Happy Postmils Ruin Everything
Postmillennial eschatology is a direct contact-sport eschatology. It’s not flag football; it’s the result of a baby created by rugby and Constantinian religion.
The Breaking of Fine China: The Collapse of Pessimism
One of the joys of speaking loudly on Substack is that I get to see some fine china break in real time. For those of you unfamiliar with my world, that’s a metaphor for views being shattered and given a facelift.
What is that thing broken and replaced? The thing broken is a variation of pessimistic eschatology, and it is being replaced with some happy postmillennialism. Mind you, I am not so much concerned with loyalty to the systematic category as with the heart of the matter.
It pleases me to see folks going through that radical transformation and sending me notes about it. It is amazing to plant seeds and wait a long time to see them bear fruit. God seems to work like that on many occasions. I believe we are reaching a stage of massive theological re-shiftings, and I have alluded to some of these factors before, but the postmil conversion is a fruitful blossoming of many seeds planted long ago. I have been harping on the postmil “C” chord for a really long time, and I think postmil eschatology is beginning to see a resurgence.
This may be the result of ecclesiastical behavior over the past two years. In fact, I will go so far as to say that many of the conservative churches growing numerically have seen the sundry silliness of our society and grown some postmil backbones, which means they are functionally acting like us. Now, lots of other non-postmil flocks have come alongside our efforts, or later decided to peek behind the curtain, but the reality is that the majority of pastors I know who decided to fight the tide named one of their kids or their dogs, B.B. Warfield.
The reason this happens is not that dispensationalists are gnostic pirates, but because theology and ideas matter. A theology that urges the Christian population to shut down or cave in cannot be a theology that says, “Jesus shall reign where’r the sun doth his successive journeys run!” It simply can’t!
As the old line goes, lex orandi, lex credendi; the way we worship eventually forms the way we believe. And the way we believe eventually forms the way we act. Or, as Abraham Kuyper famously observed, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!” A shrinking kingdom instinct simply does not harmonize with that declaration.
Now, yes, there are peoples of all eschatological stripes who act inconsistently with their theologies and opine like disciples of John Murray, but by and large, those who compromise on their political convictions in our day believe and affirm a spiritualized kingdom only, one that was content with, “If the ship is sinking, why polish the brass!”
The Postmillennial Vision: Gospel on the Offensive
Postmillennial eschatology is a direct contact-sport eschatology. It’s not flag football; it’s the result of a baby created by rugby and Constantinian religion. It’s real. It’s fleshly. It’s in your face. And wherever it goes, it carries three main affirmations:
First, it affirms that the Christian faith is rooted in the proto-evangelium (Gen. 3:15). It believes that the first Gospel preached was a Gospel that de-throned disciples of the Serpent and moved forward on the offense against religious and political tyrants (II Cor. 10:5). The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent in tangible ways, which necessitates the confrontation of institutions and systems that do not harmonize with the kingdom of heaven.
This is not an accidental feature of the Gospel; it is part of its original announcement. The first Gospel is also the first declaration of war.
As one hymn puts it:
“He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.”
Second, it affirms the centrality of the Cultural and Great Commissions (Gen. 1:26-28; Matt. 28:18-20). Postmil is not an eschatology of guesses; it’s an eschatology of certainty. We don’t walk around wondering whether the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven; we affirm the kingdom shall come on earth as it is in heaven in history and time. Heck, we even pray the Lord’s Prayer like we mean it!
Christ shall return to receive a glorified bride, not a defeated bride. The great feast is a glorious feast of victorious proclamations (Rev. 7:12). What God commands shall be fulfilled, and there are no nuances to that.
As Jonathan Edwards once wrote, “The kingdom of Christ shall be raised from the greatest depression to the greatest height and glory.” That expectation is not optimism for optimism’s sake. It is confidence in the promises of God.
Sacrifice, Worship, and the Building of a Christian World
Finally, it affirms a bodily sacrificial life before the watching world (Rom. 12:1-2). The certainty of postmil eschatology is not naive about suffering and pain. In fact, it triumphs through our suffering and pain. It sees the sacrifice of the Church as a sacrifice towards something; a symphonic movement reaching its finale.
Postmil doesn’t tolerate political shenanigans because they keep us from forming a Christ-shaped society in our churches, homes, and cultures. It moves through sacrificial acts of worship first on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and then throughout the rest of time (I Cor 10:31).
The movement begins at the Table and extends into the world. Worship is not retreat; it is formation for conquest.
Or as Chesterton put it, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” Postmillennialism assumes the difficult task and presses forward anyway.
Postmillennialism breaks the fine china of the non-threatening spiritual church and calls her to take up the sword in one hand and the shovel in the other (Neh. 4:18). That means we will protect our right to worship the Triune God, and we will work as unto the Lord, and we will strive with all our hearts to ensure that our children and our children’s children seek the good of the city until that day.
Because the Church is not polishing brass on a sinking ship.
She is building an ark.
This is a strong article and it is so strongly detached from the realities on the ground and historical fact-experiences.
Eschatology in fact does NOT matter as much as you make it out to be. The corruption and collapse of American Christianity happened when it was overwhelmingly post mil. And they were a mix of a-mil and post mil Christians during 200 years of horrible chattel slavery of blacks.
Biblical knowledge doesn’t play a major role in people’s essential behavior.
You take any denomination in America, including yours, and you find that it’s full of thieves and robbers and selfish people. They violate the 8-th commandment systematically. Their jobs and many other areas of life are subsidized by taxpayer (stolen) money. They hate their own children in so many ways. They are full of fear of their own personal well being and personal futures. And they are selfish swines. You attend these churches and invite people to your house for food fellowship, and not a single one of them reciprocates. And you find out these people have attended the same church for 25 years and none have invited each other individually families for food fellowship or have been generous with each other. American Protestants are mostly selfish swine, and cowards. And instead of training their kids to be aggressive and take on the world and make a lot of money, a shocking number of them let their kids go join the gay military and waste their precious years becoming stupid.
A lot of my atheist relatives and friends are 1000 times better people than the majority of people in your own denomination. Americans are really the same selfish swine and heartless cowards regardless of what denomination they belong to or what eschatology they espouse.
There are more much more pressing issues than eschatology. The importance of post mil belief is overblown. There are much weightier things of the law that are being ignored or violated and no one dares to discuss those things.
People in post mil churches are as statist and idolatrous and selfish as people in premil or amil churches.
There was an era in American history when Christians built hospitals and universities and many other institutions with church donations and they were so hospitable to each other.
When was the last time any church built a hospital in America ? 120 years ago ?
Correct eschatology is no panacea.
Amen!!