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held, be followed by a brief apostasy, a terrible conflict between the forces of good and evil,
and by the simultaneous occurrence of the advent of Christ, the general resurrection, and the
final judgment.
b. The later form.
A great deal of present day Postmillennialism is of an entirely different type,
and concerns itself very little about the teachings of Scripture, except as a historical indication
of what people once believed. The modern man has little patience with the millennial hopes of
the past with their utter dependence on God. He does not believe that the new age will be
ushered in by the preaching of the gospel and the accompanying work of the Holy Spirit; nor
that it will be the result of a cataclysmic change. On the one hand it is believed that evolution
will gradually bring the millennium, and on the other hand, that man himself must usher in the
new age by adopting a constructive policy of world-betterment. Says Walter Rauschenbusch:
“Our chief interest in any millennium is the desire for a social order in which the worth and
freedom of every least human being will be honored and protected; in which the brotherhood
of man will be expressed in the common possession of the economic resources of society; and
in which the spiritual good of humanity will be set high above the private profit interests of all
materialistic groups.... As to the way in which the Christian ideal of society is to come, — we
must shift from catastrophe to development.”[A Theology for the Social Gospel, pp. 224
f.] Shirley Jackson Case asks: “Shall we still look for God to introduce a new order by
catastrophic means or shall we assume the responsibility of bringing about our own
millennium, believing that God is working in us and in our world to will and to work for His good
pleasure?” And he himself gives the answer in the following paragraphs: “The course of history
exhibits one long process of evolving struggle by which humanity as a whole rises constantly
higher in the scale of civilization and attainment, bettering its condition from time to time
through its greater skill and industry. Viewed in the long perspective of the ages, man’s career
has been one of actual ascent. Instead of growing worse, the world is found to be constantly
growing better . . . Since history and science show that betterment is always the result of
achievement, man learns to surmise that evils still unconquered are to be eliminated by
strenuous effort and gradual reform rather than by the catastrophic intervention of Deity....
Disease is to be cured or prevented by the physician’s skill, society’s ills are to be remedied by
education and legislation, and international disasters are to be averted by establishing new
standards and new methods for dealing with the problems involved. In short, the ills of life are
to be cured by a gradual process of remedial treatment rather than by a sudden
annihilation.”[The Millennial Hope, pp. 229,238 f.] These quotations are quite characteristic of a
great deal of present day Postmillennialism, and it is no wonder that the Premillenarians react
against it.