Last month, evangelicalism lost a prominent figure: Hal Lindsey, author of The Late, Great Planet Earth.
Born in Houston, Lindsey graduated from the University of Houston and Dallas Theological Seminary, which is a hotbed of dispensationalism–the notion that all human history can be divided into different ages or dispensations.
The upshot of dispensationalism, which is based on interpretations of the prophetic passages in the Bible, is that we are nearing the end of time; Jesus will return at any moment, collect the faithful and unleash terrible judgment against those “left behind.”
In 1970, Zondervan published Lindsey’s ruminations about premillennialism as “The Late, Great Planet Earth.” It went on to become the bestselling nonfiction book of the decade.
Over the centuries, Christians have tried to understand these prophetic writings, especially the Book of Revelation, with its filigreed imagery of multi-headed dragons, vials of judgment, the antichrist and the numeral 666. A key point of contention is whether Jesus will return to earth before or after the millennium, the one thousand years of righteousness predicted in Revelation 20.
Will Jesus return after the millennium, after this righteous resurgence? Or will Jesus return before the millennium (hence “premillennialism”)?
All this might be dismissed as theological nitpicking, the equivalent of counting the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. But evangelical understandings of this distinction between premillennialism and postmillennialism have had a profound effect on American evangelicalism—and, by extension, on American history.
During the Second Great Awakening, a series of revivals in the early decades of the nineteenth century, evangelicals, by and large, were postmillennialists. That is, they believed that Jesus would return after the millennium. The corollary was that believers needed to be active in social reform, making the world a better place.
Postmillennialism animated a range of social reform efforts, generally directed toward those on the margins of society, those Jesus called “the least of these.” These efforts included prison reform, women’s equality, public education, peace crusades and (in the North) the abolition of slavery.
Charles Grandison Finney, undoubtedly the most influential evangelical of the nineteenth century, asserted that benevolence (by which he meant actions on behalf of the poor) was essential to Christianity. He also argued against free-market capitalism and suggested that a Christian businessman was an oxymoron.
By the latter decades of the nineteenth century, however, postmillennial optimism was wearing thin. Evangelicals surveyed the casualties on Civil War battlefields or the labor unrest in the tenements of lower Manhattan with despair. Despite their efforts at social amelioration, the kingdom of God seemed more remote than ever.
Enter John Nelson Darby. The British theologian persuaded American evangelicals that they had been interpreting the Bible all wrong. Jesus would not return after the millennium, he asserted. Jesus would return before the millennium—in other words, at any moment.
As American evangelicals adopted dispensational premillennialism, their attitudes toward society changed dramatically.
If Jesus were to return any minute, why bother making the world a better place? While liberal Protestants cooperated with Progressives in a movement called the Social Gospel, premillennialists shifted their attention away from social reform to emphasize individual regeneration.
Lindsey’s “Late, Great Planet Earth” was a culmination of those sentiments. The book juxtaposed current events—the formation of the state of Israel in 1948 or the 1967 Six-Day War—with the prophetic passages in the book of Daniel or the book of Revelation.
Speculating on the identity of the antichrist became a cottage industry, not to mention fodder for endless late-night conversations in the dorm rooms of evangelical colleges.
Premillennialism was popular throughout the 1970s (though I expect it was less prevalent among Southern evangelicals than those in the North—a topic for a separate conversation). Another indicator of its prevalence was the popularity of the 1972 film A Thief in the Night, which portrayed life on Earth during the Tribulation after the faithful had been transported to heaven in the Rapture.
Time magazine called the film a “church basement classic.”
Here, I must disclose that “A Thief in the Night” was directed by my Sunday school teacher, Donald Thompson, and based on my father’s Sunday evening sermons at Westchester Evangelical Free Church in Des Moines, Iowa. My father played the “good” preacher in the film. (Tim LaHaye has said that his “Left Behind” series of books and films was inspired by “A Thief in the Night.”)
Until the rise of the Religious Right in the late 1970s, evangelicals were overwhelmingly premillennialists. They cared little about social reform or even politics. For most of the twentieth century, Premillennialism was responsible for evangelical political apathy and some colossally bad architecture.
If Jesus is returning soon, why waste resources on fancy buildings? Cinder block will do just fine.
Late in the 1970s, after Jerry Falwell and other leaders of the Religious Right mobilized politically in defense of racial segregation at their institutions, including Bob Jones University, they gradually abandoned premillennialism (although few were explicit about it).
With their political successes, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, they once again started to envision reforms to society—but with one crucial, tragic difference.
Whereas evangelicals of an earlier era overwhelmingly directed their efforts toward those on the margins of society—women, the less fortunate, people of color—white evangelicals, since the rise of the Religious Right in the late 1970s, have turned away from helping “the least of these” and embraced an anti-immigrant, right-wing agenda that exalts capitalism and cares little for those on the margins.
Lindsey’s premillennialism and “A Thief in the Night” represent the culmination of a century of evangelical social indifference. While I don’t mourn the death of premillennialism, that era has sadly given way to the error of the Religious Right: political activism largely indifferent to the teachings of Jesus.
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An Episcopal priest, Balmer is John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth College and the author of more than a dozen books, with commentaries appearing in newspapers across the country. He is a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
