One of the most important and influential religious movements in America today is apocalyptic millenarianism. Christians who believe that the end of the world is coming play an ever increasing role in politics, culture, and society. They are convinced that Jesus will come to avenge evil, punish the wicked, and reward the righteous. They, naturally, will come out ahead while their enemies here on earth will suffer. What drives such beliefs?
- Millenarianism appeals to the marginalized, those whose expectations of power, possessions, or prestige have been disappointed — the relatively deprived who take their deprivation absolutely. Apocalyptic visions appeal to them because these visions let their hostility and resentment find a religiously acceptable release in a God who does the work of judgment for them.
- Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed: Why Christians Believe and Why It Matters (2004).
Christianity began as a millenarian religion. Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was coming soon and Paul's letters reinforced this. Christians were advised not to place emphasis on material goods, not to plan too much for the future, and not even to marry. Why bother with such things when the end of the world as they knew it would arrive in the near future?
Luke Timothy Johnson offers an important reason why this sort of religion was very popular among the poor, distressed, and downtrodden in the Roman Empire at the time. To be blunt, life could be pretty awful for most people and some of the major sources of people's misery were rather obvious: the rich, the powerful, the aristocrats, and the politicians.
In such an atmosphere, millenarian beliefs can attract quite a following. Not only did Christianity preach that the poor and hungry would would be fed and protected, but also that the rich and powerful would be cast down and punished for all eternity. Society's poor were unable to achieve revenge for their suffering during their own lives, but Christianity promised that their persecution would be avenged by God — and in a manner far more violent than they could dream to manage on their own.
Why does Christian millenarianism remain so popular today? We should expect some vestiges of it to remain, of course, because it figures so prominently in the ancient scriptures. There are, however, many Christian groups in which millenarian beliefs play little or no role even while with others they are a dominant theme. Consider, for example, the huge popularity of the Left Behind books, a series all about the end times and how God will judge the wicked while saving the righteous.
