little Jeremiads.
However,
how optimistic is postmillennialism? To begin with, we need to distinguish
between classical postmillennialism and preterit postmillennialism. The
classical version is optimistic in the sense that history is supposed to get
better over time. Even then, how optimistic that is depends on the curve. Is
this a slow, incremental process, with setbacks along the way? Or does it pick
up speed over time?
Be that
as it may, classical postmillennialism isn’t the dominant form these days.
Currently, preterit postmillennialism is the preferred version, having been
popularized by some theonomists.
But is
preterit postmillennialism optimistic? If Jesus returned in 70 AD, then there’s
not much room for improvement. It’s not like the best is yet to come. For the
best came and went, and look where we are! Wasn’t the return of Christ our last
best hope? But see what’s happened in the succeeding 2000 years. We still have
death, disease, murder, war, famine, divorce, natural disasters, &c. What’s
the big difference between the world before 70 AD and the world after 70 AD?
Not only
doesn’t that seem to be very optimistic, but it seems to be pretty hopeless.
What’s there to look forward to? Things may not be any worse than they used to
be, but the fundamentals are just as bad.
What
about amillennialism? According to classic (i.e. Augustinian) amillennialism,
we’re living in the millennium right now. Have been for 2000 years. You and I
are living in the golden age of all those Edenic prophecies about the lion
lying down with the lamb. Well, if this is the golden age, then the gold
standard is suffering from hyperinflation.
According
to a more recent version of amillennialism, the golden age oracles apply, not
to the church age, but to the final age. The world to come.
That’s
optimistic in the sense that things will get better. Vastly better. But that’s
after Jesus returns, not before he returns. In the meantime, we can expect a
perennial conflict between good and evil. No general trend one way or the
other. We win some, we lose some. One step forward, one step back.
Steve, surely you know that orthodox preterists like Kenneth Gentry do not believe the second coming happened in 70AD, but rather that many references to Jesus' coming refer to a coming in judgement over the generation of Israel living at the time. Others, however, unambiguously refer to the second coming.
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