Millennial and Apocalyptic Movements

Millennial and apocalyptic movements (millennium, from the Latin for “1,000 years” and apocalypse, from the Greek “to reveal”), springing primarily from Christian groups, believe in some form of utopian age on earth where Jesus will rule over humanity prior to God's final judgment and humanity's entry into its eternal state. Drawn from apocalyptic books in the [Page 957]Christian scriptures, including Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelations, these movements have often developed complex visions of how this golden age will transpire. In American history, millennial and apocalyptic movements have profoundly influenced public policy, and they continue to do so today.

The earliest examples of American millennialism, promoted by colonial pastors like John Cotton, Increase and Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards, was a type of postmillennialism that believed Christ would return after missionaries Christianized the world. Many, therefore, supported evangelism to the indigenous populations, labeled the Catholic papacy (and his French “puppets”) the earthly embodiment of the Anti-Christ, and considered the Protestant colonies an important force in the advancement of God's kingdom. Edwards particularly hoped that the American Great Awakening might indicate the central role the colonies would play in ushering in the millennium. From the beginning, then, millennialism became an important tool in the politicization of religion in America, placing the country at the center of God's redemptive plan against America's enemies (France, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union).

Edwards's views of the millennium also laid an important foundation for one strain of millennial activism in American history. This is perhaps best seen in the ministry of Edwards's successor, Samuel Hopkins. In an address to the Continental Congress in 1776, titled A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans, Hopkins argued that America had an important role to play in the instantiation of the millennium, that American slavery was wrong and that supporting it directly or indirectly (through the rum trade) impeded America's ability to practice disinterested benevolence. Hopkins believed that God had therefore brought the revolutionary war as a discipline for these wrongs, and that reform of the slave trade would produce deliverance from the war and help move the colonies closer to the millennium.

Thereafter, millennialism became wed to abolitionist and reformist ideologies. The New Divinity ministers who followed in Hopkins's footsteps strongly tied social and moral reform with the millennium. Their view of the millennium—disinterested benevolence as the tool for Christianizing society—led to social reforms as diverse as the temperance movement, education reform, anti-poverty campaigns, women's education, and, of course, abolition. Preachers like Lyman Beecher (1775–1863) and Charles G. Finney (1792–1875) saw revivalism and social reform working together to bring in the millennium.

Several radical iterations of millennial thought also emerged at this time. Possibly the most notorious is that of William Miller (1782–1849), a Baptist from the Northeast who employed millennial arithmetic to conclude that Christ would return before the millennium. Millerites, therefore, discarded notions of gradual Christianization, and many sold their possessions in expectation of Christ's imminent return, which Miller finally deduced would occur on October 22, 1844. When Christ failed to return as Miller projected, the movement split into several factions, the most prominent of which reorganized as Seventh-day Adventists. The Millerites actually represent a broad millennial fervor common at this time, a spirit common to groups as diverse as Alexander Campbell's Disciples of Christ, Joseph Smith's Latter-day Saints, Mother Ann Lee's United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming, and John Humphrey Noyes's Oneida Community.

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