Millennial Madness

Dateline: January 21, 1999

It's still early in the year, so perhaps now would be a good time to get my obligatory "millennium Article" out of the way. This next year is bound to get crazier and crazier - and with one group already having been expelled from Israel for planning to instigate a Jewish-Arab war, I'm not sure if we can handle any increase in craziness. True to the nature of this site's effort to present a skeptical and critical view of matters relating to religion and the paranormal, I'd like to present a critique of the very concept of next year beginning a new millennium. In addition, I'll present an brief explanation of Christian millennialist mania in the hope that the better people understand it, the better chance they'll have in countering it.

What's in a Number?

First, it's worth wondering whether or not January 1, 2000 is actually the beginning of a new millennium in the first place. Although I know that I'm stepping into a veritable hornet's nest by pointing this out, but our calendar begins with the year 1, not year 0 - a year "zero" was left out in the transition from B.C.E to C.E. This means that 1000 years have not past until the 1000th year is over. So, the year 2000 will be the 2000th year, and this year is only the 1999th year. The next millennium then would begin on January 1, 2001.

But even when taking this into account, it is not at all clear that we have found the true beginning of the next millennium. Our present calendar, which is supposed to revolve around the alleged year of Jesus' birth, was calculated by Dionysius Exiguus ("Dennis the Short"), and it does not appear that he was all that accurate. This sixth century monk who tried to calculate how far in the past Jesus' birth was made a mistake of 4 to 6 years - meaning that Jesus was born no later than 4 B.C.E. If the millennium is really supposed to stand relative to Jesus' birth, then the third millennium C.E. could not have begun any later than 1996!

Then there is some question as to when we calculate the beginning of the new year itself. Britain used to celebrate New Year's on December 25th, at least until William the Conqueror changed it to January 1, 1066, in order that it would coincide with the date of his coronation. New Year's was later change in Britain again to March 25th, and then once again to bring it in accord with other countries. The French wanted to celebrate it on Easter Sunday. For the Chinese, New Year's is celebrated at the end of February.

And we can call into question the use of the Christian calendar altogether. For the Chinese, next year will be 4698 and the Jewish calendar will read 5762. Muslims date their calendars from the year Mohammed traveled from Mecca to Medina in 622 C.E., so next year for them will be 1422. The ancient Egyptian calendar will read 6238. For Buddhists, it will be 2548 and on the Mayan calendar it will be 5121. Those following the ancient Babylonian calendar will see it as 2751 and on the old Roman calendar it will read 2755. The calendar we use is arbitrary - we can choose any year to be our "beginning" year, and so all of those calendars are equally valid.

Of course, it is also worth pointing out that every single day is really the beginning of a new millennium.

Millennialism

Christian preoccupation with the millennium might be puzzling to those not familiar with some of its bizarre twists of theology. Christian millennialism focuses upon the "thousand years of peace" which Revelations seems to indicate will be associated with Christ's predicted Second Coming. Through history, Christians have approached this in one of three different ways. They all can be very indicative of the sort of theology which the Christian otherwise holds, so they are worth noting.

The first is postmillennialism (after the millennium), and this is the position that our world is getting better and better through human efforts as the Kingdom of God is gradually realized. Eventually, things will be so good that a thousand years of peace and prosperity will result, after which Christ will finally return and bring in a new heaven and a new earth. Postmillennialism used to be more common in the 19th century, but has given way to premillennialism.

Premillennialism (before the millennium), asserts that our world is just getting worse and worse. Evil is gradually gaining control of the earth and humanity - eventually it will become overwhelming. Christ will then return, bind the devil in hell, and establish a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Thereafter Satan will be let loose for one last chance to tempt humanity, after which he and his followers will be thrown forever into torment. Only then will Christ bring about a new heaven and earth. This is the position which appears to be most common today, especially among fundamentalists.

Finally, there is amillennialism (no millennium), a position which states that good and evil will continue to coexist relatively evenly until Christ's eventual return. Life will get neither significantly better nor significantly worse and there will be no literal millennium.

Millennialism in America

In the 19th Century, American Protestantism could be described as a "religion of civilization" - the nation's material progress, political ascendancy, and divine providence were all wrapped up together. However, faith in the ability of humans to improve their world waned, and many began to conclude that imperfect humans would never be able to create any sort of "perfect order" which might be pleasing to God. The gradual secularization of society only served to underscore this feeling, and so Protestants began to drift towards the idea that only Christ's Second Coming could initiate the actual millennium of peace.

Because of this, we begin to see an increasingly paranoid preoccupation with "signs" of the End Times. Since it is expected that everything will fall completely apart just before Jesus' return, postmillennialist Christians eagerly look for any hints of what the initiator of the end might be. Usually this has been intimately linked with America's political fortunes - an interesting link, but not surprising when you stop to remember that American Protestants have traditionally considered America a "new Israel" and those who populate it as their god's new "chosen people."

Don't miss the other section:

Part Two: Christianity, Fears & Preparations