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Premillennial theology, Christian Zionism, and Christian mission.

Article Excerpt
Since the late 1800s, premillennial theology has been enormously influential in providing motivation for thousands of participants in the missionary movement from the West. In this article I wish to raise several probing, even disquieting, questions about the inner logic and the historical pattern of influence of premillennial theology. I also briefly discuss an alternative theological approach that holds promise for undergirding mission outreach without falling into the many snares and traps that beset the path of dispensational premillennialism.

Though dispensational premillennialism at its extreme edge has displayed unwavering support for Christian Zionism, premillennial theology itself is not monolithic. We are greatly helped in understanding this position and its relation to missionary practice by an article by Michael Pocock entitled "The Influence of Premillennial Eschatology on Evangelical Missionary Theory and Praxis from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present," printed in this issue. I appreciate Pocock's clarity in identifying the essential features of premillennial eschatology, which he lists as insistence on literal interpretation of the Bible, understanding it "in its plain sense" (pp. 130, 131), belief in "a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth" (p. 129), "the distinction between Israel and the church" (p. 130), and a role for Israel/the Jewish people that includes a return to the land (p. 130). (1)

Pocock shows how premillennial eschatology became the dominant eschatology in the United States in the nineteenth century and played an extremely important role in motivating Christians for mission. The premillennial movement "has prepared the majority of Western and many non-Western missionaries since the late nineteenth century" (p. 134, also p. 132). In the nineteenth century this motivation included a strong commitment to holistic mission.

In addition to motivating Christians for mission, this eschatology with its associated hermeneutic played an important role in encouraging Christians to have confidence in the complete authority and inspiration of Scripture. At a time when liberalism was gaining strength in the mainline churches, it encouraged Christians to take Scripture at its face value and, among other things, to look for literal fulfillment of prophecy.

Pocock reminds us that in the nineteenth century there was a wide variety of different kinds of premillennial eschatology, and there were (and still are) significant differences between historical premillennialists and dispensationalist millennialists. Not all premillennialists were dispensationalists, and there was no rigid understanding of dispensations until the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909 popularized an understanding of seven dispensations that became widely accepted by evangelicals all over the world with "an almost canonical status" (p. 131). In recent years we have seen the development of progressive dispensationalism. It is therefore misleading to lump all premillennialists together and to assume that all can be associated with the more extreme expressions that have emerged in recent years.

Having acknowledged the importance of Pocock's discussion, I move on to express major concerns about premillennial eschatology itself by asking a series of questions. The issues raised have very direct consequences for missional practice, especially in the Middle East. In developing this critique, I am acutely aware of the need to avoid suggesting guilt by association. It is all too easy to do this, for example, by suggesting that all premillennialists of the past and present have held basically the same views, or by suggesting that all premillennialists today are in some way associated and identified with the more extreme expressions that are so popular today. In what follows, therefore, I try to recognize the considerable differences among premillennialists, but at the same time I wish to point out the common ground that they all share and some of the consequences that seem to flow from their basic assumptions.

What Is the Starting Point of Premillennial Eschatology?

Having had to wrestle with these issues over many years in the Middle Eastern context, I would suggest that the starting point for premillennial eschatology can be summed up as follows: Although Jesus as the Messiah is the fulfillment of all the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament, the promises and prophecies about the land and about biblical Israel remain the same even after his coming and need to be interpreted literally. Because of the promise to Abraham, therefore, the Jewish people have a special, divine right to the land for all times. And even if the prophecies about a return to the land were fulfilled in a limited way in the return from the exile in Babylon in 538 B.C., they have been fulfilled once again in recent history in the return of Jews to the land since the 1880s. Some would go further and say that they have also been fulfilled in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the capture of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967. These events are signs pointing to the second coming of Christ and to his millennial rule.

What Are the Unintended Negative Consequences of Premillennial Eschatology?

Adoption of a premillennial eschatology gives rise to a number of unintended negative consequences.

Christians tend to feel instinctive sympathy for the Jewish people and instinctive support for Zionism and much less sympathy for the Palestinian...