The Death of Man's Hope: World War 1 and the Amillennial Aftermath - Part 2

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The Death of Man's Hope

World War 1 and the Amillennial Aftermath - Part 2

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The Bible says that God “…has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, emphasis added throughout).

Humans yearn to know and understand God and eternity, no matter how much they are influenced by ego, lust and the Devil’s deception. The “eternity in their hearts” includes a yearning for peace on earth. Ironically, that desire can foster a strong conviction to believe God’s Word—or a stubborn persistence in false doctrine. Both aspects appear in the quest for the biblical Millennium.

Post-millennial proponents

Based on the hope that man can perfect himself and his institutions, post-millennial believers thought the passage in Revelation 20:4, “…and they [the resurrected saints] lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years,” would be fulfilled when Christians spread their gospel around the world, creating a sort of Kingdom of God in the hearts of mankind and bringing about a millennial golden age of peace, after (post) which, Jesus Christ would return to earth.

That post-millennial hope of man came to modern life in 1700 and grew in doctrinal popularity for two centuries of advancement in science, invention, philosophy and exploration, improving the plight of the common person. And war seemed to calm to a relative peace in the last half of the 19th century. Man’s hope for peace seemed certain and could only get better and more peaceful for 1000 years, and then would come the post-millennial return of Christ.

World War 1 ended man’s hope

“Get used to disappointment,” observed the lead character in the movie Princess Bride. Many theological historians have recognized that World War 1 (WW1), beginning in August 1914, in essence, caused the death of man’s post-millennial hope. We call it “man’s hope” because God has a much greater hope for man—the incredible human potential of entering the God family.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) was considered one of the most influential Swiss theologians in the 20th century. He saw firsthand how some Christians in Germany actively considered as agencies of God’s work, Kaiser Wilhelm’s WW1 policies as well as later the Nazi policies of the 1930s.

“Karl Barth contended that such a view failed to distinguish evil from good, the demonic from the divine. In fact, the theological end of the nineteenth century could be dated to August 1914 [the beginning of WW1], when Barth saw on a list of German intellectuals who were endorsing the Kaiser’s policies the names of several of his theological teachers.” (Contemporary Options in Eschatology: A Study of the Millennium, Millard J. Erikson, 1977, p. 61)

Remember that post-millennialists believed that Christ would return to earth after (post) Christianity had, through its human resources brought about 1000 years (millennium) of traditional Christian world peace. However, pre-millennialists clearly understand from Scripture that Christ will return before (pre) the 1000 years of peace that Jesus Himself will orchestrate and lead mankind to experience.

“As of August 1914, attitudes in the United States and most of Christendom were more receptive of postmillennialism than premillennialism. Most people in western culture were satisfied to live in a society where the expectation of the end-time largely meant a time when the human race, led by science and technology, would become perfect. …. The outbreak of World War 1 would shatter that optimism and provide new opportunities for premillennialist prophets. In respect to millennialism, we are still living in the aftershocks of the guns of August.” (Longing for the End: A History of Millennialism in Western Civilization, Frederic J. Baumgartner, Professor of History at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at Blacksburg, 1999, p.194)

Aftermath: disillusion with post-millennial thinking  

World War 1 jolted the then prevailing Christian worldview. Humanity was not living the hope and vision of its own peaceful millennium. Far from it, mankind was more selfishly destructive than they had possibly imagined—and a mere 21 years after the 1918 armistice, World War 2 further confirmed that fact.

Careful students of God’s Word could have told them that. The reason? They would have read the great prophet Isaiah’s inspired words about humanity’s violent, hateful nature manifested in history:

“…Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:6-8).

Likewise a true student of God’s Word would also cite how Jeremiah, another great prophet, summarized human nature: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Yet some do realize human failings. French historian Jean de Bloc described a remarkable statistic about how man’s nature and history is mostly the history of war: “An analysis of the history of mankind shows that from the year 1496 BC to the year 1861 of our era, that is, in a cycle of 3357 years, were but 227 years of peace and 3130 years of war: in other words, were thirteen years of war for every year of peace. Considered thus, the history of the lives of peoples presents a picture of uninterrupted struggle. War, it would appear, is a normal attribute to human life” (The Future of War, Jean de Bloc, translated by R.C. Long, 1903, p. 1sv).

Other historians now consider, one year of peace to 13 years of war, to be optimistic, and that it is more like a 1 to 15 ratio. This makes the statistic for the 20th century even darker.

The rise of amillennial thinking

We must look again at theological history, remembering that “amillennium” means in Latin “no-millennium.” And amillennialism is where Christianity generally drifted after the disappointment of WW1’s terrible blood-letting.

Although the Bible clearly teaches the pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ to rule the earth with His resurrected saints, the usual happened. The world’s traditional Christian teachers either didn’t understand or didn’t believe what the Bible says. So they created a doctrine according to their own biases and thinking.

Part 3 of this series will explain the soundly biblical, pre-millennial teaching of the true Church of God under the apostles and leaders in the early church during the first three centuries A.D. However, one of the most influential Roman church leaders, Augustine of Hippo (354-430), inserted a non-biblical (at many levels) spin in the discussion of the Millennium in the early 400s. His philosophical tactic was to declare that key millennial scriptures were simply metaphors or allegories—in other words, they didn’t mean what they actually say.

If that sounds radical, it is. Humanity generally doesn’t want to believe, much less do what God says. Christ inspired the apostle Paul to make that point clear: “…the carnal [physical] mind is enmity [hostile] against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). Of course, the solution is spiritual repentance and conversion which changes your mind to desire to believe and obey God—but the bulk of mankind has not yet come to true repentance.

The net result was that Augustine gave developing, traditional Christianity a teaching of non-teaching, a doctrine of non-doctrine in a stated millennium (Revelation 20:4) that was no-millennium.

His spin on prophecy reverberates even today. First the Roman church adopted Augustine’s amillennial teaching. Then in the early centuries of the Protestant reformation that began in the 1500s, the post-millennial doctrine gained momentum until 100 years ago in 1914.

“With the decline of postmillennialism during the twentieth century, rather large numbers of former postmillennialists found it necessary to adjust their eschatology… The rise in the popularity of amillennialism can therefore be related to the events precipitating the crisis for postmillennialism”(Contemporary Options in Eschatology: A Study of the Millennium, Millard J. Erikson, 1977, p. 76).

That post-millennial crisis was World War 1—that’s when mankind’s hope died. Since then there have been few post-millennial advocates. Generally, mainstream Christianity has adopted the amillennial doctrine which does not advocate Jesus Christ’s intervention in world events at all—and in that sense, offers no hope for the nations ever to experience true peace.

The good news is that, as we’ll see in Part 3, God has given a strong voice to the true, pre-millennial teaching of Scripture. The true Millennium of the Bible proclaims God’s hope for mankind!

Remember, God’s hope is infinitely better than merely man’s hope. And amazingly God’s hope for us includes also a wonderful hope for each of those 8.5 million soldiers who died in World War 1!

Coming soon: Part 3 - The True Millennium