The Erosion of Postmillennialism in American Religious Thought, 1865–1925

Abstract

In 1859 an influential theological quarterly asserted without fear of contradiction that postmillennialism was the “commonly received doctrine” among American Protestants; but by the early twentieth century, it had largely vanished, and Lewis Sperry Chafer, with only slight partisan exaggeration, could claim in 1936 that it was without “living voice”. In part, this change resulted from the defection of conservatives like Chafer to the expanding premillennial ranks, and several historians have told their story in detail. The disappearance of postmillennialism outside of premillennial quarters, however, has received scant attention. There—especially among the moderate to liberal Protestants with whom this article is chiefly concerned—the once dominant eschatology appears not to have suffered outright rejection but to have ebbed away. Although its remants endured as faith in progress, it gradually ceased to be a distinct biblically grounded eschatology.

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