The New Premillennialism Spreads

Wherever you meet evangelicals in the world today – no matter where – you will encounter various forms and hints of dispensationalism. The study of how that form of biblical teaching rose to such influence has been told now by Daniel Hummel in his important new book, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation.

The first major section of his book is about the rise of “new” premillennialism. Even if the word dispensationalism appears often enough in that first section, make no mistake that Hummel has in view the earlier version of that he calls new premillennialism. In today’s post we look at three singularly important developments that spread the teaching of new premillennialism.

First, Bible interpretation methods of numbers and structures.

He discusses here numerology, something that has never intrigued me and has always bored me. But the numerology patterns were connected to how the Bible was put together, and I can’t emphasize this enough. People in this era were given categories that shaped how they read the Bible (where are we in the Bible’s plot?) and then shaped how they formed their theology. This formed foundations for the Scofield Bible and then the stronger forms of dispensationalism.

In particular, there was a strong and widespread (old and new premill) conviction about a millennium, which they consistently argued went back into the early churches into the 4^th Century and then was disastrously misread when things turned more spiritual and allegorical in Bible reading. Main names are Joseph Seiss and Frederick Grant.

The new millennialists, never just a one-note Johnny, added to the mix a Higher Life piety, interdenominational activism, a strong commitment to revivals, a populist/popular/accessible form of faith, and lots of bottom-up organizing.

Second, revivalism.

In this chapter Hummel concentrates especially on D.L. Moody, who himself was also never a one-note Johnny. His commitments were to personal salvation/conversion, to personal piety and sanctification, to reconciliation of the post-Civil War divided sections (sectional reconciliation), and to serving the poor.

In his spreading out wide Moody’s interdenominationalism led to the spread of new premillennialism. The wider his reach, the wider the spread of new premill beliefs. One of Moody’s gifts was making ideas accessible (and simpler and less nuanced) as well as turning an idea into gathering as many as possible. The man was a master organizer. He was what we could call today a networker. He held revivals that brought Ira B Sankey to the stage with his music and songs.

He believed social agendas were a distraction from gospel mission, as was also modernist theology and Darwinianism.

Moody’s revivalism, copied by many, spread new premillennialism and made a bigger nest for the future sharper profiles of dispensationalism.

Third, the premillennial complex.

Here we enter into a world that was but a memory in my younger days but a memory it was. New premill spread powerfully because of:

Bible conferences: Niagara, Northfield, Winona Lake, Point Chautauqua, Stony Brook and others. These were Bible expositions and then the prophecy conferences formed and then they got more or less combined, and then we had these major conferences that were spreading new premillennialism even more.

“Needham enumerated the group's common convictions: ‘Looking, all of them, for the speedy personal return of the Lord Jesus, makes its members unworldly. Recognizing the blood as the only ground of redemption, makes them distinctly evangelical. Discerning their common standing as sons of God, suppresses all show of denominationalism. And realizing their call out from the world, to walk in Christ and separation, hinders them from following and of the carnal ways of modern conventicles, or resorting to any worldly devices for capturing the masses.’” This by Mrs. George Needham, wife of a well-known writer about the conferences.

There you have the spirit of the times for this growing group of Protestants: unworldly, evangelical, interdenominational. I’d add populist.

Bible institutes: this was the era of forming Bible institutes (which became colleges and today has the fashionable, inaccurate name of university). AB Simpson and what became Nyack; Moody and RA Torrey what became Moody Bible Institute

These schools were designed to teach Bible, a Higher Life, steady and effective calls and preparation for worldwide missions, and they were fired up by new premillennialism.

Mission agency: of course, with the rise of trained missionary agents interdenominational missionary organizations formed and they, too, were shaped by all these same themes: Higher Life, Bible study, and new premillennialism.