Premillennial Theology, Christian Zionism, and Christian Mission

Abstract

July 2009 S 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 Premillennial Theology, Christian Zionism, and Christian Mission